Doctor my eyes.

I'm told that there's some sort of crisis in the housing market. You'd never believe it if you happened to be sitting as I am now--looking out one of my upstairs' windows, directly into a big-ass picture window situated over what will somebody be my neighbor's bathtub.

They are building a monster house on the lot directly behind my place, and it's as big as a Safeway store.

When I moved here in January, I had the movers place my desk directly in front of the window. The cat can sit on the desk and dream of the birds, and I can take advantage of the view and the morning sun.

As you might expect, it's distracting as hell.

But not distracting in a good sort of way, like it might be if I were looking out the window and daydreaming up the plot of my next big novel (you probably missed my first, small novel). This distraction wears dew rags, flannel shirts, and steel-toed boots. I can't get any writing done, because I'm too busy watching today's episode of Knots Landing: The Construction.

There are burly workers all over my backyard, y'all.

I doubt you would hear me complaining if the construction crew in question looked like the guy in the old Diet Coke ad, or--I don't know--your typical firefighters, say. If they looked more like Bob the Builder--even that might be an improvement.

They certainly aren't eye candy, but they are entertaining. They bicker like old ladies. They loll about on one side of the house while the supervisor is on the other. They make unnecessary trips, carrying practically nothing and then turn around and make the same trip all over again. They do dangerous, careless things that make me stand up and say "Watch it!"

Yesterday, one didn't show up for work, and I found myself wondering what had happened to him.

I watch them and I think about stories of pushed-back completion dates and slightly-less-than-perfect construction standards, and I say to myself, "Well, no wonder." And then I stop to consider the fact that they will--in spite of themselves--eventually finish the job. What am I supposed to do for entertainment, then?

But then I remember that gigantic picture window over the bathtub.

Today's post was written while listening to Jackson Browne's 1977 album Running on Empty.

Image, Square America.