My brain squirrels are more than a little off track. To be fair to them, they aren't exactly trained trick squirrels. More like skittish things that keep burying nuts all over and then can't find them again and where was I going through this forest, anyway?
My focus is shot. I mean, I'm routinely doing three or four things at the same time these days. One of them might be holding a kitten in one hand while I type with the other... I don't have much choice. Yes, yes, I can put the kitten down, but I'm not a monster. However, all of the other things have to be done. I have a bit of help with the house. Most of it falls to me, however. Just the way life and carrying capacity of this household is right now. That, and the Day Job and the second job. I am not pretending that the writing/graphic design/art/marketing is a full-on job, not just something I dabble in. I'm not giving it up, either. Even if I wanted to, I am in this too deep. I have obligations and responsibilities.
I also enjoy most parts of it. I have plans for doing more of those, less of the unpleasant bits. However. With any job, there are downsides. Not having enough time is a serious downside, but it won't be for decades, if ever, that I can afford to cut back on the work. I've lived a life that recked not with retirement. I did at least set up the job for my declining years? Well, that went dark. Sorry!
I'm not unhappy about it. I want to be independent. Heh - if I ever get to the point where I have an empty nest! The Little Man is doing well with the welding I think, but we shall see what the next year brings.
I haven't got easy breezy cover squirrels.
More like a rag-tag squirrel horde rampaging through my brain, and no one taught them Rule #1: Pillage, then burn!
Or possibly large, goofy squirrels who can't evade the inevitable fast enough, no matter how I try to arm them with coping skills.
This thing. I don't even know. I suppose it's not like loading up on actual equipment - your brain isn't weighed down by all the tools you keep tossing in there, hoping one will finally help dig you out of this mess. Plus, a tool that might have worked a month ago, or in a different house, a different job, a different season may suddenly stop working and you have to toss it aside and pick up another and keep whacking away at the stuck mental gears until the percussive maintenance works. Metaphorically. Don't actually hit yourself in the head, please. Just... find ideas for things that can help with the scattered focus, the splintered attention span, and the driving need to produce successful work.
Then again, the idea of a squirrel as a lean-mean-fighting-machine is more than a little silly. Maybe I'm just meant to bury all these nuts of ideas and someday there will be a sylvan landscape in my wake.
All images rendered using MidJourney, and most of them using the prompt "Post-apocalyptic Squirrel Horde" and you might also add in the modifier --niji 5 for some fun cartoony results.