A million little things have been keeping me from my work this week. Today it was the solar system. I had to screw it to the ceiling and the sun kept falling on my head.

AJ owns more solar system mobiles than anyone I know. There's the one we made, cutting the planets out of the centers of paper plates, painting them with poster paint and stringing them with yarn to a deconstructed coat hanger. Then there's the one his uncle bought him at NASA with actual photos of the planets. That one's still hanging over his desk. There's the glow-in-the-dark 3-D version that we bought at a now defunct science museum but which refused to stay attached to the ceiling and is used instead for games of Planet Bowling. There's another one bought by his grandparents that is similar to the NASA mobile. That one never even got hung. AJ uses it for The Game Where the Planets Talk to Each Other. Then there's the one that until this morning hung over AJ's bed. It, too, is pretty much like the NASA one, except that AJ put it together himself.

The over-the-bed mobile has been replaced by a fancier model, a birthday present from Ben Franklin Boy. This one has batteries. At the click of a button on the remote, the sun lights up and the planets spin around it on two separate tracks. One slower than the other. It is fairly spectacular. It was also a pain in the bloody ass to install. Of course, that may have more to do with technical skills of the installer. But the sun is now shining in AJ's sky.

Also detracting from my work is my taxes -- still not done. No, I don't want to talk about it. I hope they'll be done by Monday. Taxes suck.

And ironically, my work is detracting from my work. That is, I'm trying to sell a short piece of writing that is not my dissertation. I'm scared as hell. But I need to start sometime and also I'm a little obsessed. What else is new.

This afternoon, though, I will be further distracted by The Girl Next Door and her brother who are coming home with AJ after school while their mother works. We are planning to watch movies, specifically, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. With popcorn. And possibly jellybeans. Who can finish their taxes when there are Oompa Loompas?

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