How is everyone doing?

I’ve written before about what I do when I can’t edit (my own work or anyone else’s) because of loss or trauma of some kind. Normally, I’d go to a movie. But until all this is over, well. If Cineplex collapses, I honestly don’t know. But gawd, I need to go to a movie. Of course like everyone else, we’re watching everything there is on TV and Netflix and HBO and whatever the hell else we ordered when the theatres shut down.

Then I remembered that jigsaw puzzles ground me and always have. I’ve had trouble reading for pleasure, so I went online to see about a jigsaw puzzle. I had a couple, but once I do them, I donate them. Do you think I could find a puzzle anywhere for FEWER THAN FIFTY CLAMS? What in the actual what… ?

Soooo many compelling reasons to stop supporting certain online merchants who know damn well that we all want puzzles right now so that they can charge whatever the hell they want. The mercenary tendencies and priorities of some of these places are glaringly on view right now in ways that I could see earlier, but not to this inhuman extent.

So off to eBay went this gal. Of course, eBay has its own set of problems including being the least user-friendly site on TEH ENTIRE INTARWEBS. I narrowed my search to include only those puzzle sellers who were based in Canada (like I’m going to get delivery of a puzzle from Korea any time this millennium). I found a very nice person in Saskatchewan who had this puzzle up with a $40 price tag. They had a Make an Offer button so I said, “eighteen clams.” They said, “twenty-five.” I said, “twenty-three.”

SOLD! It arrived in a week, and they refunded me the shipping costs as they had advertised that it was unopened and had sent me an open one by mistake. I said, “Look, I don’t care if eighteen pieces are missing and your cat barfed on it. JUST GIVE ME A PUZZLE.”

Here ‘tis.

Did it occur to me that A] This would be the hardest fricking puzzle I had ever done in my life, or B] I’d be doing it on my own without my family around me to help as puzzles aren’t really Stu’s thing, or C] That every freaking cell in Alcatraz looks exactly like every other freaking cell in Alcatraz? No. None of that occurred to me.

But most interestingly, it didn’t occur to me that I was doing a puzzle OF THE INSIDE OF A PRISON WHILE THE WORLD IS UNDER QUARANTINE.

There is writing to be done about this, although I have no clue what form it may take one day.

~~

I have no editing advice today. I have no advice about anything right now. Except this: if you can’t edit or write, or it makes you too tired, see if you can find something else you enjoy but never have the time to do. Judging by the difficulty of this puzzle, I’ll still be working on it till 2022 or until the end of civilization: whichever comes first.