Tommy Duncan's post the other day, blogging around, on sticksoffire about being so tired of all the negative government news that he decided to check out some other local blogs including this one for a pick-him-up has been nagging at me. I want a pick-me-up, too.

Every time I sit down to write something for sticks or for this blog that has some substance to it I end up feeling the same overwhelming ennui I feel when I think about cleaning my garage, which is piled to the ceiling with crap.

I have to start somewhere, but where?

Do I tackle the family photos or the kids old school papers? What about all the fabric I have stashed away and the antique linens?

To clear out enough room for the car, I have to look at every item; weigh its value; decide if I want to keep it. If I do, then I have to figure out where to put it and in what.

If I don't want it, I have to figure out what to do with it. A garage sale? Great idea except that I'd have to clean the garage anyway - and get up early besides.

Giving it to Goodwill or The Spring or the Salvation Army or any of the other worthy charities in the Bay area means as much work as a garage sale.

So what do I do?

The ennui hits and I go back in the house and try to forget about the garage.

A similar existential angst strikes when I read the papers and watch the news on television in the morning.

I see the Florida Department of Children and Families has, again, lost a kid.

Writing about this latest tragedy would be like rolling a homeless person.

The City of Tampa, Hillsborough County, the City of St. Petersburg and Pinellas County are all laying folks off because of lost revenue from the tax cuts the Florida Legislature recently approved.

I can't write dispassionately about lay-offs given I and some of my very good friends are the recent victims of one at The Tampa Tribune.

The Environmental Protection Commission faces brutal cutbacks and one of its employees, Jadell Kerr, was suspended because she dared to speak out on sticks of fire about the elimination of the wetlands protection program.

So much for the First Amendment.

Former EPC head Roger Stewart is understandably having the vapors over what's going on.

Then there's Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, the 2008 Presidential election, Brian Blair's lake, the crappy housing market and on and on and on.

It's enough to make me want to go back to bed.

Or write something completely and utterly silly and useless, like What I Learned Today, which was that cats can get so constipated that they throw up feces (see the previous post).

Or the new cushions for the couch and chairs from hell are going to cost almost as much as the couch and chairs from hell cost new.

Or that the four for $10 Publix Coke coupon in Wednesday's newspaper insert wasn't good for the particular flavor and variety of Coke products I had piled in my basket.

Given I'm now out of work and watching every penny, the cat, the Coke and the cushions rank right up there in the depressing department.