I have discussed this before, the issue of being timely with my writing, and I still have a way to go before I will be happy with my progress. Focus. The other day I began to write and it went something like this:

Good morning. Mr. Robin and his stupid friends pulled me from my sleep at around 5:15 this morning and wouldn't let me get back to the business at hand.

For the past week it has been the same: Wake at five to the songs of Mr. Robin and friends, coming from the neighbor's yard; lie in bed for at least half an hour hoping not to disturb wife while dreaming of ways to make Mr. Robin get lost; throw in the odd random thought of how nice it would be to bum a smoke from Mr. Robin because I'd really like to have one and that in fact, under different circumstances, Mr. Robin's song would actually be pleasing to listen to; fall back into a fitful light sleep filled with bizarre dreams for another hour.

I skipped most of the process this morning and have instead been sitting in front of the computer since 5:30 plodding about the internet in search of election campaign issues, visiting candidate sites for news (of which there is little, which brings me back to the whole issue of the ineptness of candidates in their use of the internet as a valuable tool) and further getting absorbed into the great black hole of the world wide web. A slippery slope indeed.

What followed this was an attempt to deal with too many issues at once: namely, an idiots guide to some of the more basic problems I have with all the Parties vying for leadership of the country, from their platforms to the personalities of the candidates and party leaders. Having bitten off this huge thesis I attempted too quickly to chew it in to those little, smooth, manageable pieces that I mention at the top of the page in my site description/explanation. My subject matter was not suitable for the amount of space I intended to fill (a few paragraphs, not a tome), nor did it any longer match my original thesis (I actually started reading party platforms which cleared up a few misperceptions). So, I walked away from it to think and never really got beyond merely thinking about it.

Having said that, I did arrive at a solution to my problem. Beginning tomorrow, I will present the first part of a series looking at the parties, the issues and the personalities involved in the coming elections.   posted by jmd ¶ Thursday, June 10, 2004