I'm sitting here staring at the computer, feeling tired and out of sorts. I'm Monday morning meandering. I'll head into work lateish, so I can run an errand first, but as Dave Freer talks about on the Mad Genius Club today, my well is dry. Not just on the fiction level, but the making words level. I'd intended to write some this weekend, and instead spent it busy as a beaver in flood time, sleeping, and cleaning house while cooking. With some photography in there to at least make some sort of creative input. But mostly I was in recovery mode. I didn't even do daily sketches.
I'm not complaining. As recoveries go, it could have been much, much worse. Some of the mental bleed from processing the whole thing is probably why I spent yesterday (part of anyway) tearing apart the pantry and re-organizing it. Because making order from chaos felt good. It was a messy spot, but not so much that we could have gone on as it's been that way for at least a month.
And now I'm sitting here staring at my to-file stack thinking I really ought to tackle that. I have an hour...
Last night, because he knows me so well, the First Reader called me out on the porch to see 'something especially ugly.' After remembering where I'd left my camera, I went out and was not disappointed. I knew he'd meant a bug, but thought from the phrasing it was a spider. No, it was the living avatar of the Hungry Hungry Caterpillar (a favorite of my kids when they were little), a Polyphemous Moth caterpillar.
Caterpillar spiracles, because caterpillars inhale differently.
Big beautiful body, little head with tiny eyes.
Polyphemus caterpillar - about 4 inches long.