Piece of Mind: Providing Incentives

I am getting continual inquiries as to why I "stopped writing" my column. By now, most of you know it wasn't by choice. I basically priced myself out of the local market, and now have, as the sole outlet for Piece of Mind, this blog. So I tell everyone who inquires to check here for my weekly column.

Big lie. I can't seem, for the life of me, to post a new column on here on a weekly basis. I'm not sure why. The only reason I can think of is that I was paid (though not much) to write a weekly column before, and now I'm not. So SEND MONEY! (No -- chust choking -- to use some local, Dutch vernacular.) I would like to think I'm not financially motivated. And really, if I were, and if all it required for me to be so was the pittance I was motivated by when I wrote for the paper... well, that makes me a cheap -- um -- date. And among all the things I've aspired to be, that is not one of them.

But I do find that I need just a little sumpin-sumpin to keep me on task with many things. Like getting dressed in the morning. To tell you I'm not sitting here right now in my jammies with coffee breath and an unkempt coif would be to lie... again. For me to get up and get dressed immediately, or even before noon, would mean having something on the calendar for the day.

Now, lest you judge me, allow me to simply say this: I can be very productive in my jammies. So if you come to my door and catch me in them, do not assume I haven't, already that day, accomplished something of merit. Like cutting the fuzz mats from between my dog's paw pads or sucking an entire battalion of house flies from my window sills (not by mouth). I can move menial mountains en pyjama.

I'll admit it, I usually have to plan to host an event in order to get myself to thoroughly clean my house, too, and even then it's a matter of the classification of the event. As examples: A large-scale event involving first-time guests merits taking a scalpel to the cracks in my barn floor, for a crack-cruddotomy. A smaller event wherein more familiar guests or family spend the night? A decent, disinfecting wipe-down of the water closet facilities. But, my book club buds? Sorry girls --  it's merely a matter of blowing (by mouth) the dust off the leather livingroom ensemble and sprinkling a few finger foods amidst all those bottles of vino. Luckily, we all have four-legged children at home so it's understood that your attendance will facilitate the equal exchange of pet hair -- a long-accepted fair trade practice among us -- and, in addition to that, the (questionable) exchange of literary erudition and a nice wine buzz are the party favors du jour.

So, you see, I could use some sort of incentive, just a little nudge of some kind, to become more regular in posting new Piece of Mind columns herein. Money would be nice, a shock collar on a timer might also work, but I'm thinking chocolate. If you could all get organized in much the same way we moms used to sign up for the game snack schedule of our kids' soccer teams, you could take turns bringing me chocolates every Tuesday, if and only if I post a column the day before.

Sound reasonable?