There was always one – sometimes, two – all night long bouts of sweeping and mopping all the floors, putting every article of clothing and linen through both machines, then for some meticulous sorting, folding, organizing and re-hanging neatly:  these were important nights before my son was born.

Through those midnight hours, my territorial impulses to award the new apartment-space, unarguably, MONTANA LOCKE SPACE snared a good portion of time; more importantly, hard work at the massive Office Desk Unit – a perfect metaphor, it was, of the Writer’s colossal Ego – setup in the Main Living Room was relentless.  Writing had never been as purely concentrated an expression – more, numerous expressions – pulling content from all facets of my life; nor had it ever violently formed a haunting-like presence of what played-out from imagination as if it were from memory.

This was my time alone:  a period of cultivation and training.     

It is still happening:  staying awake for 50 (at the worst, 70) hours, tackling as much fallen-behind, built up, overflowing HONEY-DO! lists, with no comfort of finishing my mystery solving responsibilities including folding socks; a never-diminishing, pell-mell-stacked array of dishes faithfully wait – my midnight-hour evenings alternating in purpose and significance, never sure if that sense of accomplishment will be granted with the dawn.

As far as the writing goes… well… my General’s Commanding Office Unit met with a tragic, 3:00am sledgehammer execution before getting on a plane to Ohio.  Most of our cherished belongings, along with the work station, needed to go.  The casual visitor should have no difficulty in knowing most of the good n’ dangerous belongings are hibernating, gone, or displayed/dwelling in another room. 

An exciting outcome from all the change:  I now have a small place in the home designated for work – Vincent’s room!  My writing area may not be as large, not as stocked with dangerous and borderline illicit recreational material, not even host to a magnetic-pull or beckoning:  The main nerve center of operations within my home is a consistently mobile, gibbering lunatic-happy baby… making space for this collapsible picnic table/desk in his room for the Old Man is going to grind a few good stories out from him.

Inside this Jack-O-Lantern orange walled space (still adorning my wife’s handcrafted circus animal stickers I refuse to peel-off) will, without question, change as these Notes and other works are composed within; there will not be a change of Rank or Title initially awarded to the room.   

It will remain, The Baby Room.