Category: errands

On the Radio

So, it’s Friday and yet another week has passed by. Next Friday is the first parade day of this year’s Carnival madness…I cannot believe it is nigh upon us–and it’s late this year. Madness….Mardi Gras madness, to be exact.

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day, so Paul got us Chinese take-out for dinner so I wouldn’t have to cook, which was lovely. I do enjoy some shrimp lo-mein. We then proceeded to watch this week’s Schitt’s Creek, which was terrific–the David/Patrick pairing is one of my favorite gay couples on any television series–and another episode of PEN15, which I think we’re going to let go of. Maybe if we were younger women, we’d get it and enjoy it more; I’m sure it’s a fine show–we simply aren’t the target audience for it, which is fine. Not every television show or movie or book, for that matter, is targeted to everyone.

Since I already ran my errands yesterday, I came straight home from the office today–it was a short day for me, which made getting up so early a little less painful. Huzzah!

Also, when I got home from work yesterday the house next door had been tented for termites. It was a little surreal looking out the window and seeing the house next door hidden beneath an enormous yellow-and-red tarp that more closely resembled a circus tent than anything else. (I’ve always wondered why the termite tarps/tents are yellow and red…but a google search proved that, while they are always striped, they aren’t always yellow and red.) This morning when I got up, I noticed that the clips holding it together near the back of the house had given way and there was a rather large gap; a mere ten minutes later I almost jumped out of my skin when the part in the front of the house came tumbling down–particularly because it was so early in the morning. As I wondered if I should call my landlady (she knows the woman who owns the house next door) the tarpaulin over the back of the house began moving, and over the top of the fence I saw some hands. Then I heard voices….and the rest of the tarp came down.

So yes, the termite assassins were un-tenting the house at that ungodly hour of the morning. Who knew?

So, as I sit here, the washing machine is chugging on the last load of blankets, and the second-to-last load of bed linens is tumbling in the dryer. There’s also a load of clothes to do, but it’s still early. I’ve also unloaded the dishwasher and reloaded it with what was in the sink. I am currently cleaning the coffee-maker, and will probably keep cleaning the kitchen a bit as I sit here. I am going to try to get a chapter done before I retire to the easy chair and Lori Roy’s ARC (#ilovemylife), and possibly another ghost short story from Hauntings: Is There Anybody There? by Norah Lofts. I am going to go to the AT&T store tomorrow to see if I can trade my phone in–it’s past time–and other than that, I intend to spend the weekend reading, revising, and cleaning. Maybe watching some fun stuff on the TV; there are all kinds of movies and TV shows available on the streaming services I pay for that I want to watch.

There are also some odds and ends here in the office/kitchen area–as well the tables around my easy chair–that I should just bite the bullet and do something with. I’ve been meaning to update my address book for Christmas cards and so forth forever; the Christmas cards I’ve been saving are piled up on top of one of the filing cartons. I’ve also apparently made an error of some sort in my checking account; the bank says I have more money than my register does, and everything has cleared that I recorded. This happens periodically because I absolutely hate to balance my checkbook, and it always, without fail, means I’ve deducted something twice–I’ll buy something on-line or pay a bill, and then I’ll record it in the register. Then a few days later I’ll check my account on-line because I know I’ve forgotten to record something small–like NyQuil–that I got at the CVS across the street from the office. I’ll then notice the other amount–whether a purchase or paid bill–and will record it again.

Sometimes there are multiple mistakes.

I also have a tendency to round up in my check register, so that there’s less money showing than I actually have (one of my biggest fears is bouncing a check or having my debit card be declined at a cash register), which also makes determining what the actual balance really is a problem to figure out.

And yes, I think I have delayed revising sufficiently long now.

So, without further ado, ’tis back to the spice mines with me.

Happy Friday, Constant Reader!

29597434_1825151547779080_1925619498843239107_n

All Out of Love

Wednesday, feelin’ fine.

Yesterday I didn’t really want to get out of bed–but not really out of a sense of being tired or not getting enough sleep; rather, it was more along the lines of it was raining and in those situations, I would always prefer to stay in bed with my blankets. Here’s hoping it rains this weekend, when I can stay in bed.

I’ve decided to go with my library book as my next Diversity read, White Rabbit by Caleb Roehrig. It’s due next Friday, the first day of parades (!!!) on the St. Charles Avenue route, and so it makes more sense to go ahead and read it now and get it out of the way. That makes it sound like more of an odious chore than I intended it to sound, quite frankly; it isn’t an odious chore at all. I had a lovely time reading his first novel, and I am quite certain I’ll enjoy this one as well. There’s no reason I wouldn’t; but I also need to steer myself into reading short stories. My collection is coming out on April 1, and around that same time the anthology I’m in, Murder-a-Go-Go’s, is also coming out…so I am going to start talking about the stories in both, and I should probably get a jump on that.

The best-laid plans of mice and men…

Yesterday during the revising I was stopped cold by an enormous hole in the plot that threw me off my game. I blinked at the computer screen three times slowly, and as how to fill the hole, or patch it up, as it were, started coming to mind and I began filling said plot-hole with new words, I got exhausted suddenly, very tired and drained…so I stepped away from the manuscript, knowing that trying to force it when I’m tired would just mean having to redo it anyway, so why not just think about it, solve the problem thoroughly in my head, and reserve the energy? A good night’s sleep and a fresh start in the morning would be the most wise course to follow. And I did have a good night’s sleep last night! I feel amazing this morning–rested, awake, energized and ready to go. So, hopefully I can resolve this plot problem this morning, and get another chapter done, as well. Huzzah! I also have to pick up a prescription this morning on the way to work, so I’ll need to leave earlier than I usually do.

I also got an ARC of Lori Roy’s new book, Gone Too Long, in the mail yesterday, so I am most likely going to shunt the Diversity Project aside momentarily in order to read it. Every new book by Lori is kind of an event; her resume of awards and great reviews rather speaks for itself. And the cover copy makes this one sound terrific…and her books usually surpass the cover copy. Huzzah!

I’m in a pretty good mood this morning, no doubt due to the terrific night’s sleep I just enjoyed, and feeling better about my manuscript–despite the plot hole. I’m still on-target to get it finished by the end of the month, and I really am looking forward to getting back to work on the WIP…I may even start doing some revision work/rereading of it this weekend; we shall see. I would really like to get the Scotty done long before the end of the month, but again–we’ll just have to see how it goes, won’t we?

And of course, one of my favorite reality shows, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, returned last night, so I spent a rather blissful hour last night watching rich women setting up ridiculous drama that will carry the show through this season. My enjoyment of these shows is starting to wane a little; so a good season of this one and New York is really necessary or else I may stop watching entirely.

We started watching PEN15 on Hulu the other night, and it has potential. We’ll have to give it another episode or two before we decide whether we want to continue with it–but it currently looks very promising.

And on that note, it’s back to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader!

andrea4

We Don’t Talk Anymore

Sunday morning and all is well in the Lost Apartment. My kitchen and living room are clean–there is a load of laundry in the dryer that needs to be refluffed and folded, as well as a load in the dishwasher to put away–but most of my chores are done for the weekend. I can either do nothing chore-related today, or I can do a deep clean on something. I am leaning toward a deep clean on something–I rarely have the opportunity to do a deep clean so carpe diem–and it’s a lovely feeling.

I finally made myself start revising at some point yesterday in the war of wills between Scooter and me. I finally decided I could go read a bit as a break from revising, so as to satisfy his need for attention for a human (or rather having a human serve as a cat bed) and set the alarm on my iPad for an hour each time. This seemed to work, and not only did I revise five chapters I finished reading Devil in a Blue Dress. I then streamed the film through Amazon Prime, and the movie was also quite good. I’ll talk about the book some more, but am thinking it needs its own entry, so when I finish this one I’ll give it a proper review. I then decided to break from both the Diversity Project and The Short Story Project in order to read a book that’s been on everyone’s lips this past week–A. J. Finn’s The Woman in the Window. I am about fifty pages in, and it is indeed giving me something to think about.

The terrific thing about the revising is that the book isn’t nearly as terrible as I’ve convinced myself that it was during the long slogs of writing it. To be sure, I am finding repetitive sentences and badly constructed ones; I also am finding paragraphs that completely repeat information from a previous chapter that must be excised. But tying everything together isn’t nearly as difficult as I had thought it would be, and the behaviors of the characters and how they react to things actually make sense. I don’t know why I’ve been avoiding working on this. It’s going much faster and easier than I thought it would…I guess I was thinking it would be a lot of work. That doesn’t mean it won’t be again as I work my way through the manuscript…but I need to get this done, and I am going to dive back into after I write another entry–my review of Devil in a Blue Dress.

Depending how all the writing and revising goes, I may walk to the AT&T Store and replace my phone today. I’ve been meaning to do it for weeks…maybe today will be the day to get it handled. Or not. I hate dealing with that sort of thing, so I always put it off…hence it’s been weeks. Heavy heaving sigh.

And this is how things get backed up. Okay, I am definitely walking to the AT&T store today and getting my phone replaced.

And now, back to the spice mines.

21551641_10203817620798566_4561908383261052783_o

Heartache Tonight

Well, Constant Reader, it is mid-afternoon on Friday and I am home. I worked this morning, ran errands, put the groceries away, and am currently in the midst of laundering the bed linens. Scooter periodically howls at me because I clearly need to be sitting in my easy chair so he can nap on me, but I keep denying him…so he goes away for about ten minutes before returning to express his displeasure with me yet again. At some point–probably after emptying the dishwasher and washing the dishes currently in the sink, I will take a break. I will go into the living room with Devil in a Blue Dress, sit in my chair, and read for a little bit–giving Scooter what he wants. Then, after a chapter or two, I will get up again to do something–perhaps switching laundry loads from one appliance to another and to the empty basket–and he will curl up on the couch and sleep, sated, and forget that I’m even home.

Unless, of course, I vacuum. But I did that yesterday, so he’s in luck on that score.

Well, actually it was a noise outside that got Scooter up and out of my lap, and I am now back. I out-waited him; I heard the washer stop but continued reading. He has his glare face on now, but he won’t howl at me again since he was the one who got up.

I am really enjoying the book, though, and while I am deeply ashamed it’s taken me this long to read one of Mosley’s novels, I am enjoying it so much I won’t allow the shame to ruin it for me. And there’s such a backlist! I can savor his work for years to come without fear of running out of one I haven’t read–there’s nothing worse than having finished reading all the books an author has written and having to wait for a new one…unless of course they are no longer amongst the living. I keep putting off reading more of Shirley Jackson and Daphne du Maurier and Patricia Highsmith for that very reason. It’s insane, I know, but it makes perfect logical sense to me.

I stand corrected! I am being howled at from the doorway by a cat that wants me right NOW. Back in a bit.

Well, now it’s Saturday morning. I slept in this morning–I only woke up a couple of times during the night, which was lovely–and now I sit at my computer. Paul’s still sleeping so I have no battle of wills with the cat this morning; although Paul is planning on going into the office today, which means Scooter will slip into needy mode the minute the front door closes behind him. Heavy heaving sigh. But I read a lot more of Devil in a Blue Dress last night, which is really picking up steam. It’s really the origin story of how Easy Rawlins became a private eye, and I am really loving the way Mosley writes and tells the story…it also kind of reminds me of what I had in mind when I started writing Murder in the Rue Dauphine back in 1997. (Not that I would ever classify my work as being in the same league as Mosley’s; I just wish I’d read this before I started writing mine, as it would have been enormously helpful.)

I also got very tired last night–having the purring cat sleeping in my lap always makes me sleepy, even when I’m not really tired–so when I’m tired, watch out. I ended up watching a documentary about George V and Mary of Teck, and how they modernized the British monarchy to adapt to the first world war, and their issues with their children (who knew the current Queen had a gay/bisexual uncle? I did not), and then managed to stagger upstairs and make the bed before falling into a fabulous deep sleep. And here I am this morning, having accomplished nothing much last night, wondering how I am going to get everything finished this day that I want to finish.

Heavy heaving sigh. Same song, different day. Like always. But I am also going to repeat my last weekend methodology of closing my browser and staying off the Internet for as much of the day as possible, with a goal of only looking at it from time to time on either the phone or the iPad until tomorrow morning.

It really worked last weekend, didn’t it?

So, I think after I work on my emails this morning I am going to go read for a bit, before getting cleaned up and working on the revision and my writing. I also brought the Air home from the office, so I can also write in my easy chair if Scooter becomes too insistent with his neediness (and I think we can all reasonably assume he’s going to be a howling bitch until he gets his way this afternoon). That’s the plan, at any rate. I may watch a movie at some point this evening; Paul claims that when he gets home from the office he doesn’t want to do any more work this weekend and just wants to hang out. We shall see if that is indeed the case, won’t we?

And now, back to the spice mines.

22554867_542276969448741_2673830001388813092_n

Tired of Toein’ the Line

Friday! I’m in love!

Heh heh. Well, it’s true; I have been for almost twenty four years. It’s hard sometimes to wrap my mind around how long that is…it’s hard sometimes to wrap my mind around how old I am. But sometimes…when I have to get up ridiculously early (like today) I feel every minute of those fifty-seven years.

Heavy sigh.

But today is a short day and I’ll be off work at one this afternoon, and then it’s off to run my errands and come home to clean and revise the Scotty. The goal for today is to get somewhat caught up on the revision and to finish reading Devil in a Blue Dress, which I am really enjoying. I also want to read another one of Norah Lofts’ ghost stories from Hauntings: Is There Anybody There? I really like that her ghost stories are more Gothic and quietly creepy than anything else; that’s kind of the vibe I’m trying to go for in the WIP, so choosing to read her stories was probably a rather wise move on my part–unintentional, of course, but no less wise in any case.

And is it just me, or has the world gone crazy? Last night I saw the perfect tweet, one that perfectly encapsulated this week: If you didn’t predict that ‘politicians in blackface’ would get upstaged by ‘dick pics of billionaires’ by the end of the week, I don’t know what to tell you.

This brave new world in which we all live.

I made Swedish meatballs for dinner last night and they were most delicious, thank you very much. I don’t really follow a recipe anymore; I just kind of do it from memory, which means they taste different every time I make them. I have a slightly messy kitchen as a result, but it won’t take long to get it cleaned and set to rights again. And two weeks from today the first parades of Carnival roll down St. Charles Avenue. It’s hard to believe that the parades are nigh; I am kind of looking forward to them, to be honest. With the move to the new office and the realization that I simply can’t walk to work anymore during parade season, this will be the first time in years I’ll actually be able to enjoy the parades without having to deal with walking to and from work almost every day. I may actually make it through the season without the bone-tired exhaustion I’ve become accustomed to–madness.

The temperature dropped about twenty degrees overnight, and it’s supposedly going to drop a little further. Of course, that means it’s in the fifties, which is still much more tolerable than the bitter cold in many parts of the country; I think there’s a hundred degree difference between the weather here and in Montana, per a post I saw on Facebook this morning from a friend who lives up there. A hundred degree difference. How insane is that?

Pretty fucking insane, I’d say.

And on that note, ’tis back to the spice mines with me. I’m hoping to get the revision of Chapter 4 finished this morning before i head to the office…fingers crossed, Constant Reader.

27749774_2107191332631096_5468204386913433689_n

Longer

There are few things more excruciating than being forced to reread one’s own work.

Seriously.

 I think that’s part of my resistance to editing my own writing; I hate to reread my own work. There’s nothing that quite makes you feel like a failure than reading your own work. I think it’s another reason I have so much anxiety about doing public readings, and it’s probably why I’ve never made my Scotty or Chanse Bibles–which would require me rereading all the books. Sometimes, sure, I will reread something I’ve written  and think, damn, this is better than I remember but most of the time I cringe and wish I  had a chance to revise it again.

So, yes, if you’re wondering, this means I spent some time trying to revise things yesterday.

Yesterday was a good day. I ran my errands successfully in the late morning/early afternoon; came home and made potato leek soup in the slow cooker (do we no longer call them crockpots anymore?); and then did some cleaning and organizing (there’s still some more filing to do this morning–never fear, it’s an endless task) before sitting down in my easy chair to watch the figure skating championships. I have a special soft spot for the ice dancing team of Joe Johnson and Karina Marta–she recently came out, so they are the first queer team of ice dancers to skate as openly queer, and their number was spectacular.

I also watched another episode of Titans last night, and was pleased to see it end with the appearance of Jason Todd, aka new Robin. This of course means old Robin, Dick Grayson, will probably be soon transforming into Nightwing sometime in this series. This is a storyline turn I can completely endorse; Dick was dull as Robin and didn’t become interesting to me as a character until he became Nightwing, after which he was one of my favorite DC Universe characters. I am also hoping they’re going to add Wonder Girl/Donna Troy to the cast soon….but this season seems to be about the creation of the team, so my fingers are indeed crossed.

I continue to read  Last Seen Leaving, and it’s a charming book; Caleb Roehrig does an excellent job of capturing the main character’s voice; the confusion and fear of realizing you’re gay as a teenager but not wanting to tell anyone–or rather, being afraid to tell anyone, that deathly terror that someone might figure it out, that you’ll lose all your friends and your life will go down the toilet. This might be the first time I’ve read something that captures that so perfectly–taking me back forty years to when I was a terrified, closeted teen afraid to trust anyone. I hope to finish reading it today before moving on to The Klansman.

This morning I plan to clean out my email inbox at long last–I don’t know why I am so resistant lately to answering emails and so forth; it makes little to no sense to me. It’s more, I suppose, along the lines of I really don’t want to deal with this but after I clean up the mess left from making the potato leek soup last night, I am going to dive into my multiple inboxes to clear all this shit out. I also want to make a to-do list of what absolutely has to get done this week; my brake tag, for example, expires on Thursday so I need to go get a new one, and I keep forgetting that needs to be done. Heavy heaving sigh.

It feels cold again this morning, and the sun is hidden behind clouds. I get so tired of this weather here….and Facebook memories keeps reminding that in past years Carnival was going on during this time. It’s so weird to see old pictures of me in T-shirts and shorts out on the parade route in the sun when it’s cold now. But I guess, given the fact that many parts of the country are colder than Alaska and the Arctic, I shouldn’t complain because it could be so very much worse.

My streak of sleeping well continued again last night, which was lovely. I feel very rested today, just in time to have my two long days in a row. Huzzah? Ah, well, as long as I get a good night’s sleep on Tuesday night for Wednesday I can muddle through somehow.

And now, Constant Reader, I thank you, but it’s time to return to the spice mines.

17634289_1312226988825362_7058586867730916527_n

No More Tears (Enough is Enough)

Good morning, and welcome to another cold January morning here in the Lost Apartment. I have some errands to run later today–later this morning, to be exact–and then I am spending the rest of the day holed up inside reading, cleaning, and probably watching figure skating on the television. We did watch the ladies’s final last night, which was quite fun, and am looking forward to seeing the competitions today. The European championships have also been going on this past week, so it’s all saved on Hulu for us to watch at our leisure. The Australian Open is also still happening–so much sport!–and so there’s that as well. I do want to finish reading my book today, and I want to read a short story, and start reading my next book as well.

And tomorrow I am cleaning out my email inbox if it kills me, and it just might.

I slept really well again last night–that’s three consecutive nights of good sleep, which is amazingly lovely.

Yesterday was also kind of a crazy day in the world, although it’s pretty safe to say that everyday has been kind of a crazy day for a while now. As I said to Paul the other night, “it’s like world politics has turned into Game of Thrones, only much scarier because it’s real.” And I know, world politics has always been very Game of Thrones, it’s just never been so obvious and apparent.

It’s hard to believe it’s almost February already, but there you have it and there it is. Carnival hovers on the horizon, and the Williams Festival/Saints and Sinners is just behind it. I am moderating a panel this year with Alafair Burke, Samantha Downing (My Lovely Wife) and Kristien Hemmerechts (The Woman Who Fed The Dogs) so I have some homework for that as well.

So much good reading to look forward to! Art Taylor also very graciously, along with Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, made a pdf of his Edgar nominated short story “English 398: Fiction Workshop” available on-line, which I downloaded and look forward to reading. Art’s a terrific writer and a master of the short story (when I was nominated for the Macavity for “Survivor’s Guilt”, Art was the winner, and his story was amazing), and it’s always terrific to read one of his stories. (Hint hint: Art, how about a short story collection? Hint hint.)

I’m also going to dissect some short stories I am in the process of editing–unless I get lazy again. I rarely do this when I am editing/revising short stories, which makes my short stories actually kind of hit or miss; if the story works, it’s because I simply got lucky with it. But I think if I actually break the story down into what it’s about, and who the characters are and why they are the people they are, more of my stories would probably work. It’s a theory, at any rate, and there’s nothing I love to do more than break down my work and put it back together again (I’m being sarcastic, if you couldn’t tell).

And on that note, I am heading out into the frigid cold to get my errands out of the way before coming home to mine spice.

Have a lovely day, everyone!

18193674_1340113092703418_9190892510622004853_n

More Love

So, yesterday I went to pick up the mail–I’d ordered some sleepy-time tea on line, and they’d arrived on Wednesday, and yes, this tea actually works–and discovered FOUND MONEY in the mail. Back when I worked for that Unnamed Airline (Continental), in my last year there they gave us stock–something I would imagine they continued doing–but it was Class B or something; whatever it was, we couldn’t sell it. Flash forward and they merged with United. Fine, it was only ten shares, whatever, I always get the notice every year and just toss it in a drawer.

Yesterday, I actually read the thing and discovered that–wait, it’s now the kind of stock you can sell. It took me five minutes, but I signed into the stock website and sold that. It only took another five minutes for it to actually sell. How cool! I love when found money suddenly shows up, you know? It makes me quite happy.

I knew when I woke up yesterday was going to be a marquee day for the week, and it was. Huzzah! Part of it was after feeling so low energy all week, despite being rested, was waking up with batteries recharged; that happened again this morning in time for my short day this week. I have some errands to run this morning before I go in this afternoon; and some other things I need to get done around the Lost Apartment.

I’m still reading Last Seen Leaving  by Caleb Roehrig, which I am enjoying. I hope to finish reading it today, and then I am moving on to another Diversity Project book (after reading some short stories), and I think I’ve decided to read The Klansman by William Bradford Huie. I read this book when I was about nine or ten originally; I know the book belonged to my uncle, and I read it one lazy summer I was spending in Alabama (the same summer I read To Kill a Mockingbird.) Huie isn’t really talked about much anymore–at least not that I’m aware of–and The Klansman was a look at the violence and horror of the Civil Rights Era from the perspective of a white sheriff in a small county in Alabama who’s trying to keep the peace. Huie also wrote The Execution of Private Slovik, and other books illustrating social justice issues. I liked the book a lot, and it was, I think, the first time in my life I was ever given a different perspective on civil rights other than what I was hearing at home or at school, so I am curious to see how it holds up. I can’t remember when I remembered the book and tracked down a used copy on line; but am pretty certain it was after some tragedy involving racism in the last few years–unfortunately I can’t be more specific than that because there have been so many.

So, I have a nice busy weekend ahead of me–reading, cleaning, reading page proofs, and perhaps working on the Scotty revision. I’d also like to go to the gym both days as well; it never hurts to get the working out monkey off my back and start making time for the self-care and self-improvement I desperately need to make this year a winner.

Our Internet was out last night, so we couldn’t watch anything on television–no Australian Open, no US Figure Skating championships, none of the shows we watch regularly, nothing–so I spent the night doing some cleaning and some more reading. The good news, of course, is that it back this morning and a lot faster than it was before the crash last night (or of the last few weeks or so), which is lovely.

And on that note, probably should get back to the spice mines. Happy Friday, everyone.

18300957_1348567331857994_4674668969420870304_n

Don’t Fall in Love with a Dreamer

Wednesday morning. I was very tired last night, and after watching the Australian Open (Greg: well, 2019 is starting off as a really shitty sports year, isn’t it?), I read for a little while before going to bed. I slept well last night, but this morning am feeling a little bit less lively than I should, all things considered. I also don’t have a short day tomorrow–eight hours, hurray–but that’s fine. Friday is back to normal and next week is a normal work week, for what that’s worth. Routine? Back into the groove? Let’s hope it’s all of those things.

I still feel slightly discombobulated. Adjusting to a new routine is difficult, particularly when that routine is regularly disrupted again once you start to settle into it. Ironically, I think once I get used to it again and get into a groove it’ll be Carnival parade time and it’ll get disrupted all over again. I guess that’s the trouble with being someone who likes routine and yet lives in New Orleans, where routine is routinely disrupted.

It’s kind of gray and misty outside the windows and everything is dripping. It’s rained over night and is still raining a bit this morning; which will make the drive uptown to get the mail and then to work all the more fun. It is a source of constant amazement to me that people in New Orleans can’t drive in the rain–you’d think, by the way they drive, that it never rained here.

And you’d be incorrect in that assumption.

Heavy sigh.

I tried to work on the Scotty a bit yesterday to no avail; I think I added an entire sentence to the revision/reboot of Chapter One. My mind was scrambled and tired last night when I got home, and of course watching Serena lose wasn’t uplifting or motivating. This weekend is the US National Figure Skating Championships, so a lot of time will be spent this weekend watching that event, which will be kind of nice–I do love to watch figure skating–and that leads me back to my story “Moves in the Field,” which I’d like to get revised and edited and rewritten this month–it and “The Snow Globe” and “And the Walls Came Down” and “The Problem with Autofill.” The last one needs a serious rethink; I like the basic idea of it, but as written the story doesn’t work. The conceit of the story is something I also like, but again is problematic because there’s no way anyone would ever be that stupid, I think; that’s the hole in the story that needs to be fixed. I have a better idea, a glimmer of a thought, on how to fix this problem (the problem with “The Problem with Autofill”, ha ha ha ha), and I am hoping to get that attempt out of the way this weekend. I know I am biting off more than I’m going to want to chew this weekend, but if I don’t make a massive to-do list I always feel like I am doing nothing.

Which of course is part of the insanity.

I’ve also been toying with an idea I like, for a novel–something to write after I finish the WIP. I do like the idea, but it’s very malformed and ethereal at the moment; it would need to be more solid before I start actually doing any writing on it. I think maybe if I spend an hour on it, just brainstorming and figuring out the plot and characters and how to structure the book, I’d be able and be more ready to sit down and write it when the time comes.

Ideas aren’t my problem; my problem is too many ideas.

And on that note, it’s back to the spice mines with me.

17553970_1306411719406889_5680372668313956720_n

This Is It

I slept rather late this morning, did I not? It was a very good night’s sleep and I feel terrifically rested now. Which is a good thing, as I am braving the wilds of Costco later this morning (AIEEEE!). The objective is to get as many errands as possible done today, and to remain focused on my goals. The house is pretty well cleaned and organized; I just need to do the floors today and it’ll be good to go. The weather is also supposed to be peculiar today; from a high of seventy around noon to be followed by a nasty storm with high winds, after which the temperature is going to take a severe forty degree drop. #madness

You have to love the bipolar weather of January in New Orleans.

I watched another episode of Titans last night, the one in which we meet the Doom Patrol, and I have to say the show is really well done. The pacing is excellent; the hour (or forty-two minutes, or however long it is) flies past and the credits roll before you know it. The cast is young and attractive, and has the charisma or acting skills or a combination of the two to pull off their roles convincingly. As I said the other day, introducing a show about a team is never easy, as you have so many characters with back story that has to be told and/or explained. It’s incredibly easy to get bogged down in back story, but the writing of the show integrates the character back stories into the current story seamlessly. I am very impressed. I also watched another episode of Riverdale, and apparently missed one along the way somehow–or just didn’t remember it, but how would I not remember the appearance of Gina Gershon?–but it was fine. The show is kind of a train wreck, to be honest, and yet I find myself being pulled back to it like a moth to a flame.

I also read a bit more of Pet Sematary last night; and now that the reader knows where the story is going–yes, Louis is crazed with grief and anger, not in his right mind, surely he isn’t going to dig up Gage and take him to the Micmac Burying Ground, is he? Oh yes he certainly is!–it seems as though the train wreck of the Creed family tragedy King is writing is well on its way down the tracks. The book’s pacing also picks up dramatically along the way; the more I reread the more I am convinced that the book is actually an under-appreciated masterpiece (at least one that I didn’t fully appreciate), and I am glad I am rereading it. As much as the book disturbs me, I cannot imagine what it would be like to read as a parent. I hope to finish reading it today, and move on to the first book of the Diversity Project.

I also spent some time reorganizing and cleaning out some of my kitchen cupboards yesterday; throwing away things that have been stored in there uselessly for years; there was even a bottle of salad dressing with a 2017 sell-by date on it, and now there’s more room in the cupboards. I also need to go through the cupboards with the dishes and so forth; I’ve just been cramming stuff in there when taking them out of the dishwasher and not really trying to organize the mess very much. I am also going to do another round of purging with the book cases.

A very ambitious plan for the first day of this three-day weekend, is it not?

I also need to run by Office Depot at some point this weekend, too.

And on that note, it’s time for me to dive back into the spice mines. Keep your fingers crossed for me, Constant Reader, that I’ll have the energy and motivation to get everything done that I need to get done today.

unnamed