Last night I decided to step away from the computer to do something different: find the couch in the living room.

I'm a piler. Any flat surface will soon get covered with all kinds of crapola as soon as I clear it off. When guests are due to arrive, I grab everything and shove it into a plastic bag, knowing I'll find it tucked in another room three months from now, after all of my magazine subscriptions had expired and the power had been turned off.

Not like that happens too often.

So I tried to actually sort some of the stuff out. It was strange. I actually felt like I had things under control when I took take things to their proper storage place. That's when I came across three more piles of stuff that needed to be cleared out in order to get to the filing cabinet. Sigh.

Then I opened the shiny new idea box, mistaking it for my receipt holder. Didn't realize how much power that cute little box could hold; it totally blew me away.

While a bunch of ideas burst forth, one clamped its little hands around my neck and screamed at me for the rest of the night, even disturbing my quality before-bed reading time.

"You're not ready yet, get back in the box," I said.

"No!" She stomped her feet on the bedside table. "You've been ignoring me forever. I refuse to let that continue."

I closed the book I was trying to read, The Pact by Jennifer Sturman, and turned off the light.

"I'm still here," she said.

"I know," I replied, then put my earplugs in.

"That's so not fair!" she wailed.

Then I had crazy dreams, which forced me to write four pages before leaving for my client's office.