September 3/0 words
I can't say I know what happened to the last two days of this break. I know there was a stage performance of 110° in the Shade—so appropriate for the weather yesterday. There's been the part where I melt whenever I leave the house, and can't breathe due to the stifling heat build-up in the car. Even with the windows and doors open!
I can't imagine being without a/c.
I remember the shorter-than-usual evening mass where the a/c malfunctioned, and even though set to work, didn't. So yes. Five hundred or so people set in a church oven. Bake. No wonder mass zipped.
I worked, slaved, worked on my kids-on-an-asteroid story. Trim. Cut. Rewrite bits to make the action center more about Maia and less about her little sister. I can't say I nailed the title or the last line for sure, but I tried, dammit. Tried, tried, tried. And then I sent it to Jim Baen's Universe since one of the slush readers told me to send whatever I want. Right after saying that the first thing I'd sent was too dark, so that limited what else I'd send. And no, apparently, I don't have many happy, cheery little stories in me. Who knew?
I've got plans to send one more out. It's not as though it's the best-paying market, but I think Cabinet des Fées could very well be a good marketing match for "Paper Crane".
I'm not thinking much beyond that.
Well, except for the part where the Spousling decided to regrout the kitchen counter tiles, used his Dremel saw and diamond-tipped drill bit, and there is a white coating of pulverized grout on everything: floors, all elevated horizontal surfaces, and perpendicular cabinetry. It grinds beneath my fingertips whenever I touch anything.
So, yes. Cleaning everything, twice or thrice over, is also on the list.
The remodeling continues. We have the shower box tarred and mudded in. Tilework begins tomorrow. I can't wait to see how it looks when I get home from school.
School is school. I've adapted to this schedule; I'm rather dreading the switch to full day in October.
This issue of Ideomancer is a wrap, and I'm moving to the small backlog of rewrites. One down, two to go. It's a never-ending cycle.
Thankfully, there was this weekend, which means I've slept longer and rested up for the rest of the month. Go me.
September 8/0 words
And another week flashes past.
I'm catching up, despite school, despite bathroom remodel (current status: Do not enter; tiles are placed but not grouted. It makes the 90º leap into my closet a tad difficult. Why don't they give medals for these feats?) and surprise visitors who appear on my couches overnight with increasing regularity.
Sometimes I even know them.
The kitchen is regrouted and usable, to my relief, and in need of a good scrubbing. Later. For lo, I have just scrubbed the hell out of my '92 chariot, which subsequently vanished into what is laughingly considered the LA freeway system, and lo, I am not the driver enjoying the cleanliness. No, it is the Slug.
Checklist thus far:
Slush
clean car
clean kitchen
repair fitted sheet which suddenly failed for no reason, although Harley's toes are wanted as suspects
exercise dog (e.g. bring over the 5-month puppy that is his size like we did last night.)
laundry
mourn the lack of my laptop adaptor (To Be Repeated at Appropriate Moments)
shake fist at adaptor carrier who is sending replacement by ground, and it is not here yet. (TBRaAM)
and a bunch more.
Is it time for bed yet?
Two stories out this week, one back. Somehow I think I haven't trimmed quite enough from my asteroid story. Or I'm trying the wrong markets entirely. Hates this, I does. Flinging stories at market walls to see what, if anything, sticks. But the latest goal is to trim the story down another 1K, and see if that helps. If nothing else, it will give me another market or two.
Singing stuff is progressing. I have finally managed to open my throat completely, and am working diligently on making that habitual and natural. Then I'll work on getting the vowels clear without the throat rushing to help do whatever it thinks it must. All these years of having the throat manage everything I produced vocally, and here I am fighting that training. Repeatedly. Just when I think I've managed one hurdle, I find two more.
But that's what learning is for, right?
I've been searching for lampwork again. Not that I should. Not that I need it, exactly. But I want some more. Even if I should be saving for the trip next summer.
For I am going to Ireland. Yay! It's with my choirs, so it's billed as a spiritual journey, which is will be, for I'm sure I can work in the Guinness cathedral. There will be perfomances, for both choirs, although I'm not certain what venues yet, nor if the venues are the same for both large and small choirs. There's another CD coming up, for we've got the .mp3 for one song we'll do on it. I'm sure we're doing two or three, like always. But that's fun, because it means another trip to the recording studio and pretending we're professionals.
But yay for a trip to Ireland, combined, hopefully, with a short trip to London, and maybe a jaunt to Wales.
September 9/0 words
It's been an unrestful weekend, despite the time I had to sit at the computer. Last night culminated in a new family event, which was fun, just later than I'd planned for. We had company over for dinner, and then, due completely to the wonders of technology, watched Brothers, Where Art Thou?. Outside. While sitting on the far side of the pool, firepit blazing.
Slug had borrowed a friend's projector and set up the DVD player there. The movie played on the bare side of the house. (Bare, if you recall, because of that day when the entire façade of greenery got tired of holding onto the house by its teeny tiny fingertips and fell into the pool.) There are no windows worth mentioning on that length of the house, other than two very small bathroom windows, and she set the size to run between chimney and windows.
Sadly, there were no cars on the hill behind us, because shades of my childhood, drive-in theaters, and popcorn.
Oh, and no popcorn, either. We made do with ice cream and chocolate hazelnut spread. Yum. I will never return to chocolate syrup.
So yes, a cool and thoroughly repeatable experience. I foresee a projector in our life.
My adaptor arrives today. Supposedly. In this time of tile promises that turn out to be lies, I find it difficult to trust in deliveries.
I'm also getting honking tired of walking on brown paper wrap in the trail that traverses the space between the front door and the bathroom. You try walking on the stuff and not setting off the crinkling paper alarm! Then add a medium-sized dog on four legs. It's damn disconcerting in the middle of the night when Harley rustle-thumps upstairs or down.
Although, perhaps that will change today. And the miracle of the appearing tiles will take place in my bathroom and they will, somehow!, manage to grout the floor tiles.
That particular step hasn't happened because it's not a full-day job, and won't be until the tiles manage to walk themselves to my house. Or kidnap a deliveryman.
And now, off to face the ravening hordes of kinders.
Surely, it's time for a vacation already, right?
September 12/300 words
Woo! The laptop has an adaptor, and yes! It's charged and functional. So I sat down (after some internal debate, which runs something like:
Head: You haven't written yet.
Split self: I know.
H: You should.
SS: I know. H: Well, are you going to?
SS: Yes. Now shut up and leave me alone.
H: When?
SS: Soon. Leave! Me! Alone!
H: You won't do it.
SS: I will! Leave me the frick alone!
*interrupted by child*: Mom, can I use your laptop?
Me: No, use this computer. I'm going to write.)
and wrote! Three hundred words on a new story.
Yes, I know new words aren't rewriting. Oh, well. I wrote.
In present tense. With, for me, a very apparent narrator. Eesh.
About buttonholes.
Don't ask.
I don't have an outline. I'm just writing and seeing where it takes me.
If you don't follow my LJ journal, you haven't seen the link to my currently-in-construction bathroom. Clicky-vous here. It's starting to look like the real thing! (Yes, I'm excited. Especially since everything in the Spousling's closet is in our bedroom, rather than in the closet. The crew need the space to work on the tub, and there was painting and plastering.)
Lately, when I get home from school, I discover that surprising things have happened while I was gone. Monday, it was the underground drainpipes and the clipped electrical conduit, although the middle child survived the latter. Cheerfully, I might add.
Yesterday, I arrived home to find the guys outside again. This time, with two missing trees on the hillside. The trees (both pines and subject to either the stresses of water lack or infestation or disease) had died over the winter. And now they're gone.
Including the one that hung over the pool area and dropped needles twelve months out of twelve.
I am happy.
Now if only they would dig that humongous trench from the electrical box to the pool equipment and get someone out to replace that conduit. *sigh*
I tell you, I won't be the one in the extra-long snorkel scrubbing the bottom of the pool by hand.
September 22/900 words
I've been missing in action due to a combination of things: exhaustion, visiting children and guests and while I was quite happy to see them all arrive, I will be equally happy to see them go now, and cleaning. Lots of cleaning. Last weekend was all the spiders and spiderwebs in the world, since the little beasts had declared Halloween early in the family room. A thorough vacuuming of the walls and ceiling, and I should be good for a week or two.
This week may be more of the same in the living room, and I would never have guessed vacuuming walls could take so much out of you. (Let's not get into the question of who else besides me vacuums walls and ceilings. I'm sure we're a rare breed.)
Despite the work, I've managed to eke out another 900 words on the buttonhole story. M. Rickart and I had some conversation over this potential story at Wiscon. I've jumped into this story not knowing what would happen, just trusted that I could find a story and began.
So far it's working, although I'm having some worries about raising the stakes high enough for my protag, and then wondering how the hell it's going to resolve.
*crosses legs, lifts hands and presses thumbs to middle fingers* Oooooohm. Oooooohm.
Right. It's all about trust.
Geeze, I hope so.
This week, I believe I've discovered a student in my class who's been watching too much CSI. The dollhouse has one room filled with prone, plastic bodies in neat rows. I'm referring to it as the morgue. I suppose it could be that he just ran out of beds, but I prefer my explanation.
There's been more keeping up with the Ideomancer rewrites the last two weeks, which makes me happy. I'm still plodding through stuff, though, and trying to not think about what I'll be missing at WFC. It's so sad....
The eldest will be returning this weekend, perhaps for a bit, as he tries to figure out what he's going to do next. He's waiting to hear about a part-time job here with the Scouts, and longing for a return to Maryland for ski patrol. I'm hoping the latter dies a slow death due to a lack of funds. And that he finally realizes that money can be good in terms of security. The other two seem to have learned this lesson, despite the bitching that goes on when they have to leave for work.
Meanwhile, there is Zoe. The beast that noses my shoulder as I sit in my chair here, and looks hopefully at me from those lovely blue eyes.
She is not missing the eldest quite so much this time. At least, she's not sitting on living room sofa standing guard over the window and any approaches via the street.
She's used to a lot more exercise, but it's raining. Or going to. So I'm not taking her out.
The tilers are supposed to visit us again (since nothing has happened since the photos a while ago) and they're late. I'm wondering if they're even going to make it on a rainy day? And are those tiles really in? Really?
I have no trust in tile manufacturers or their shipment days any longer.
Mostly, I'd love to crawl back in to bed (the exact one I left less than an hour and a half ago) and snooze. Tile peoples make that impossible.
So, I will clean the bathroom.
Somehow, that just doesn't seem fair.
September 29/300 words
Years ago, when I first started writing and managed to get myself invited into the Sock Monkeys (along with Charlie Finlay, Keri Arthur, Karin Lowachee, snagy, sperry, and a few more writers), the Spousling gave me two Sock Monkeys. Handmade. 20" tall.
They sit atop the mirror over my dresser.
Every so often, they move. They've been friends, sitting side by side with arms wrapped about each other, and I've found them balanced in obvious sexual positions. They're usually representative of some aspect of my marriage.
Yesterday.
The middle child called something suspicious to his father and I headed upstairs to check.
The Spousling had been playing again.
I now have two Sock Monkeys handcuffed together by the neck.
And there is no key.
*******************
In this day and age, one usually doesn't consider hermit as a career choice.
Until now.
Diocesan hermits! And one of my closest friends from college (and one of the eldest's godmothers; trust me there's a reason he has two) has swelled the ranks, taking her perpetual profession a few weeks ago.
She's got a wonderful entry on being 'heart smart' in her blog this week. It's definitely covering Christian beliefs, but much of the intrinsic concept is applicable to anyone, I feel, if you're curious.
