As I tap out these words on my old laptop, I'm balancing atop a rickety wooden barstool pulled up to my kitchen counter, because I don't have a desk or table. The knees of my long legs are pressed uncomfortably against the cabinets at a spread far wider than my shoulders, and my elbows are held upwards and outwards as I try to figure out how best to type. Sitting here alone, in a big empty house without any furniture, television, or Internet, well... ergonomics is really the last thing on my mind. I'm trying to trip across a topic, by design or by accident, that will somehow unlock my highly impeded creative flow so I can write an article. Locksley, my faithful hound, is keeping me company, but he cocks his head to one side as I shuffle my buttocks precariously on the stool, then --assuming I'm about to fall-- takes a step back. He's well trained.

I take advantage of my proximity to the sink to wash a few dishes left over from supper. Manual labour helps the mind roam, they say. I watch the steam roll up against the window panes, looking for patterns to trigger an idea, a concept, just like watching clouds high in the sky swirl into the vague shapes of animals or pirate ships or sweet things. Instead, I see grimy fingerprints left over, no doubt, from the teenagers of the former tenant. What could they have been doing at the kitchen window? Perhaps tapping on it, letting their mother know to pick up some McDonald's? Yes, I fear that's it.

Sitting at the laptop again. The fingers of one hand wrestle with the fingers of the other, struggling to break free with a prize sentence. I notice another cut. I seem to have a lot of them lately. And that little hangnail, I didn't notice that before. I run upstairs to get some nail clippers. I can't find them. Did I bring them these 8000 km, or did the wife snag them before I left, and I didn't notice? I grab the Leatherman instead, take out the serrated knife, and perform a little surgery on my digits. But the blades are a little stiff, so I go looking for some 3-in-1 oil to lube it up. I spend a half-hour shuffling through the broken down popcorn makers and plastic doodads left behind on the utility shelves by the former tenant. I get a hankering for popcorn, but I don't have any. I spend the next half-hour staring at the innards of my fridge and cupboard trying to decide what I'm hungry for, and then decide that I'm not really hungry, but thirsty, so I just have a glass of milk.

As I walk across the dining room floor, draining the glass, I hear echoes. They say singing can get the blood pumping. Right now, the place is like one big shower, making my badly-tuned voice sound palatable, so I decide to break into song. But the only thing that comes to mind right now is the perennial drinking song, Don McLean's "American Pie", so I sing (after making sure the windows are shut), "So bye, bye, Miss American Pie... Drove my Chevy to the levy, but the levy was dry." The dog howls in appreciation. Then I stop, wondering what a levy is. I don't have the Net, and no dictionary at hand. I pause for a full half-hour, trying to figure out what a levy is. I only know the meaning which approximates a fee or tax. Surely McLean is writing about something different. A dam or dike, perhaps? Perhaps it holds the key to writing something with meaning? A creative metaphor of some type? That McLean is a smart fella. Then I remember the Mac OS X built-in dictionary. Nope, no levy there. Deciding then that I'm spelling it wrong and that it's probably worth no more mental effort, I sit down at the laptop again and continue to type this random smattering of words.

Ah, the old trick... open up a book and read a sentence at random, then use it to launch into something else! The trick is to read only the first sentence, and no other. I only have one book handy, a collection of Sherlock Holmes. Here goes.... "'Pooh! All that is clear enough,' said Holmes, impatiently." I type the sentence in, then stare at it awhile. Then I start to giggle like a schoolboy who's heard an older kid tell a potty joke he can't quite understand, but who's sure is raucously funny.

Nope, that didn't work.

I watch the dog sniff a big purple monstrosity, then back away. It's one of the other items bequeathed to me with the house, a large spiny "exercise ball". I'm told people are supposed to lie on top of it, somehow, and that they use it to straighten their spines and meditate. Hmmm. Meditation often equals creativity. I try lying forward on it, but my weight seems to be a little much for it, so it squashes a bit and pokes its little rubber nodules into my privates, a rather unpleasant (if not unwholesome) experience. Or is one supposed to lie backwards? I try lying on it backwards, but it shifts out from under me, sending me rolling into an aluminum painting ladder, which topples on me and frightens poor Locksley.

Ah, another cut. I seem to be getting a lot of those lately. Must stop the blood before it gets on the laptop.

At this point, my olfactory nerves tell me that the dog needs to go out, and I figure a fresh whiff of oxygen can charge the neurons. He dances around in circles when he sees me slip on my sandals, and hops on his two hind legs as I attach his leash, his eyes bright and his lips pulled back in a wide toothy grin. We walk out through my little overgrown garden (note to self: buy pruners and borrow some shears), and we head for the paths behind the house. He's as joyful as can be, and it becomes a little infectious. He doesn't need to write to be happy, so why should I?