Slow Jam

Monday morning and we’re in a flash flood warning–which means it’s flooding somewhere. The phone advisory said (you know, the loud beeping warning at four a.m.) to not even try to go anywhere before eight….of course, I need to be at the office by seven thirty, so there’s that. Sigh. The storm seems to have passed–there was some amazing thunder and lightning I was aware of while I was sleeping comfortably in my warm bed and under my soft, comfortable covers–so I’m not sure if the gray outside is the predawn gray I see every morning, and from the storm. It’s supposed to rain heavily every day until Thursday; this is definitely the wettest spring I can remember us having since we moved here all those years ago.

Yesterday was a good day. I may not have gotten all the things done that I wanted to get done, but I spent a goodly portion of my afternoon answering emails (saving as drafts to be sent today) and my inbox is almost completely emptied out for the first time in I don’t know how long, and it feels pretty fucking marvelous, in all honesty. Emails often defeat me, frankly; there are days when I look at all of them sitting there in my inbox and just close it again. This morning, with an almost empty inbox and some serious energy–two nights in a row of good, deep sleep, in case you were wondering–and I am chastising myself thoroughly for ever letting it get to the point where I need to scroll down through several pages to get to the bottom of them all. OH, no worries–I am sure I will get to that point once again, and probably relatively soon–but being caught up on such a thing makes me feel accomplished this morning, and I am going to roll with that feeling.

I walked to the gym yesterday afternoon in the insane heat (it was in the nineties, but not really humid yesterday) and got in a really good workout. I wasn’t trying to hurry through it the way I usually do–although I did do it quickly–but the gym was deserted and I was able to do the workout the way I like to do it; supersetting exercises and pushing myself (obviously, the key to going to the gym on Sunday is not to go around noon but to wait until about one thirty) and adding weight to the final set. I pushed myself and it felt good, then I came home and filed and organized and cleaned the kitchen. We had started watching a show on Netflix Saturday night, Sky Rojo, which was crazy and fun and action-packed; it’s about three prostitutes in the Canary Island who finally rebel against the abusive pimp in the bordello they work in and make a run for it, being pursued by his evil henchmen, and it was highly entertaining. The episodes were also a lot shorter than I thought–maybe half an hour at most–and we finished it early evening. Then we started watching Jupiter’s Legacy, a superhero series on Netflix based on some graphic novels–we loved Watchmen and The Boys–and despite a rather dull, predictable, and tedious first episode, the show began picking up with the second and we started enjoying it. I’ve always wanted to do a superhero novel myself–it’s one of my bucket list items, along with writing a comic book–and as always, I started thinking about the idea I had for one back in the 1980’s, and have toyed with every so often ever since. (I always end up talking myself out of it, because it’s hard to do any kind of superhero story anymore that isn’t derivative, and isn’t the theme always with great power comes great responsibility? But seeing this, and The Boys..the key is to take something derivative and turn it into something original, which is a terrific challenge, and I like challenges.)

I still haven’t decided what to read next, but I am leaning towards Walter Mosley’s A Red Death; I’d like to get back to my attempt to get through his entire canon. The problem, as always, is there is so little time for me to read, to write, and to get everything finished around the house (chores etc.) around my full-time job and my MWA responsibilities. But it can be done–when I am tired, for example, like reading Summer of ’42 in a single afternoon this past weekend–and so I need to remember that sometimes one can read even when one is tired.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader!