Category: Writing

10863 is the count

Anyhooverville, today is a walk to Planet Bachelor to feed Ayesha.

I have already rehearsed When I Go.  FUCK THAT SONG IS HARD sHE DID IT ON PURPOSE THE SLIPPERY jackanapes.  Dave Carter, who was a woman and died before she could come so. I perform on this mourning moon a keun-jeol for Dave Carter, but it’s kinda virtual, so please understand.

In the allowing myself to feel sad I can go back and write the isolation that is hounding all of my lead characters in various ways.  Will they ever be a krewe again and will it ever be the krewe it was before? The answer depends on what more of yourself you will bring this time.

Today’s affirmation: Organization makes the impossible possible.

It shows worms and flies chasing away a chicken, who is shall we say nonplussed.

Back to work, trying hard to make wordcount by noon.

 

current count 9714 plus miscellany

Sweetie and Michel are communing in Raven’s side yard.  Michel’s distributing new phones, or so he says.  What is his REAL purpose in coming, we wonders we wonders.

Once again Buster did not turn up for breakfast, and I surveyed the backyard around 7:30 am and said, “He’s got himself locked in a garage again.” He turned up like a bolt of lightning at 8:23… hm.

I am too old to go out and see live music and drink beer, except for this inner demon that says, NO UR NOT. Jeff administered a very light mocking, as well he should, when I scarcely ate or emerged from my room yesterday.  Hey, I lasted the whole show, but I paid for it.  And we transited, too, like responsible adulties.

Donated to Wikimedia so the next time you go to wikipedia don’t all thank me at once.  You might think about making a donation yerself, yanno.

Rubik’s Cube record now stands at 4.904 seconds, for those of you who deride the mad skillz of the new generation.  I never solved a Rubik’s Cube in my life, but I can appreciate the cognitive challenge from a distance sufficient enough that I don’t have to smell the room full of competitors.  It’s like listening to a Catholic choir, or admiring a mandala.

THIS IS VERY HOT, but extremely cool.

This is something I’m adding to my pile of YES SIRREE BOB my aliens CAN SO be rapidly vibrating stacks of subatomic flapjacks.  BEST PULL QUOTE Sebastiano Peotta “If our predictions are verified, common sense will suffer a big blow, but I am fine with that.” Of course my aliens use fermionic memory, since the carrying capacity is so ‘uge.

World’s easiest prediction – the more we get into superconductivity the weirder and weirder and weirder our understanding of subatomic particles will become.  At different scales, it will appear that the laws of physics are running backwards (they aren’t…. we need new laws.) As a epistemologically nihilistic anarchist libertarian feminist, I’m usually against passing new laws, but it’s becoming increasingly obvious that physics is close to smashing itself against a very weird, inherently complex and potentially extremely profitable paradigm shift.  Or not.  I love making useless predictions.  It’s easy, I could do it all day.  Oh yeah, I’m trying to turn myself into a science fiction writer.  LA LALA LALA LA!  More research? More research!

Back to the salt mines.  Next stop George gets a grip.

 

 

word count 7953

Yeah not much but it was an Alex day.  Being with him and everyone else in our little family and then going for a walk was about as much excitement as this body could stand.  Moar today I hope.

I may see live music tonight, we’ll see how it goes.

He’s a wonderful little boy.  I wanted so badly to take video of him running around the house like a little grinning mad naked thing with his diaper in his hand, with his momma frowning at him to get him to put it in the diaper bucket.  (He obliged.)  He’s 13 months old.  Not quite running, and certainly never in a straight line.  Also one hand on weiner one hand waving while running around, extremely funny.  Keith laughed until he choked. He and Alex and Paul and Katie and I played catch the kid.  Alex doesn’t scream with laughter, he grunts ecstatically and grins his face off.

It’s better when we see Alex in his own house. Dax was working (and it was an awesome day to be outside, so better than raining.)

Paul’s off to Seattle.

Gonna be an el niño year.  The last time the ocean looked like this we got a meter and a half of snow the week between Chrismas and New Year in 1997, but they are saying it won’t happen this year and we’ll have a warm relatively dry winter.

I would like to believe it.  If we get a pineapple express crashing into an arctic outflow situation we’ll get punishing amounts of snow all at once.  We need the snow pack for drinking water, tourism and farmers. FINGERS CROSSED.

We’re going to start a family buying coop.  More details later.

Buster bunked in with me

Very strange.  He’s an extremely physical cat and as warm as a heater – he’s extraordinarily hot, actually, Jeff and I have commented on this many times.  Margot bunks in with me once in a blue moon too, it’s nice for a change.  Mostly she’s in with Jeff.

Word count is 7813.

This third novel is proceeding well…not in the direction I’d planned.  O well.

 

CARNAGE

Buster brought in 4 RATS yesterday, laying them all out in a row downstairs.  He’s killing them all so Jeff doesn’t have to deal with rats which have died in locales where they are like to rot or little bits’o rat everywhere, just secure tail and trash.

THE HEATER IS NOT BROKE.  It merely has an absurdly sensitive orientation sensor and Buster probably knocked it off its flatness while jumping down from my desk.  Everything a-ok there.

Took a walk down to get cream yesterday morning.  It was a crisp crisp morning so I wore the mitts my mOm knitted for Katie that I somehow ended up with and the cute animé hat Keith got me a couple of years back.

Later I went to the interview.  It’s always interesting seeing myself and all my imperfections as a potential employee reflected through someone else.  The poor little gal who interviewed me.  I hope my pity for her didn’t show.  She’s probably just barely making a living at what she’s doing, but she was wearing a thousand dollars’ worth of clothing and a freaking expensive watch and had the coldest, limpest handshake I’ve shared in probably years. I thought that when she shook my hand it was probably the first time her hand had felt warm since the last interview.  Stupidly big office, in one of the industrial/office complexes on Still Creek. The entire courtyard had so much bird shit in it I felt ill walking through it and you all know me as being somebody who can deal with disgusting with fewer collywobbles than most socialized women. Drove away thinking what an incredible waste of time it was, but I’m still going to send her my references.

Then got beer and various foodicles, why not, it was on my way home.

Then we caught up on the Librarians and Robot Chicken, etc.

I have no idea what will happen to my writing energy if I get a job.  We’ll see. I know I can work and write, but it needs a ‘specially calm kind of job to allow me to think about stuff and write.

Jeff is awesome.  He has been helping me with technology (backups), when he’s not trying to pull info out of third parties and disposing of rats.

Word count over 7000 as of today.

Tomorrow the bday party for Katie. I already got her her present, and I’m not talking about it in a public forum, but most of my friends already know and so my expression of precarious and secretive amusement is thus explained.

Heater’s dead

The little heater I bought (20 bucks) to warm my room has burnt out already. I will ask Jeff to look at it but it is probably DED. Sigh. I didn’t notice until just now, but I think it must have quit a couple of days ago, my room has been FREEZING.

Yesterday Paul called (woke me from a sound sleep at 2 pm) and said the weather is shit but it should stop raining for the next 1.5 hours so we went to Oakalla.  Twice stuff snapped off trees and fell close to us but no harm done and then he feasted me at India Bombay Bistro where I had OKRA and chicken vindaloo. (They have an okra dish that is so good Paul and I had no difficulty polishing it off.  Kingfisher beers to round off the meal, and then Paul had to drop me home so he could go off and fetch Keith who was just back from Victoria.

Word count now stands at 6310. So not exactly a big day yesterday, but satisfactory.

I should take a walk and get cream for coffee at some point this morning.  I think we’re going to take a walk in the rain (in the novel.)

Current count 5813

What an amazing 57th birthday I had!!

I ate a meal I didn’t cook for brekky (left over Desi Turka chicken tikka masala with rice pulao), I ate a meal I didn’t cook for lunch, for Jeff feasted me at Switzerland Chicken, and I ate a meal I didn’t cook for dinner, as Mike feasted me with pan fried oysters and new potatoes.

We watched all the rest of Black Sails more or less because we couldn’t help ourselves.  Then I watched the season 3 teaser trailer just to drive myself nuts; god willing and the crick don’t rise I’ll have more in January around Conflikt time.

I brushed and degunked Margot and avoided being killed on the stairs by Buster.  My rapid increase in wordcount you can tell for yourself and I shipped off some new stuff to mOm.

I got phone calls wishing me a happy birthday from Mike, Katie, my mOm and ewishes from Patricia and DJD. Absolutely nobody on facebook wished me a happy birthday.  258 facebook friends and you get a prompt for friends’ birthdays, but not a sausage (hey I needed the message about social media not being as important as my flesh and blood friends…)

I slept over at Mike’s so we had just enough to drink to be festive but not to drive, and I do not feel muzzy headed this morning so I think I titrated the dose properly.  ASBACK BRANDY BE GREAT YO. Tecate Beer tastes like a man complaining of an unhappy marriage.  I shall not drink that beer again. I even wrote 185 more words last night while I was here.  It was a particularly writing sort of day.

I got prezzies! A foot soaker tub and a headrest pillow for air travel.  SO HAPPY and so very unexpected, but I’m not too old to appreciate it.

I wrote a letter to my MP and ran a load of laundry and backed up my documents.

am I not awesome!?

Lots of writing yummy food and yes I know I am a big kid. And we’ll feast again on Katie’s bday on Friday, yay!

Weather’s the pits and the wind’s going to come up but I’m snug where I am and it’s wonderful. Vitamin D and probiotics make me a better person.

 

OH AND ONE LAST THING. I have an interview with a job agency on Wednesday.  Just came right out of the blue.  Isn’t that a perfect thing to happen on my birthday?  Nothing likely will come of it but you never know, and I got all those nice new work clothes from EShakti, and nicer bras and underwear too over the last six months so if I DID get a job I wouldn’t be going O M F G what do I wear tomorrow. So really, a spectacular day.

While I’m all bubbly and babbly….

TOBY STEPHENS PULLS HIS BEARD AND IT MAKES ME HAPPY gratuitous Black Sails reference. Especially since it’s really his beard, and did you know he’s Maggie Smith’s younger son, and married to that Plowman actress who played Sarah/Osiris for 4 seasons on SG1?  Screw Kevin Bacon SG1 is where the connections really fly.

Deadwood of the Caribbean

Higher body count and more cannons but you get the general idea. That’s Black Sails, which I heart so much only the prospect of there being two more seasons is preventing me from panicking about there only being 2 or 3 more episodes from season 2 before it runs out.  I honestly want to go straight to Jeff’s door, bang on it and say IT IS MY BIRTHDAY I want to BINGE WATCH THE REST RIGHT NOW. He’d probably agree though, and then what? We have nothing awesome in prospect right now except mopping up on seasons 6 and 7 of The West Wing.

Current word count 4379. Things are a little smoother after a rocky start. Glykeria has arrived at Raven’s door.

I have applied for ISBN numbers for my ebook editions of the novels.  Two weeks to wait.

Getting irritable over no Alex except for two seconds when I went to meet his momma at London Drugs and he was asleep.

Weather here is damp and nasty.

Margot got her Sunday dinner last night (I wait right until 6 pm to give it to her) and she SANG FOR HER SUPPER which was three anxious little merps – she can’t actually mew since she had the surgery. Then she stuffed her face in the dish and ate like she had no expectation of ever receiving food again from anyone.  Every time she slowed down, she’d back away with that funny little caterpiggle in reverse movement, pause, and then she’d jam her little face in like a front end loader and scarf again until she ran out of breath.  I watched her eat, it was a tender combination of hilarious and sad.

So many of my friends are having pets die and animals put down right now the Rainbow Bridge is getting crowded. Love your people critters and your fur critters as hard as you can!

word count at 3650

I am following along with Raven, who is living alone on Saltspring in a rented cottage, and Pharos, who is attempting to do a podcast while his little brother messes things up at random, and Theo, who is trying to understand how humans do medicine.

The writing is going reasonably well, not as voluminous as one would like of course, but that’s hard to manage all the time.  Sometimes the writing seizes you like this, but mostly it doesn’t.

Wrenchingly sad about Paris, but not enough to drape my blog with red white and blue.

 

Beautiful evening

3381 words so far

Mike took me to Horizons restaurant for an early birthday dinner.  I had arctic char and the chewiest – and I mean chewiest – brussel sprouts I hadn’t actually picked myself.  The waiter took them off the bill (sides are extra).

Anyway I’m back at home after breakfast at Amelia’s.

I am feeling very good.  Mike and I played and sang for a while this morning, and I recommend it as a way to start the day.

I was horrified and saddened and filled with the desire to be kind and compassionate and generous in response to the Paris attacks.  Life on earth is uncertain and never long enough. Love each other while you can.

 

 

Black Sails

Black Sails Season 1 overview (no spoilers).

1. Like other historical and pseudohistorical shows, dialogue is a blend of the high-toned and the many bad swearz low-brow. Both have their charms.
2. Costumes are not 100 % but close enough that you won’t want to kill the designer. Guys look good with open shirts and neckerchiefs, okay?
3. Anne Bonney is played by a tiny little woman with a deep, deep voice (Clara Paget). Heart. Who has a BDSM relationship with her partner. Yeah.
4. SO TIRED OF THE MAGICAL NEGRO CHARACTER. I mean no disparagement to Hakeem Kae-Kazim, classically trained Old Vic actor, but it’s a one note character so far (must repay the woman who taught him to read even if her plots etc etc) although they do manage to subvert the ‘I will suck up anything as your faithful family retainer’ meme a teeny bit.
5. SO TIRED OF THE MAGICAL WHORE CHARACTER. But DAMN she is hot, and Canadian. So. She ain’t Inara but she’s mesmerizing.
6. Despite this show being Long John Silver’s backstory (yup!) there are long stretches when he doesn’t appear. When he does appear, he prods the plot along like Satan himself. And he’s played by a fresh faced Australian lad who’s also quite cute.
7. They save it until later episodes, but there is peen.
8. Don’t even try to predict what will happen next.
9. Scenes of pirates putting in their false crazy teeth before a fight heart heart heart.
10. REALLY REALLY AMAZING FIGHTING SAIL SCENES. Like the best ever shown in a tv show. If you like Patrick O’Brian you may enjoy the show just for that.
11. Guns misfire. BWA HA HA HA HA !
12. Ship’s kitty! d’awwww
13. Ew, 17th century medical procedures.
14. As previously mentioned, somewhat period instruments orchestrated by Bear McCreary for your musical pleasure.
15. And otherwise, very evocative and clever sound design.
16. If you can go longer than 15 seconds without thinking that Hannah New playing Elinor Guthrie (previously she was the Princess from Maleficent) is actually a smarter and nicer version of Cersei Lannister, you’re a better person than I am.

 

Also 310 words yesterday.  Something very weird happened and now I am wrassling with my characters for control.

Clouds

Check it out. I remember the time mOm and I saw a wide assortment of lenticular clouds, including the classic porthole UFO and airship models….

We’re gonna have a wet winter…. I can feel it coming on.

Word count was 650 yesterday on the new novel.  I promptly took a wrong turn.  I may have to rip it all out like a lousy knitter. Word count each day until it’s done is 603 – that will get me finished for the 1st of April next year.  I nearly clarned Keith when he said, “How apropos.” OR I could tell myself word count is 4400 words a week and not worry too much about when I do it.  Somehow I think writing every day is better, but I cannot really understand why that is.

Keith came over last night and I sprang for Chinese food from Spring Garden, our restaurant since Chong Lum Hin closed (still not happy about this).  I also just learned that Roundhouse Pizza, reliably the best ‘za in the ‘hood, has closed. VERY VERY SAD. Must find replacement, and that will not be easy because it’s all institutional crap like Domino’s BARF and Panago DOUBLE BARF.

Anyway all of the food was delicious, but the man who delivered the food was so cheerful he literally put a scare into all three of us. I wish I was kidding.

Today I’m having lunch with Sue at IHOP and having thinky thoughts about remembrance.