I couldn’t sit still and edit and lay out articles at the kitchen table all day, so I had to go out and cut our acre of grass on my riding mower to calm me down. I’m restless that way. It’s not the grass that’s important to me; it’s the sense of mental order cutting the grass gives me. It used to be that prior to deadline I’d reorganize all the office furniture. Employees thought it was a bit peculiar. But I knew that if I rearranged all the office furniture I’d somehow get the mental order I needed so I could relax and do deadline. Weird huh? Most people think I’m sane, but it’s possible I have a screw loose. I find that a sense of order in my life frees up my mind. I cannot think well among disarray. I also don’t like crowds, or giving talks in front of more than a few people. In fact, in the few times I have had to give a talk in front of more than a handful of people, my mind just about short circuited and my body did it’s version of hyperventilation. It’s probably all connected somehow. Now that the grass is cut after two hours of riding my mower, I can sit down and proceed with deadline. The hens laid 10 eggs today. There are only 13 hens so they are in a groove, which, of course, adds to my sense of order that things are going well around here. One egg was a little tiny thing, which happens rarely. Our chickens typically lay AA eggs. I’m going to enlarge their enclosed yard shortly after deadline. They are free-range chickens when we don’t have a garden, and it doesn’t seem fair to coop them up in a small yard for the growing season. What a softy I am, in addition to having a screw loose. The issue looks strong, has the right “mix,” but there’s still a lot left to do by Thursday the 19th. Lenie, my superhuman wife, goes into overdrive during this deadline week. She does the final detailed layout of the entire magazine, right down to filling in left-over white spaces with small ads or articles so we don’t have any “holes’ in the issue. She also does final read-thrus of the articles. It’s 68 degrees today. The ocean is probably flat, although I can’t tell due to the cloud cover between my sunny deck and the ocean a mile or so away. But I know there are fish down there.