Author: Allegra

I feel like I am counting off the hours to my vacation (which won’t exactly be a vacation, but at least I won’t have to work) with agonizing slowness.

It was a good weekend, but too short, and now I am back at work. Just 4 more days to go heavy sigh.

Actually, there was some new ScandiNoir in there. But seriously folks, what with allergy season starting I’m pretty much flattened in the brains department. BrO was shaking his head at my frequently loser points – lost my phone, misplaced my glasses, misplaced my phone aGAIN.

And still it feels like….

I have gotten to the halfway point editing Sweep Off Those Waves. The writing’s picked up thank god it’s no longer quite as lugubrious.

Here’s some amusing film news for Jeff.

In less than salubrious news, the hopelessly racist source material of Hugh Lofting’s Doolittle books is going to make Robert Downey Jr. even richer than he already is. Yeah I know Eddie Murphy was involved in remakes, and it doesn’t take the stink off the source material.

and the birds are singing wildly, as if they don’t know a nuclear war is brewing. I don’t think it will happen; the Chinese, god bless ’em, are pragmatists, and I suspect they’ll squash NK like a rhino on a honey badger if it comes to it. One can expect tourism to slow to a rich man’s trickle, and a few other things.

One can always be sorry for bringing children into a world where that kind of war was possible, but that means there’s three generations of us in our family that have done that. The end of the world has always been nigh. Reading family journals in translation of having to flee various places with little money and no goods has settled me somewhat. A member of the family will survive; it may not be me.

My Scythian ancestors would tell me to buy horses and head for the plains.

I’m at the eyrie. Think I’ll go write fanfic, it’s cheaper than Xanax.

Alex was so adorable at supper last night I nearly died. The baby at the next table said AHHHH and Alex, imitating tone, volume and duration of the AHHHH imitated the baby perfectly. He used chopsticks as a catapult for pho noodles. We were a happy family eating together and we walked there and back, so we got some exercise too. Then I went home and crashed. Paul came by at 10:30 and gave me a lift to work. I feel surrounded by love and light.

This morning Katie posts that Alex made poopy in the toidy today for the first time. Such are the joys of parenting, we take our jollies where we can. I messaged Katie to have her tell Alex I loved him and was proud of him and his response was HIGH FIVE oh god I love Katie’s perfect monkey.

Edith was repaired beautifully, very happy with Westcoast Guitars.

Busy shift.

Fanfic now totals 105K words.

I’m really happy, and now it’s time to sleep.

An almost perfect pop song.

Yesterday was a sacrifice to megrim…. blerg. Feeling much better today. Heading home in an hour and a half. No editing.

Paul and Keith are taking me and Kate and Alex out for dins on Wednesday.

Today I pick up Edith – Paul has volunteered to give me a lift after I wake up this afternoon.

Edith is still in the shop. I’ll go fetch her on Tuesday.

I’m feeling a trifle under the weather, which is no surprise since the weather has out and out sucked these last few days.

Editing is stalled. I’m just going to take it easy today, finish my laundry. Make some phone calls. Get my working clothes ready for next week.

Westcoast Guitars says the baby mandolin repair is done – I’ll be collecting Edith this weekend, Saturday likely.

I am up to page 106 in the edits for Sweep Off Those Waves. I’m adding a little, taking out more, and cursing my sentence construction rather more often than I should. It’s holding up okay, but it’s not as funny as I’d like. Oh god, the terrible urge to be taken SERIOUSLY doncha know?

Still writing almost 1500 words a day on the goddamned fanfic, posting as I hit chapter length. Still trying to understand this almost biological urge to keep doing it; I actually shared the term ‘graphomania’ with a fellow writer on twitter; she hadn’t been aware that such a mental state existed and told me she was doing the same thing, writing fanfic instead of producing chapters on a non-fiction work. You should have heard me howl with laughter when I read that.

The Canada 150 celebration pisses me off. We have nothing to celebrate until the T&R for the people of the First Nations is done. This is not marching with banners stuff, it’s processing centuries of repression and regulation and slow motion genocide and trying to find a way forward.

Yup.

You know how in real life you wait and wait to hear something from somebody and when you finally do it’s so astonishing and amazing.

I do.

It’s my own little Supernatural moment.

“You’ve had my back longer than anyone who’s currently in my life.”

YES, BECAUSE YOU ARE AWESOME. Best of all, I have no interest in owning you or telling you what to do, although I did get a little testy talking about resumes last night. If the end of your employment appears that near, it should be ready….

Which reminds me. Who knows how long I’ll be employed? I should update my own and quit yipping at others.

83K on the fanfic and no signs of slowing down.

Yes mOm I am working on the draft for Sweep off those Waves. It is going well, I’m up to page 26.

Short but bracing chat with Katie yesterday morning. She’s very much being practical about the breakup, and has explained why she’s not planning on coming to live with either her father or me, although personally I think she’s a fool not to. She is apparently giving notice on the apartment and since her s/o is not on the lease that will likely end their three year experiment in cohabitation with the father of her child. We shall see.
I am rather glum; I was hoping she’d be able to tame him, but he’s too self-destructive, and while he loves Alex as a reflection of himself, he certainly doesn’t love him for his own sake, and is continually bitching Katie out for ‘raising a wimp’ which considering what her father, brother and uncles are like (caregiving in many ways without being the slightest bit wimpy) is just plain absurdity garnish for the shit sandwich he’s making of his domestic life these days.
Tonight has been insanely busy, but not with discharges, just every other kind of hell. I’m working on a migraine again; the barometer has been hopping about like it’s got St. Vitus’ Dance. I’m having a bracing cuppa to cope. Posted some more smut, since I finally got all the caveats and quid pro quos in there. I literally just posted it and it has 13 hits already, heya.

DIED

I mean I watched NCIS with Jeff but then I went to bed and did not get up until 4:30, which was absolutely remarkable. Still felt tired, went back to bed. Found he’d eaten 5 cheese biscuits out of the six I bought yesterday morning so I consoled myself with toast, a Call the Midwife and then went back to bed.

I just couldn’t deal with looking at a screen. Migrainy and bilious these last few hours…

There are 1.75 hours to go on the shift, and I’ve received 22 calls, including all the calls to clear work already done. This is the slowest night I’ve ever experienced here. I think it’s raining so hard that everybody is staying off the roads; emerg is quiet.

Even if they aren’t being called for discharge cleans, the housekeepers still have plenty to do; garbage and linen for all the wards, getting the garbage chute working again, trying to figure out what six legged bugs ended up in one of the isolation rooms, etc etc but there’s really nothing for me to do except read fanfic, work on Tarot for Atheists and drink cocoa.

Today I have to call one of the companies I have investments with and ask them why I’m being placed on a waiting list to sell their crappy fund.

Still waiting to hear back from Westcoast Guitars about Edith’s repair charge. I have an estimate but you never know what you’re going to get. She got smushed at Mike’s place, prob’ly when he was moving stuff around when the windows got redone, so he has very kindly agreed to pay for the repair.

I think I’m going to put reflector tape on the umbrella I’m using, if I can get get Jeff’s permission, since I think it’s his umbrella.

NOTHING BUT RAIN RAIN RAIN smashing all the records.