Don't read if you have arachnophobia

The Daily Thingy

(PS ... that's "prescriptum" which isn't a thing, but I made it up for this PSA: if you have arachnophobia, you may want to skip this one)

"gooooood morning ... Joseph"

Looonnng

hairy

spindly legs ...

Slowly

sllllooooowly

Creep down from above

clickclickclickclick

Giant clicking feet tapping on the walls as the forward legs reach toward me

Big puffy feelers sticking out and twitching

GIANT hairy body bobs up and down on the wall for a moment,

twitches,

and is then still.

My eyes go wide

for a moment.

"uh ... hey Jeff."

I uneasily lean to the left

Jeff is...

A Giant House Spider

Really he's like an inch and a half stretched out leg to leg ... maybe if he really stretches he could hit 2.

So,

I've seen much bigger "Giant House Spiders"

And I know he's a he because of the big ole puffy feelers on the front.

He's in here lookin for a mate.

Which ...

I'm trying not to think about, because it probably means there's a Ms. Giant House Spider floating around in the office (and... they biiiiger).

In any case, they are harmless.

To me anyway.

They eat other spiders and bugs so I'm all for them being around (along with the 5 or so other various typical species we have this time of year, including the HUGE BULBOUS orb spiders in the yard)

Jeff is my new office friend today.

But,

He did make me a little uneasy yesterday, just kinda ... hanging out ... right over my head ... as I was working.

RIGHT

OVER

MY

HEAD

When I noticed him I just kinda ...

Sat here.

Looking.

Waiting for him to leap out and EAT MY FACE.

I tried tapping the ceiling and blowing in his general direction to get him to move on ... I thought about picking him up with a cup+paper trick.

But in my minds eye that scenario resulted in him flying down the back of my shirt.

So

I just asked him politely to NOT dive-bomb me while I worked.

And then got back to writing ...

Because there's no time to waste.

I'm working on a book. It's "R3 for Email" which is a strategic extension of R3 by

Nic Peterson

(he invited me to write a version of it for email).

Unsurprisingly,

I'm finding the process of writing a book to be ...

Extensive.

Every section I write seems to produce two more sections that need detailing and I think my first version is gonna be a monster that needs to be trimmed down a lot.

In order to keep the ball rolling I've been using the Man Bites Dog Tuesday publication as a forcing function -- I gotta publish an article AND I gotta write a book ... so might as well do pieces of version 1 as articles on MBD.

Here's what I was finishing up beneath JEFF THE GIANT HOUSE SPIDER:

R3 for Email - S1 Step 3: The Inevitable Customer

Lemme know if you find that particular subject matter interesting ...

Let's chat

I promise I'll leave Jeff out of it.