Tag: The Breakthrough

The Last Time

Brrrr. It’s in the forties this morning (AIEEEE!!!!) and the temperature will hold steady for the day, and won’t stop dropping until about bedtime tonight, when it will drop some more and the wind chill will start falling. I should sleep super-well tonight, and am glad I don’t have to go to work until Tuesday (if then)–and the winter storm watch has gone into effect already. I need to go make another grocery run today–there were things I forgot (of course) yesterday, and I was hoping to make it to the gym later as well. My shoulder feels odd this morning, which isn’t the great, and I am wondering about resting it for another day and potentially going tomorrow? Or am I just being incredibly lazy? That could also be the case, am I looking for yet another excuse to not go to the gym? I don’t think so. I think I’m going to finish writing this, spend some time with Bemused (which is delightful) and maybe go run that errand quickly and get it out of the way, and just go to the gym later on in the afternoon, after I’ve gotten some cleaning and writing done? Who knows? It would probably be easiest to do the gym and then go to the store and get it all done at one time (me trying to be efficient as always, but I don’t need to conserve my time anymore, either; I just have to not waste time anymore.

We watched Carry-on last night, which was fun, despite the plot being full of holes. Jason Bateman continues to be the best Bateman; he brought a very creepy intensity with his very calmness to the role, and of course Taron Edgerton is adorable and charismatic and always very fun to watch. I won’t get into whether the story would work in the real world or not–action adventure suspense movies don’t really give two shits about realism anymore–and the reason for that is I haven’t worked in an airport for nigh-on thirty years (groan) now, and things most likely are very different from when I worked there; 9/11 changed airports forever, and I was a pre-9/11 airline employee who was very glad to be out of the industry when 9/11 did happen. I mean, it was entertaining enough to hold our interest for two hours–I did keep checking the Commanders/Lions score, though, because I love Jayden Daniels (one of only two quarterbacks for LSU in the last decade to beat Alabama), and love how much Commanders fans are falling for That Kid Jayden the way LSU fans did)–but it was entertaining enough. We also watched a Swedish show called The Breakthrough yesterday–a crime story–but it wasn’t that interesting and was actually kind of dull; Paul kept dozing off and I kept turning to my iPad, so that was a waste of time. Do not recommend.

I woke up earlier than usual–around seven thirty this morning–but it’s fine; I’ve been sleeping too late and need to get back into the habit of getting up early, and now I have my entire morning to get things done around here. My coffee is going down very nicely, too, I might add, and I do need to eat something so I can take my meds this morning. It’s also sunny out with no clouds in the sky, so it’s beautiful out if cold. It was gorgeous yesterday, to be honest; I didn’t wear a jacket as I ran yesterday’s errands and it was lovely–after the morning rain, of course. The wind is supposed to start picking up soon–gusts of up to thirty miles per hour, which makes it feel ten degrees colder outside than it actually is (wind chill!) so will definitely be needing a coat when I go outside today. I do feel warm and relaxed and comfortable here in the house, which means I’ll feel super cozy when I get into my chair to read this morning. I do feel contented this morning, despite the looming deadlines and the messy house. I’m not sure why that is, this morning being the last good day this country will be having for a very long time, but there it is. I’ve been trying to avoid thinking of the joke of a shitshow this country is going to be effective tomorrow, but it does seem that Americans are finally waking up to the fact that we are not, in fact, the greatest country in the world and it’s kind of eye-opening to see that socialist countries have a much better quality of life than we do with all our so-called “freedoms.” American exceptionalism is a very heady drug and more addicting (and dangerous) than heroin–because if you think you are already living in the greatest country in history, why does it need to be improved? That mindset has already been pushed on us by the worst abusers–the wealthy class–so they can continue to rob us blind and they take everything away from us, and we should be grateful they let us even have the minimal amount of crumbs.

I didn’t write very much yesterday–I was mentally fatigued from the week–and so I decided to just let my mind relax and be free, and of course I came up with a fantastic idea for a book as well as solved the issue with “Festival of the Redeemer,” so that should make finishing that a lot easier, and am most pleased about that; the title of the new idea is Diabolical, and I love that one-word title, which seems to be the direction I am going with non-series titles. (I also got to see potential covers for Hurricane Season Hustle yesterday, and I cannot wait to share the final one with y’all, as it’s pretty cool and a new favorite cover for me. Woo-hoo! Now to write the damned thing, you know?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely last day before the fall of the country, okay? I will try to do the same.

Miranda

Monday morning and it’s very bright this morning. The time change–I’d forgotten that it means getting up in the light and coming home from work in the dark. It’s also interesting how much that changes in one day. It was already getting dark before four yesterday, and was completely night by five. I don’t like the change, to be honest; it doesn’t help me get up in the morning and it makes me feel like the day’s been wasted by the time I get home because there’s no more daylight. It’s another one of the reasons I don’t like winter, to be honest, but at least down here in New Orleans it never gets super cold or snows, which does make it somewhat more bearable. I still don’t like coming home after dark, though.

Yesterday wasn’t a great day for me. I was very tired all day, despite sleeping really well, and never really felt like I had any energy. I tried to write for a while yesterday morning but got nowhere with it, which is causing me more than a little bit of stress today, and so I ended up watching a lot of television. We finished off the first season of Interview with the Vampire (more on that later), the first season of The Serpent Queen, watched the most recent Andor, and got caught up on American Horror Story. We also watched a movie called Nobody with Bob Odenkirk, which was interesting and a bit of a different approach to the usual “Dad gets vengeance” movie before finally toddling off to bed. I didn’t sleep especially well last night either–I kept waking up and had trouble falling back asleep, but it was a better night’s sleep than Saturday’s, so I will take it.

I think I had trouble sleeping Saturday night because I was so emotionally caught up in the LSU-Alabama game; I was a bundle of nerves and raw energy and anxiety the entirety of the game (which I still can’t believe we won; who would have ever thought we’d beat Alabama this year; everyone is very high, obviously, on Coach Kelly now). And now, of course, that we’ve actually beaten Alabama (first time in Baton Rouge since 2010) people are talking about LSU running the table this year and making it to the play-offs as the first-ever two loss team to get that far. One thing for sure is that LSU could certainly mess things up for the play-offs this year; who do they take if LSU does the improbable and hands Georgia its first loss of the season and wins the SEC? One loss Tennessee, who lost to Georgia and didn’t win their division? Georgia, defending national champion with one loss but didn’t win the SEC and lost to LSU? A two loss SEC champion LSU that lost to Tennessee? How do you decide between the three of them? And if you take two, as has been done occasionally in recent years, which two? This year is very reminiscent of the chaos of 2007–when a two-loss LSU team won the BCS title over Ohio State; the only two loss team since 1960 to be crowned national champions, and the only one of the championship game era (Georgia also only had two losses that year, and were highly ranked; they had a good argument but losing their division and not playing for the conference championship ruled them out–although both Alabama and Georgia have both won the national title without being SEC champions). It will be interesting. I am that Doubting Thomas still; certain we can win out the regular season by staying focused and disciplined, but I don’t know if LSU could match up with Georgia. I still think it likely that both Tennessee and Georgia are the most likely two to go to the play-offs, if the SEC winds up with two; but I also didn’t think LSU would beat Alabama this year, either.

Which shows how much I actually know, you know?

I wasn’t able to finish this before leaving the house for work this morning–I told you, the time change, combined with some insomnia and low energy days, have really messed with my mind; I was so tired this morning I even considered hitting the snooze button a third time–so here I am on my lunch break, trying to get it finished and posted so I don’t miss a day. (Being a completer can sometimes be a real problem, you know?) After I get off work today I have to run uptown and get the mail as well as pick up some groceries from the store–nothing much, just a couple of things, but might as well stop and get it over with, you know? I also hope to get some serious work on the book done tonight as well. I hate having lost the weekend, but low energy is low energy.

I did manage to read some of Wanda Morris’ new book this weekend (at the rate I’m going I won’t finish it until probably my trip to Kentucky), but also managed to read a new-to-me Daphne du Maurier short story, included in the collection Not After Midnight and Other Stories (it also includes, as every du Maurier collection does, “Don’t Look Now” and “Not After Midnight”). I’d gotten the book from eBay after finding out that it included “A Border-line Case”–which I enjoyed–as well as two other stories I’d not read, “The Way of the Cross” and “The Breakthrough.” This weekend during Georgia’s mauling of Tennessee I read “The Way of the Cross”, and really liked it. It’s long, as all du Maurier stories often tend to be, and it’s actually quite a nasty little story that spins out over the course of a twenty-four period with a small group of British tourists visiting Jerusalem and the Holy Land, most of them from a small village. Their vicar was supposed to be their tour guide for this visit; but he was taken ill and another available minister-type, who doesn’t know any of them and isn’t really completely comfortable taking over, has been asked to fill in. It’s one of du Maurier’s nastier little stories, but the reason it is so nasty is because of its brutal, unflinching honest view of the characters, none of whom really come out of the story well. What is particularly interesting is how illustrative this story is of du Maurier’s own cynical view of humanity, but her gifts make the characters so absolutely real it feels like the reader is literally looking inside their souls. The characters all have definite opinions of who and what they are; as well as their own histories. What happens throughout the course of this story is everyone is gradually humbled and made to take off their own rose-colored glasses and inevitably are forced to look at themselves and their lives very clearly–usually by overhearing two of the other characters talking about them. It’s a terrific story, and one I will definitely be revisiting at some point. (I also like they are visiting the Holy Land but definitely are not very Christian…)

And now it’s time to head back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader–and oh yes, for the record: the reaction to Jayden Daniels’ overtime touchdown and later, the two point conversion did, indeed, register on the seismograph on campus. So, it, like the 1988 Auburn game, qualifies not just as an “earthquake” game but a double earthquake game.

GEAUX TIGERS!