F block

There's a song I like to sing when I'm having a bad day. It mentions chain saws and ripping people's heads off and fat lips and blood stains. And that's how I'm feeling right now for no particular reason other than I'm tired and my house is a mess and my kids are noisy and my husband farts too much and I haven't gotten any substantial writing done in weeks. Boo hoo -- right?

I have this block of wood that I salvaged from the scrap pile when Jerod -- my bless-ed husband -- framed in our basement in Pullman. It's about the size of a brick, and I picked it up one night after Jerod and I had a knock-down-drag-out over something really important like a wad of my hair in the bathtub or his tapered Levis that made him look like a 50-year-old Bible salesman. I wanted a bat, but all I could find was a block of wood.

I kicked it across the garage a couple of times. I beat it with a hammer, and I kicked it some more. I needed a comeback to whatever zinger sent me out to the garage in the first place, but the more the block reminded me of Jerod's square-shaped head the angrier I got and the farther I got from orchestrating anything better than "You suck, and I hate you." One word came to mind -- "the mother of all swear words, the F-dash-dash-dash word." But I couldn't scream that at the top of my lungs, because -- according to Jerod -- all of the neighbors were outside on their porches hanging on my every word.

I picked up my block of wood and slammed it -- SMACK -- on Jerod's workbench. I grabbed a fat-tip Sharpie from the toolbox and -- waving it briefly under my nose and inhaling the marker's soothing vapor -- I inscribed that left-over chunk of 2x4 with my favorite profanity over and over again until every square inch bore the mark of my anger. Then, feeling much better, I left my f*** block in Jerod's car and went to bed.

LESSON LEARNED: Writing is cathartic. Even if it's one word. Write it -- you'll feel better.