putterings 495 < 496 > 497 index
from one thing to another; it’s on my list
There are various other dents, bumps, scratches, and bruises, most of them only skin deep. As the handyman here, it is my assignment to repair these signs of trauma. In all honesty, I only get to a few of them...
Then there’s the door that leads out back. It binds a little as you close it. All it takes is an Allen wrench and a few minutes to adjust the hinges. I have the Allen wrench. The few minutes are something else.
“Oh, and don’t forget the back door,” the wife says.
“It’s on my list,” I say. ₁
To be desultory is to jump from one thing to another... They don’t want us to putter. ₂
- Chris Erskine, “In Praise of Puttering” in his collection Man of the House : “Reflections on life with dogs, divas, and a bunch of little dudes who keep calling me Dad” (2006) : 84-91 : link
- Benjamin Errett, “The Wit’s Guide to Puttering; Or, pleasantly desultory,” at the author’s substack (May 9, 2024) : link
A nicely ruminative ramble through some literature (Samuel Johnson, Agatha Christie, Brenda Ueland, Robert Benchley, inter alia) and dictionaries (the U.K.’s “well-developed vocabulary of idleness” — spraff, to faff about...).
a different version of the above would appear as “In Praise of ‘Puttering’,” The Globe and Mail (August 2, 2024) : link (paywall; I have not actually seen)
the same (partially visible) at QOSHE : link—
- see also entry for Atkinson Kimball, “The Art of Puttering,” in The Atlantic Monthly 108 (October 1911) : 568-571
Atkinson Kimball is the joint pseudonym of Richard Bowland Kimball (1874-1950) and Grace Lucia (Atkinson) Kimball (1875-1923)
putterings 046