All contents copyright 2004 by C.J. Cherryh
Last update: 06/06/2005
Date: 01/10/04..................................127,499. Finished! The title is Destroyer, and I have a good clear vision of how the next book starts and proceeds. So this segment of the journal will be archived, and you will see a button appear tomorrow that will take you back to this entry and others. I am officially starting on the next book today. so you will get two entries for today, this one, and the one in archive, because of the new book. I was lucky enough to get a same-day appointment for two of us to go down and get new glasses prescriptions, and I will take off to go do that, which both of us have been needing to do for some time. The original title for the book was indeed messenger, which would be appropriate, too, but it suddenly dawned on me that the rhythm didn't fit the recent sequence of titles, and I just wasn't satisfied with it. So Destroyer it is. And Finis!
Date: 01/10/04.....................................500. Isn't that a come-down? All that white space yet to go. But I know exactly where we begin, and what we have to do, and I'm quite happy with the ending that finally, different than my first version of the ending, wrote itself. So we start with a new book, as yet untitled, and we begin all over again on a day of above-freezing weather, with everything rather soggy, with blue-streaked skies. We're off to the optometrist this afternoon to see if we can get a better prescription, since I've been going berserk trying to focus on the tax accounts. But I got them done! I am ready now to prepare my own taxes to send off to the accountant just as soon as all the extraneous W-this and W-that's come in. I feel so virtuous I'm disgusted. But off we go, slush and all.
Date: 01/11/04....................................4955. Now there's a cheat---I inserted the outline for the next book, and did a little further outlining, which is what I may do for the next few days. Writing for me is a process of inflation, conflation, and deflation---first, expand the outline, then conflate---join up the miscellaneous bits that ought to be in, but that have been languishing in small tags and files, then start deflating the outline by actually producing text and erasing the bits that are done and handled. This process helps battle redundancy. I have a sort of a rule that a scene to be worth doing has to do three things, any three things, but three things, all the same, and this helps me combine purposes. Writers that have begun writing novels after books began to hit 120,000 words never had to cope with the 80,000 word limit, which, let me assure you, was a difficult limit, to get in everything you need and still have room enough to do an artistic piece of writing. It was good discipline. It did produce good, tight books. And if I'm going to take more room to tell a story, I do feel that I shouldn't have monopurpose scenes any more than I ever did. It just feels 'thin' otherwise. So this is my organizational phase. I have an opening scene. I know where all my principals are located. And now the real work starts. There isn't often a whole lot of word-count at the beginning, or if there is, it's subject to being erased wholesale. But there is a lot of thinking....And I have great hopes that the new vision prescription will make life easier: one lens is a blur, which isn't helping my concentration at all, and which is giving me a headache. I decided to try Eyemasters, in the mall, and we both went, both of us having problems, and being due for the annual vision check---so off we went, both securing an appointment on the very day we called, which was one piece of luck---no waiting three weeks for an appointment. And the optometrist was professional, up to date, had all the good equipment, and knew what he was doing with a prismatic correction, which is not easy to get right. Then we went and got glasses next door, which are due to be ready today, since they prepare the lenses on the spot, no two-more-weeks for preparation, shipping, and fitting. I'll tell you, I was a little dubious about going to a mall, but this has been stellar so far. Now we'll see if the lenses turn out as good as they ought...The peasoup fog is persisting, but lifting a bit. At least it isn't freezing fog, by about one degree Fahrenheit. Good idea to watch the big bridges. As for Destroyer, though I'm happy with the ending, I'll let it lie a while to make sure I continue to be happy with it. We need a reading trip, but it is such difficult weather, we don't think we're going to be able to manage it. We were going to Rustycon over in Tacoma, but this is now all but canceled, because of the computer glitch that threw us so far behind, and because of the hazardous weather. We'll drive through incredible stuff, and can, if it happens to us on the road, but we have a prime rule against starting out from home when we know there's a risk of getting into bad stuff. It's just a safety thing.
Date: 01/12/04...............................5222. A little more thinking, a little more note-taking. This journal has drawn no few letters from people who want me to tell them the secret of writing. Alas, I have to tell you, there is no secret, just what you see here: plant one's backside in a chair daily, at the computer or with a tablet and pencil---pencil, because fiction writing in indelible ink is just too self-confident. Erasure is as important as setting thoughts down. You see how I make progress, a bit at a time, sometimes not at all, but every day I make physical contact with my work. I turn on the telly to give me white noise, I park in my chair by the window, and I write...I write good stuff. I write bad stuff. I write anything. When I can't write any more I stop and do something else. Back when I was a fulltime teacher, I got home, got a sandwich, sat down at my computer, and wrote all evening. Now I write in the mornings and watch telly like most people in the evenings, or play the odd video game. The key is: I sit down at the computer. Daily. Even on holidays. I am also not afraid to go to the store or take a break when I'm written-out for the day. I cook, I clean, I do ordinary things. I have a life. I used to cope with 300 highschool students a day and come home and write because....here's the key...I enjoy writing. And people will find a way to do what they enjoy doing. So my best advice is: don't quit your day job, don't stop living while you write, and then there are the do's: accept unusual experiences gladly, enjoy your writing, take pleasure in it, and take all the time you need. A book is as long as it needs to be. I can't recommend any courses or any books on writing, except to read good books and annotate one---write in the margins (which is what margins used to be for) exactly the point at which you became aware of certain things, where you met certain notions, and then collect those margin notes and look at the pacing, the divisions into chapters, the hints, the revelations, and over all, do likewise. That's how I taught myself, besides just practice, practice, practice. "There are nine and twenty ways of composing tribal lays [poems] and each and every one of them is right." ...MacAuley. I made one of my rare mall forays yesterday, after the glasses, while we were waiting for the coating to be stripped off one of Jane's older pairs, and bought some really good makeup for the first time in 3 years, and then went out to dinner, had more of the bottle of wine than I ought, watched the Ice Skating Nationals, then hit the sack at 7pm and waked up at 9am. I feel absolutely splendid today, as if the whole world is sparkling---which it isn't: it's overcast and soggy, but that makes no difference. I think getting the book finished and getting the glasses so I can see, and spending a wee bit of self-indulgence cash---and maybe the first good night's sleep I've had in, oh, a month, is quite the thing.
Date: 01/.13/04................................5122. Write a bit, erase a bit, until what's left looks better. Did a little web research on technicals this morning, reminding myself of what I thought I knew about various topics. Days are cloudy but bright, though yesterday a short trip landed us in freezing fog, not my favorite winter weather phenomenon. Though not as bad as driving in a full-fledged ice storm---which nowadays I flat wouldn't do. But back in my stupid youth I did: I went 200 miles in an ice storm, in which I began using fuel like the space shuttle on launch, because my car was increasingly coated in the stuff and getting heavier and heavier---silly me, I never looked at the tires, which could have blown; and I couldn't refill the gas tank once I did find a station, because the lid was under a third of an inch of ice that nothing would penetrate---using a match to solve the problem was not something I was stupid enough to do; and when I finally got to my destination (on fumes) I had to use my feet to batter the driver's side door open because the door was now frozen completely over. Never do anything that stupid. Ever. Nowadays I just won't. Get a room, no matter what. Yesterday it was just a minor nuisance in a very small trip, but reminds us this winter still has teeth...the forecasters are saying we're done with snow, and I'd just read that when we ran into the freezing fog---so much for the forecasts...Anyway, Jane just battled the account reconciliations to a standstill and I get to go in and see if they give me some sort of reasonable numbers for the tax reports. It's fog again today, but a mild and misty-sunny fog, all that melting snow. It's a good time to have good boots.
Date: 01/14/04.................................5122. Did accounts yesterday, and Jane spent the whole day at it: And then more bank statements and papers came in. May we scream? ...Meanwhile I have added a few features to this page, an Archive access link for those of you who don't have Java script enabled, which was one request, and the other---no matter whether Jane or I enter the journals forward or in inverse order, someone writes us wanting the other format, so I hit on a third idea: use the bookmark at the top to get to the current entry. This may take a few days to iron out the bugs, since the things are invisible. But it should at least get you to a point where the day's entry is quicker to reach your screen, if you're in a hurry; otherwise, just mouse through at your leisure. I figured a bookmark would be a good idea, since I am starting this journal not 80,000 words into the process, but right at the beginning of a book, which means that the scroll-down method of finding the day's entry could become quite onorous. From other letter-writers I have had requests that when events happen that regard the previous book, eg, when I turn it in, and when I get information about it, I record that in this journal, too. I shall, so you will indeed get a window into the other process of writing as it happens. Last night, for instance, I told my publisher that I had actually finished the book. I haven't done anything about mailing it yet, because I want to be sure it's finished, but she now knows it exists...and that lets her begin to think about where she wants to put it, regarding her schedule...an important process over which I have no control whatsoever---that's her business... Weatherwise, it's another of our Misty Mountains days: a real thick fog at dawn, less so as the day warms. The creek is melted and flowing free again. But freezing fog yesterday advises us not to get too confident. The foam stuffing can now come out of the window, at least, and give me some fresh air, despite the 32F outside---I like having a window open, even in the winter.... Today is banking day; got to go turn in the tax forms at the bank; and since we've now eaten out two evening in a row and risked our diet, it's time for me to start cooking again, so I'd better be sure I have the necessaries. I hope to get some work done this morning, but the tax deadline is upon us, and I have to see to that first of all, plus find out what some of these forms mean and what I'm supposed to put in the blanks.
Date: 01/15/04....................................5444. Got to the bank, got the estimated tax mailed---today's the deadline, if you've forgotten your own---got all of that done, and called the accountant to straighten out the end-of-calendar-year....All of this, and then.....just to make life wonderful...recall that in our recently archived episode we had mailed two faulty hard drives back to Maxtor, and delayed a test on the 'old' middle-aged drive that sits in the 'new' computer, until Maxtor sends us back two drives we hope this time will be viable? Well, last night, in mid-operation in a file copy, the 'old' middle-aged drive reports 'unable to write to drive', when the drive in question is C. Groans from the gallery, at this point. And in the middle of tax prepartion, too. It hadn't failed totally. We used the housenet to back up the essential financial database, and then it seemed to resume working again, but this does not augur well. The only other drive on that computer is the still-useless SATA drive, which can be written to, but not booted---not until we get XP installed, and our copy of XP still has not arrived. I begin to agree with Jane, that these Very Large Drives are not all they're cracked up to be. Our one absolutely rock-solid drive is an antique 10-gig that's survived being moved dozens of times and still forms the reliable backup for our 'old' computer---for which, if you recall, we got a good 40-gig drive that checked out fine. So I'm about in a mood to go after another 40-gig---except that it's freezing rain out there, and I'm not fond of driving in that---not until the streets melt. So. Meanwhile we are only miles behind, and here this starts again.
Date: 01/16/04.................................6682. Started on the story itself. Moving well. Good start. Writing this would be easier without an 8 pound cat sitting on my arm. But I had been out of the house and out of Ysabel's sight for an hour, and she just has to be sure I have gotten back with no incidents. Had to do a grocery run. We're both on the Atkins diet, both dropped some pounds, and the only drawback is, a) it isn't cheap and b) it requires fresh stuff, more than not. But success is a great encouragement, and finding out you eat only half your restaurant dinner and have to doggy-bag the rest is a bit of an economic savings, too...we not only couldn't manage dessert if one was set in front of us---well, maybe, but we'd be royally sick if we ate it---we can't eat all the free munchies and then call for another bowl, and we can only eat half what's set before us, most times, which means we have dinner for tomorrow night, too. In this case, I'm going to do my favorite Angry Shrimp tonight, which involves...do you want the recipe? A little pasta, 3 tomatoes, frozen medium shrimp, basil, pinch of smoke flavoring, Thai Garlic Hot Sauce, chopped garlic, and olive oil. Cook shrimp in olive oil with scads of garlic, add flavorings except hot sauce, add two TBS of pre-done spaghetti sauce, cook until broth forms, then add three chopped tomatoes (Roma is best) add one TBS of Garlic Hot Sauce (more, if you're a masochist) whisk around the pan and serve over pasta. This ferocious concoction will cure the common cold. And I found some low-carb pasta at the store, so this means this dish is back on the menu again....We still haven't seen to our ailing computer drive: we're still hoping the replacement drives will come in, and spending a hundred dollars for a drive we don't absolutely need hurts---so we're just crossing our fingers and hoping it holds out until the two drives arrive. Been watching the old Robin of Sherwood tapes in the evening---those are special. Mostly we've been working and writing and doing accounts---we still have some figures to crunch---and some accounts to print off, and some forms to fill out, lots of forms to fill out. Last night the weather glass nearly emptied itself into the catch basin---it seems much more sensitive than the well-worn barometer my uncle gave me when I was eight. And whatever the actual numbers were on that front that rolled through, I could about point to every time I'd fallen off a horse (once), off a bike (countless) off a bridge (once) or down the stairs (several): aches and pains I've never had. Jane was complaining likewise. Then they say the thing hit the mountains, rolled back, and is currently camped over us again---but at least the pains have mostly left today---nothing like they were yesterday.
Date: 01/17/04.....................................7240. Going along quite nicely, close to a decision to turn in the manuscript, but not quite there yet. I want to be sure---this isn't because I can't make changes after turn-in, and changes will happen, but if I should make major changes, it become a several-way headache, because I have to print new pages, then trouble my editor to take out the old pages and put in the new ones, which is a hassle---and fraught with dangers. If the excision is not made cleanly, that leaves pages behind, or has the numbers 'off'. If that happens, the typesetters, who set exactly what they're given (except for their own typos) are apt to put in spurious pages, leave out a paragraph, or do other inventive things---if you check the hardbound special edition of 40,000 in Gehenna you will see, on a certain map page, my own typing header preserved, with original page number and the original title. Such things, along with the frantic phone call from England wondering where a certain page was, tend to be branded in memory. Consequently I'm hesitant to turn in anything until I'm relatively sure of the final format. I occasionally run across young writers who don't think they have to spell or paragraph or count their pages correctly, in the touchingly naive belief that the editor's job is to fix such things. No, no, no. This isn't the way the world works. The fewer possible glitching-places you can turn in, the better life will be, and the less likelihood that your book will come out with the chapters in scrambled order. So I wait to be sure.....Meanwhile the weather fronts have settled down, the wretched ache in my shoulder has departed, the weather-glass has subsided, and we're only moderately misty in the distance, down where the creek joins the river. Snow still coats the ground, and more may come down this weekend. For those of you in the extreme south, this is the season when you think you've spotted a wonderful parking place, and race to it, only to discover a snow mound the size of a small truck...The shrimp didn't happen last night, because I found a couple of peppers that had to be cooked or else, but tonight...tonight. And writing is going well. This is always a wonderful thing. Bren and company are always fun to write. I may, this evening, even do a little painting. I used to paint, as in, paint pictures; but nowadays my craft has gone to whimsy. My organizational sense tends to operate best when I have a lot of distinctive little boxes in which to store the little items that clutter my life, and getting boxes at craft stores and painting them in everything from vines to sailing ships satisfies both a practical and a relaxation purpose. I'm not a bad landscape painter. I can do creditable flowers. And if I have all these little boxes, I can remember pretty well what's in them without having to open them to search. They fit on the shelves that form the sound-barrier between my sleep and the kitchen cabinets of the late-roving neighbor next door. I lugged those monster ceiling-high bookcases from Oklahoma City, along with many things I should never have brought, but that wall of bookcases has proved a good thing. And when your living space is at a premium, organization is good.
Date: 01/18/04......................................8736. A good stretch of writing. Sometimes the scenes just happen and everyone wants to cooperate....It's snowing heavily out there, resurfacing our snow, which had gotten a bit tired. It's getting pretty again. Our streets still have high ridges of snow taking up one lane of 3, and while I was out at the bank the other day...well, one of the things you see hereabouts is lots of Really Big Pickup Trucks, which are fine for people who live or work up amongst the logging roads and need the big tires (although I'd readily challenge them with our little car, until it comes to pushing a plow blade) or who honestly have serious things to haul, like hay or machinery. The ones that get me riled are the attitudinal citydwellers who have them and can't handle them, don't know where their wheels are, or who think they're Entitled to more space on the road because they have a Big Truck. And worst of all are those who think they can drive right over obstacles that the rest of us respect. So what does this fellow think he can do? Change lanes in mid-block, across the snow ridge? He attacks it obliquely, gets one tire well into it, and spends the rest of the block trying pull his left front wheel back onto pavement. I enjoy a bit of slip-and-slide driving myself, but not, thank you, on a downtown city street at noon, where six other cars have to make room for this fellow's learning curve. Speaking of which, the roads down there, especially the hill, are starting to look interesting---at that midway condition between too warm for it to stick and just starting to be cold enough. I may delay my trip to the store today until there's a bit of a coating to hold to.
Date: 01/19/04.......................................9729. I hope the slant this scene has taken works. We'll see. Meanwhile, after a day of snow, it's been a day of fog, people stranded at our airport, first time that's ever happened. And after several nights of struggling to breathe and precious little sleep, yesterday I decided my bonsai had to go into exile. It's a warm weather tree, a little banyan from Madagascar, that I had tended and shaped all summer, but I foolishly left it next to the wnidow when we had the cold snap. Its upper leaves turned dark, its lower ones yellow and drooping overnight. I began to notice that my allergy becme worse whenever I sat near it, and it's normally right next to my working chair. So I exiled it to the closed back room. That brought an immediate improvement in my allergy. Well, this evening, after returning from the store, I started having a ferocious allergy attack, eyes tearing, nose running, the whole business, and I felt worse and worse, until I finally, in desperation, took some outdated allergy medicine that only half blunted the attack and left me feeling completely rotten. Finally I went down the hall and checked that door. Open. By then I'd taken medication that upset my stomach, I couldn't breathe, and I was wretchedly miserable. The bonsai has to go to the porch, where it will undoubtedly die of the cold, but at least it will have rainwater and a chance.
Date: 01/20/.04.............................9729. Up at 10 AM, because I got maybe three hours sleep last night, trying to breathe. Jane, bless her, got up and grabbed the bonsai out of the back room, scrubbed the pot with vinegar, washed trunk and leaves with the same, and stirred the soil at the roots, in hopes of saving the little tree. She put it again into the back room, and we are going to give it a try. Meanwhile her investigations in the kitchen turned up another problem: this last summer we stored three big water bottles on the top shelf of the cupboard, and one leaked, which flooded that shelf and the two below it., absolutely saturating them, and allowing swelling of the particle board. Now, wood is something I am quite allergic to, and wet wood is worse, but molded wood is desperately bad for both of us. Why mention this now? Well, she just took a look for alternate mold sources and found a problem in there. She, on the other hand, is allergic to Kilz, the white paint product that will seal a waterspot or mold area on a wall or other painted surface and eliminate it. She proposed waiting until just before we take a trip and painting that area. I know us, that just before a trip, the very last thing on our minds is emptying kitchen cabinets and painting shelves. So I volunteered: Kilz doesn't particularly bother me, and if we just wrap up in warm clothing on this at-least-above-34-degree day we can open the windows and balcony door. I haven't been troubled by allergies in a long time. And I don't intend to suffer from them. Kilz it is. I'll devote today to getting that cabinet painted and inoffensive. Because we have active mold on one shelf, we'll hold off painting that one on the bottom, but the Kilz above and directing a fan in there will dry that shelf in fairly short order---granted it's been wet for 5 months. Then we'll seal it completely. One of the nice things about our apartment has been that it's well-painted, and has been allergy-free. We intend to restore that condition, forthwith, and then we should both feel better. If I'm fuming up the apartment with the kitchen painting, I may well attack that dresser that I've been wanting to paint, and not painting because of Jane's allergy to that primer paint, which greatly resembles Kilz. I've got to go put on my painting clothes and get to work. Going to be a long, no writing day.
Date: 01/21/04.................................9729. Well, the theory of painting the cabinet shelves was good, except that they were saturated. It seems it wasn't the old leak: it was a new one, with two 5 gallon containers that emptied themselves on the top shelf and, fortunately, after passing through several shelves, ended up caught in my stowed pots and pans below, which kept it from getting the carpet. But the mold was worse than we'd thought, so we decided the only thing to do was rip out all the pantry shelves and replace them. Not too hard, give or take the cabinet is a pointed sort-of-rectangle with even the sides that look parallel not quite parallel at all. So we jury-rigged some shelves out of predone formica-covered shelving, and they work, if you force them a bit. And then we came to the pointy part, which would have been a snap if we'd had a table saw, but we couldn't beg or borrow one, and we finally decided just to put a retaining edge on the back of each shelf as is, and store tall things in the rear (point) of the pantry. We then restored all the things we'd taken out, threw out what's gotten too old, and have more space than before: I can't quite figure why, since we have about 3 square feet less shelf space. Cleaning seems to do that sort of magic. After struggling with that all day, I went for a haircut and what do you figure, but a waterpipe burst and people who'd been shampooed had to wait for a rinse. They ironed it out with fair speed, and it was no great inconvenience. I feel better, anyway. The air in the apartment is ever so much better. We're beginning to pack up the Christmas ornaments. And I've about decided to turn in the book. I'm hoping to get writing done tomorrow. Oh, dear, I heard a door creak in the hall---and both Jane and I are sitting in the living room. I think that's a cat. I think, to be precise, it's the Black Prince, who's ever so good at getting his paw into doors. I wonder what's in that closet, or whether it's simply the challenge that's intrigued him. Ysabel is suddenly right here by me, trying to look innocent. I'd better investigate.
Date: 01/22/04...........................10324. Modest progress, but we're still in cleanup. My old doctor used to say that there were two kinds of people in the universe: those who have allergies and those who don't believe they exist. Add to that the large number of people who don't have allergies but who think they understand the effects. I'm here to say that the effects are numerous, and we're very lucky Jane went on an allergen hunt, because we both do have allergies, and particularly molds, which are particularly subtle, variable and nasty in manifestation. For the last several months Jane has had a wretched shoulder pain and a backache; I've complained about a shoulder pain, and backache. We've had boxes to carry, and of course blamed our aches on that. We live in wheat country, and decaying wheat stalks produce a mold which could account for my slight eye-watering this last fall, and so on, and so on, plus insomnia, mysterious pains, and occasional days of glum mood. Well, well, well, we get the unfortunate bonsai moved out, we solve the kitchen mold problem, and within a day the aches have gone, the minds are alert, and eye and nose symptoms are going away. I haven't had a cold in years, and I'm hoping not to have one now, in the aftermath of the irritation. The air is fresh and clean again, and our brains are back on line. Mold is particularly bad about giving me a case of the mopes, just generic down mood and lack of energy. And Jane gets short-fused and out of sorts with the same mold in the air. Go figure. I'm going to back up our current efforts with an under-cabinet search to make we don't have any hidden plumbing leaks, just to be double sure. We've always done that periodically, but this place has been so clean prior to this that we've not had to worry about it. Disgusting stuff. Perfectly fine little organisms when making cheese or penicillin or such, but not friendly to human respiratory systems, not at all. That nasty black stuff that grows where water leaks has been driving human beings nuts for millennia, I'm quite sure, unless perhaps woodsmoke and soot in ancient houses helped keep it in abeyance. Certainly our modern sealed buildings with no smoke-coating, our pristine painted surfaces and particularly all our cabinets made of compacted sawdust and glue just seem to be the perfect growth medium, once water gets out of pipes and onto and into particle board. But we've got it fixed now---got more compacted sawdust shelves, though these are completely coated in formica, and should be a bit more resistant if we're so foolish as to let anything else leak in that pantry....The cat raid last night, by the way, was the Black Prince discovering a spare sack of cat food in the closet. It's not that we don't feed him. It's the thrill of the hunt. The exercise of kitty talents. Like a perfectly painted portrait---a skillful closet heist....The haircut was a success: translation---it looks much the same after the morning shower....And snow is forecast to move in tonight. Feels like it. So since the cold and damp are coming back---it had gotten all the way up to 38 degrees---I guess I'm not going to be able to attack the dresser-painting project. I'll just be glad to get the kitchen back in service.
Date: 01/23/04............................10853. Thinking, thinking, thinking. At least the brain is working again. The air is clean---and cold: it's been snowing most of the day and looks fair to continue snowing through the middle of next week. A local bookstore, Auntie's, wants me to come and autograph---and I'm set for March 2nd in the evening. So anyone who's in the area, I'll see you there. I spent all day long doing things I can't quite identify---oh, we did get the tree bundled back into its box, a two person job. We're both feeling ever so much better. I've still got cleaning to do, but at least I can see what I'm doing....Ysabel is disgusted with the chill in the apartment: she has her series of heat-sources: my bathroom heater, the fireplace---and she becomes a heat-magnet; but it's lovely outside, all done up with white trees and lots of mist. I'm beginning to feel as if I have a little energy for things now, and the book is beginning to find its legs like a newborn something-or-another. I know what pinnings it stands upon, at least, and begin to see how I can get from here to there. As with most days that are somewhat productive there's very little to report but a word count, which isn't that great, but they're important, direction-setting words...and if you ever wonder whether I know where a book is going---oh, I can tell you pretty well what happens in the middle, but I haven't a clue how they get there. Waiting for those brilliant notions to just fall out of a conversation between the characters or a door one of them chooses to open, or not, is occasionally nerve-wracking, because it's precisely at this stage that the rascals can throw me really hard curves. Oh, one will say, I'd never do what you planned. I'm not that stupid. Or another: I'm sorry, I just don't feel motivated to do that. Go back and provide me a reason. Or the rascals all sit in their rooms refusing to come out---hey, you worked us too hard yesterday; I have a headache. And the ultimate, when they all sit in the same room and think their own thoughts and everybody's too smart to make a move that might betray something... The real joys of writing.
Date: 01/24/04..........................10853. The day dawned white---one of those wet snows sticking to every twig and making the pine woods gorgeous. And we determined, after being up here in the nice cold for several years, that it was time we tried some of the local sports. We discussed skiing, Nordic, and otherwise; discussed snowshoeing, and where we could go, locally, which is quite close, but not quite so close as the city's ice rink down in the park, a very short drive away. Now, I have spent maybe 8 hours total in my entire life on ice skates, and Jane hasn't gotten on ice at all, though she's always wanted to. So we went downtown and arranged for lessons tomorrow morning. Stay tuned.
Date: 01/25/04..........................10853. We're still alive and nothing is broken. Actually, we think we had a great deal of fun. We showed up at the rink like two kids on Christmas morning, early, and waited for our instructor. Got the skates---rentals---got them on, and practiced standing up, which I haven't done, mind, in 40 years---thank you, Chris, and Lisa, and all my years-ago students for shoving me out onto the ice those few sessions and proving to me I wouldn't die---and Jane, who loves the sport with a great passion, never had been on the ice even once, having grown up, like me, in a warmer clime where rinks weren't convenient. At our local downtown rink, which is open air, though with a roof, the Zamboni had just resurfaced the ice, and I swear this has to be the only rental place on earth that sharpens the skates. I'd promised Jane the ice wouldn't be too slick---that the ice and skates together would have more the feel of concrete meeting street skates, which was the condition of the ice I'd met before. Not so. It was smooth and slick, a very cold morning after a very cold night, and a newly-polished surface, where even water that tracked outside onto the public area was freezing slick as fast as it got there. I want Jane to write her version of this, and you'll have to nudge her to do it in her journal: I wish she would, because I'd like to know what was going through her head. Say at least that even padding our pockets with spare socks and wallets, it took guts for a person who's absolutely never done this to go out there and do it, with fear of falling and waking up in hospital, but guts, too, because if you really love something, it's doubly hard to settle down to the reality of it and go through the new-born colt stage in front of God and some little kid who zips along like a bandit. We picked a Sunday morning when the ice was mostly vacant, And our instructor, Leslie, is a jewel. We wanted to stay longer than we did---but after a little over half an hour, we were suffering fine-muscle fatigue, one of those haven't-worked-that-set-in-years sort of fatigues that wouldn't re-steady after a quarter hour of rest. But it was a win.We didn't fall down. Came close a couple of times, and this rink has no rail, being mostly designed for hockey. But we didn't fall, and I actually achieved about 4 seconds of honest-to-God skating, meaning relaxed, balanced, and using both feet---before my legs began to shake and my fine control went. Jane, on her first ever venture, had the guts to cross center ice, and her feet were beginning to work. before she tired out. We were so happy with our venture we decided we wanted to do this, and practice, and we decided, well, we might get our own skates, which turned into an adventure that produced 1) a winter coat, 2) a plant stand and finally 3) ice skates we hadn't planned to buy, in a color (white) we'd rather not have had, but we discovered that mail-ordering skates, our other recourse, was pretty chancy, and if we bought them from the pro shop, they'd adjust the fit for us, which seemed a bonus. Amazing how very different the fit is: we both used the same size rental skate, but I ended up being comfortable and steady with a size larger, in a particular brand, and the brand that fitted her hurt my feet something awful, and vice versa. The place where we got them is yet another ice rink, one we hope will be a summer retreat, once we get our legs under us. Ice skating when the outside temperature climbs into the 90's would be a pleasure. The evening, sitting down, turned up soreness in really surprissing places, and a stitch in my back that required a heat-patch to unkink. And the new skates we acquired give us other second thoughts---we don't want to look like the person who shows up for the second-ever riding lesson with a 5000 dollar horse and a silver-trimmed saddle. So we may work with the rentals just a little longer, so we at least aren't a traffic hazard to the five-year-olds. Didn't get a bit of writing done, but satisfied two since-childhood ambitions.
Date: 01/26/04..........................10853. Well, we were going to go back to the rink today, but I doublechecked the chiropractic appointment and discovered it was today. Oops. It was somewhat snowing and icy, but we decided, hey, we'd better go. I'd pulled that stitch in my back, my one negative out of the skating,. So off we went, and the doc said no skating today or even tomorrow, after getting crunched into shape. So we decided, hey, a little uninterrupted work is good. Part of the work had better be on taxes, which have to get mailed, on answering a couple of time-critical correspondences---why does my stress level go up when I know I've got some little thing I could handle in two minutes lying on my desk unattended because it's got complications? It's a mental quirk I have, arranging a queue of things that have to be done, and when something comes in that has to violate that orderly queue, it gets postponed, and then I start feeling anxious about it. So I'd better attend to that before it becomes a crisis. And we'd better start tidying the apartment---a few days of visiting stores and unpacking items has presented us a wash of paper, sacks, bits, pieces, packing material, all of which has to be carted back down 3 flights of stairs. We need to get to the storeroom and get the back seat clear of Christmas items. And we need to hear from the Christmas tree people as to what we do now that the light-unit in the trunk has quit working. I think I know what the answer will be...frustration. But Jane, ever the optimist about such things, has written to them. I've got to download a virus protection for the latest nuisance---someone else trying to inflict his personal stress on the whole planet---and see if I can squeeze in some work on the manuscript. It was a wild and windy night, howling wind, and the temperature in the apartment, or at least in my room,reached 40 degrees yesterday evening, about bottom limit for the safety of our house plants, despite having the fire on and a heater going. Still, we're quite comfortable with the snows and the cold. The east coast is having a far rougher time, by what I see on the news. My sympathies to those of you living on the borderland between rain and snow, in particular, or those of you coping with door-high drifts. Ours at least comes down definitely snow, in 2 to 6 inch increments, and is perfectly navigable.
Date: 01/27/04..........................11812. At a certain point after getting a story going, it's time to go back to the beginning and tuck all the loose ends into place---rearranging place and time, making sure references match, all that sort of thing. It's like plotting a ship's course: be careful about the aim at the beginning, because a line extended from a slightly faulty beginning can mean a big error later. If you've tried writing, yourself, and you get stuck, go back to the beginning and make sure it's aimed where you think you're going, and that if you've painted yourself into a corner (forgive the mixed metaphors) you've checked those opening scenes to see if you can't solve certain problems by making reality a little different here. An example is the new writer with immense low spots in, say, the simple quest novel, who never realizes that the problem could be solved by moving the mountain on the map (the underlying assumptions) rather than writing three chapters getting there. Your free writing lesson for the day....Going to get a little work done today and then head downtown to the rink, to see if we can do better than lesson one---this time just a practice session. Jane and I have talked one another into using the new skates, and we're going to get a season pass to the ice, which is only 29.00: you can't get a season pass to anything that's a better bargain, and it supports the city park department keeping the Ice Palace going. We decided better do the thinking in the morning and the exercise in the afternoon, since when I've exercised to the wobbly-knees stage, the mind isn't its sharpest. Jane's going in her new down coat, which is ample padding if she slips---myself, I'm still relying on my wallet in one back pocket and a pair of socks in the other, but at this toddly stage, that coat of hers looks really like a good idea....I got 200 pieces of mail dealt with yesterday, got the really urgent letters off; only have 75 to go, but there's only so much time in the day, and taxes are a by-the-law thing that I can't neglect. If you run a business, you have tax reports that should be done on the first of every month, on the fifteenth of the month following every third month, on the thirtieth of the month following every third month, as well as calendar year end for employees, fiscal year end for the company, and not to mention several smaller reports like the 940, 941 annual in January and W-2s in Februaery, and of course the Estimateds, which are also on the fifteenth day of every third month. The computer can't help me remember these things because my computer use doesn't involve a calendar or schedule I regularly resort to, and when I'm in the mood to write a scene, the last thing I want is a cheeky popup jumping into view distracting me and scattering my creative thoughts to the four winds...or rather, into the labyrinth of government forms. So I have everything on a Palm when I remember to consult it (every two weeks), and on a physical calendar on which I write down all these confusing dates. And then you'd better remember accurately which quarter you're in or you get letters from the tax people wanting you to fill out more forms to straighten it all out---I have, for instance, a payment they can't figure out what to do with because I forgot to manually add a special payment (there are some of those, too) into my annual total, so now I've got to file an amended 941 to explain 75.00 from last year and file the 941 for this year. And they do studies wondering why Americans feel stressed. Too many confounded dates to remember...that's what.
Date: 01/28/04...........................12637. A little progress. Still didn't get to the mail. Looked over the tax forms and think I've got enough to send off the two reports on time, namely today or tomorrow, and I'm close to having enough pieces to put my personal taxes together. And we went off to the rink, and tried out the new skates, having persuaded ourselves that it made more sense than continuing to pay for rentals. We seem to be under the curse of the Zamboni---we'd like ice a little less, well, pristine, but whenever we're about to go on the ice, out goes the Zamboni, and we get watered glass to skate on. Add to it that it's an outdoor rink, with temperatures up into the 40's yesterday---a Canadian air mass has been hovering a few miles north of us for two days, complicating our weather, which is incredibly wet air---and we got puddles on the ice. Plus---new skates. I wondered if they came from the manufacturer sharpened. Yes. They do. But rail-clingers though we be, taking practice apart from our instructor, we began to correct some of the small problems. In my case---one-footed skating, and hitting the ice with the toe-pick on the foot I'm using for impulsion. Today, new skates, and ones that don't hurt, I straightened my feet out, got both feet to behave, didn't drop the toe-pick, and found that I can accumulate momentum faster than is convenient for a novice. Posture was better, speed was way up, stability a little better---I do still keep one hand for the side-wall, but I'm not constantly holding to it. Every day a bit more progress. And afterward we made another shopping expedition, this time after a down coat like Jane's, which was a success, motion-wise, and which will definitely help when I do take a fall---it hasn't happened yet, but your likelihood of a fall goes up as you get more independent. Fisherman's knit ski cap for skull protection and a black coat that makes Jane and me look like the old Dutch syndicate. We'd thought to go in the afternoons, but our little rink is pretty crowded then. We're going to make a try at mornings. We did get our season passes.
Date: 01/29/04........................12892. Got the essential tax forms off. Worked in the early morning, then went off to the rink and this time achieved at least some moments of not clinging to the wall. The coat was way too hot, but the day was way warm, too, up into the 40's. It's amazing how readily a couple of times around the rink works up a sweat---but then there aren't many muscles in your body that don't work. More, your brain has to be making thousands of little decisions a second. It's quite relaxing---in the sense that something exciting at the moment gives you such a mental and physical workout that you feel very comfortable after. The first day I tried it, my legs went to spaghetti after half an hour and couldn't recover. Now I'm good for double that. So something positive has to be happening. But we've got to stop visiting the restaurant on the way to the parking garage. I'm up a pound. Got to get some cooking supplies in and go back to being virtuous....We're sort of caught between a rock and a hard place with the timing of our trip downtown---being such baby skaters, and needing walls constantly by us, we can't be safe on crowded ice, which means going early, which means getting up early to get work done first. This is in one sense good, because I'm chronicly insomniac, and I am sleeping better since Sunday, but it's also a slice of prime writing time, followed by coming home too tired to continue, too tired even to do essential things around the house---like cook and clean. It's my fervent hope that one more week will see us get our legs under us and see us build up our strength, so that we can skate an hour and then come home and have some energy left. I feel guilty taking the time, but then, I write 365 days a year, excepting road trips, birthdays, and Christmas, and I know by experience that taking time off for exercise ends up meaning a faster, not a slower progress. Too much sitting isn't good for the writing either. So we'll see. If we could get something we really passionately like that's good exercise and that doesn't tire us completely out, this could really be a good thing. It's only been four days, and we've gone from creeping out the gate to really almost free flight for about 20 feet or so.
Date: 1/30/04..........................13252. The day dawned windy, to say the least---howling with 45 mph gusts, wind coming through the foam padding I have in the window-crack, and making a sound just like a bird caught in a chimney---to the cats' infinite fascination. I don't know what may have gone on in my moments of absence today, but since the 3 foot tall cactus that stands next to it is still intact and neither the Black Prince nor Her Furry Grace is limping, it probably means they did more looking than leaping....A little work in the morning; and then off to the rink, which was a disappointment. The gale had blown leaves onto the surface of the ice, not just chaff, but really big leaves, and the Zamboni had gotten its blade skewed or dropped a bolt or something: it cut a deep gouge right around the wall. Add to that, the evaporation of the ice in the gale---not melting, but evaporation, which makes a curious texture, and after a couple of rounds of the rink, we reached a mutual decision that the conditions were too bad for a couple of neophytes. I learned that the little leaves are no problem to skate over, but the big limp ones fold up under your blades until they form a wad and then surprise you with a quick stop. This is no way to learn to skate, and the divot the Zamboni took is right in our skating path along the wall. So we gave up and hiked the quarter mile back to our car, did our grocery run, and came home. We're inquiring about the other ice rink for days like this one, and I think I will start carrying its public skating hours in my billfold. We arrived back home considerably chilled, and I recalled I had once upon a time knit two sets of leg warmers---a really good idea. I think I may wear them to skate in: my feet don't get cold, but my shins do. I'm making chili for supper---Senator Goldwater's own blend, sold by the Atkins people, and at first taste, I can say the Senator was fond of chipotle. It's hot, but very good spice combo. A little chili and a lot of cheese topping should make a good Atkins supper for a cold day. I hope the wind will blow itself out. Our gusts on the third floor are probably in excess of the 45 mph they're measuring on the surface. More snow is forecast. We'll see.
Date: 1/31/04..........................13260. A cold, blue day, snow supposed to fall tonight, and looks as if I'm doing the only journal update---Jane started feeling a sore throat last evening which progressed overnight into inner ear problems and general misery. I don't know where she caught it, since we've mostly been open-air in our outings, except at the restaurants---and that's a big 'except'. She's miserable today, dizzy as the proverbial hoot owl, though she valiantly swears she is showing signs of recovery, so she says, weaving dizzily about helping me put away groceries....I didn't go to the rink today, not that I couldn't, but it's far less fun going alone...The truth is, I didn't much of anything done, either, except another grocery store run---I don't know how two people on a strict diet can eat next to nothing and still always be out of something critical...I did get a little adjustment of Destroyer done, which justifies my holding onto it a little. It's what I said a few days ago, that it's easier to move the mountain on the map than it is to contort a story to adjust to it. Aside from that, I need to sit down at the main computer and do the accounts today, it being end-of-month, but I need to do a lot of things, today, and haven't stirred much about any useful business. I suspect I may have a mild dose of whatever Jane has---I was coughing at the rink, yesterday, as she was. And I'm not feeling too energetic. I did do the hair and get the makeup on---I've resolved, having passed a certain age, that I'm not scanting the care it takes to do that personal chore every day. I find I feel a great deal better when I do. So what's fifteen minutes of work against a day of feeling like warmed over potatoes? But outside of that one act of moral discipline, I haven't pushed myself too hard., and I just don't have that much energy---or wit. We have a skating lesson tomorrow, and Jane's hoping to be on her feet to do it---that inner ear thing doesn't sound encouraging, but hopefully that will improve by tomorrow. One or the other of us has to be there to pay our instructor, for one thing; and if one of us is in too bad case to skate, that one will sit in the penalty box and cheer on the other....Ah. I hear the computer in the other room making 'blup' sounds, which indicates Jane is at least upright and seeing to her email. A sign of returning life. Ciao, and here's hoping we're both in better form tomorrow.
Date: 2/1/04...............................13260. Snowy morning, gray skies, and I waked late, which meant it was a case of dress and rush off to the rink, since we had a lesson scheduled at 11. Jane opted to come along, sick though she was, and having inner ear troubles. I was feeling good---well, until I landed on my head. I was out with the instructor, and I just pushed too hard (my major problem) and took both of us down in a spiral that ended with a nasty, noisy crack on the ice. Didn't tuck my elbows and didn't duck my head, silly me, and the really major mistake was believing I wasn't going to fall when physics had already said it was inevitable. I left the ice for a moment, had half a soft drink, and got back out, after which, with that out of my system, the rest of the lesson went very well. Jane then got her legs under her and took a quarter hour lesson, in which she did better than I did---she at least didn't knock the instructor over. I want to get right back out there to reinforce the things I learned today, but I also know a second crack on the head wouldn't be good. So I think I'll take a wee shopping diversion and get a really thick hat---little good the new hat did me: the hat flew off when I went down. So I've got to find something better---a helmet would be, yes, obvious, but I'd rather something a little less obvious. I'd rather not have another crack like that to the skull, either. It did, however, get the stiffness out of my neck. And having done that to myself, I took to my bed with an ice pack on my skull, Jane took to her bed to nurse her flu---which it turns out our instructor was coming down with at our last lesson, so it's likely the source of the bug. But we're both feeling better this evening, and I've had enough Advil to keep my head together. Tomorrow morning I get a little work done before we go out. We did find out that one of the rinks indeed does have ice all summer, so I know what we'll be doing on sultry summer afternoons, instead of cursing the inadequate air conditioning. And the exercise is good: I feel amazingly well, under the circumstances, and am only anxious to get back out there. I actually skated free in center ice today for, oh, maybe ten feet. And I can turn fairly handily. And I now know what the proper skating stroke feels like when I do it correctly. So not a bad day at all, if only I'd gotten more work done.
Date: 2/2/04..................................13552. Groundhog Day....a couple of the little critters live just down the earthen bank below our balcony, and we're sure they saw their shadows: it was a clear morning. Jane seems to have mostly recovered from her bout with the flu---we had the shots, so even if we got it---and I think I might have had a little touch of it myself---we had a light case. And I know I can't blame my headache on the flu. We did a little work, a little scene-setting, in my case, which is kind of slow doing, but major in importance, setting up the whole book, this way. Then we took off to the rink, but stopped on the way to get a helmet---a lovely little mustard yellow number that wasn't my design choice, but the way my head feels today, I really don't want to take another crack on my skull...not too bad at a walk, but getting up or down or running---I found that out ducking across an intersection downtown---just really sets my headache off. Skating, however, was no problem, and I was careful, having no desire to test the helmet, not after the headache I got just jogging across the street. It was really cold, the Zamboni had, of course, just run, and the ice was superhard, superfast, and very, very slick. One thing we are gaining from this outdoor rink is an appreciation for all the various conditions ice can take...everything is fodder for a writer: all data goes into the memory bank. It was almost impossibly slick and hard surfaced for us neophytes, but between us we chewed up a back and forth track near the penalty box and got a good skating surface---when I can't get traction I unhappily have a tendency to lean forward, which brings the toe-picks into play, and scratches up the ice in amazingly short order. But it actually improved that surface for us. And I did notice, to my satisfaction, that I wasn't the only one with a helmet, though I was prepared to be. In fact we talked to a helmeted couple who also recommended wrist-guards, and Jane agreed she had no desire to have a headache like mine, so after practice, off we went to the sporting goods store where she got a really jazzy white helmet (she swears she's going to paint it, and I swear I'm going to put plastic daisies on my nasty yellow one) and we both got half-pipe wrist protectors, too, because, dear readers, a broken wrist could be a real delay in our respective novels, not to mention the pain and inconvenience and general nuisance. Strong bones don't save you if you hit at the wrong angle.We figure to wear the protective gear while we're learning, and then when we can do without it, fine, and then when we start learning something new, like the quadruple Lutz, back come the helmets and wrist-protection until we master the item. Based on my recent experience, I recommend the helmet to anyone in our phase of learning on the ice or the snow: the snowboarders have some items that are very useful for skaters or snow-sports novices. Meanwhile we've got to take some time off from having fun and get this place cleaned up, and I've got to do the accounts.
Date: 2/03/04..............................13552. Cold and grey day, and neither of us worth much. We decided since today was the third since the infamous fall, I was probably going to be sore all over, and it was forecast to be colder than yesterday, which meant the ice was going to be wretchedly hard and fast, so we decided it would be a good day to stay home and get some necessities taken care of, pay the rent, that sort of thing, not to mention cleaning up the apartment. Well, I've lived on Advil and Bengay, and managed to forestall the muscle soreness---the knot on my head, which was about palm-sized, is now down to about the area of a quarter, and the muscle soreness has largely abated, thanks to lots of treatment---but---Jane's flu has hit hard, she's dizzy, and I'm not feeling too spiff either. I made one trip after file folders, got some essential filing done, got the rent paid, and after that I developed a headache which could be the fact I'm tapering off the painkiller, or it could be the flu. I'm not at my sparkling best, that's for sure. I don't usually have headaches, and I don't like them when I do. I think I'll go take more Advil. I don't work well when I'm laden with painkiller and antihistimines, and anything I do at this critical stage of the book needs to be focused and intelligent, which I'm not. See my note on errors at the start of plotting a course. So I'm not about to touch work I care about.
Date: 2/04/04................................14023. Snowy morning.. I found out what's been nagging my subconscious about the book---and this means I've got to slice into Chapter One and make some adjustments, but it will work much better. I have my work cut out for me. Jane came walking in asking if we should go skating, looked outside, and observed that it was snowing sideways. It was. But a little wait produced better weather, meaning it was snowing mostly downwards, and we went off to the rink in much better health than before. Jane's still got the cough and fatigue---this must be a variant of the flu that I once had, because I've had a little cough and a low day or two, but nothing to Jane's reaction to the bug. Still, we were well enough to go down to the park and get kitted up---armored up, as it is now. Mustard yellow helmet, long black padded coat, black mittens and the half-pipe wristguards. Well, safety before fashion. Onto the ice, and this time, after a slow start, I was able to circle the rink without laying a hand on the wall but once. That's way better. But Jane made the greatest breakthrough: she got her boots set right, got her balance, and went flying along in perfect balance, again without a hand on the wall. Applause. We lasted a whole hour until I called a halt---I had the beginnings of a nasty charley-horse above the left knee, and a small rest didn't help it. So off we go home to recover. Bengay is my friend. Ysabel hates it---she's ordinarily on my lap in the evenings, but she took to the bathroom, by the heater, and probably won't speak to me until I wash the Bengay off. The light snow/rain that's been falling all day gave way to a foggy thick snow, which has whitened all the trees and sent us out several times with the lambswool duster to get the sat-dish clear of snow.
Date: 02/05/04.............................15022. As far as we can see, the pines, firs, and birch across the hills are frosted and outlined with snow. The forecast was for sunny skies but this didn't happen: it remains around 32 degrees F this afternoon, and the whole landscape is wonderful. Our outdoor climb to and from the apartment involves stairs winding beside a beautiful blue spruce, which is now snow-coated. We love this tree in all seasons, but this huge fellow is at his best in winter...The insertion into chapter one is just right; it's working well. I like what I'm doing. I finished the day's work and we took out for the rink, which at some points we had to ourselves. I'll have to let Jane relate her recent experience when the rascal gets her update uploaded, but suffice it to say, we're really happy with our venture in the last two days. The wall is diminishing in importance, and other people on the ice don't make us nervous as before, so the time of day we go is not quite as critical as before. The charley-horse worked out of my leg, and I skated, I'm pretty sure, about as long today as yesterday with no complaints, except ripping the nail off one finger---time to cut those fingernails. The boards will get you bigtime. I do quit when I'm getting tired, and the finger was sort of the indication I should stop. The right leg has the basic stroke down to where I don't leave a scar on the ice: the left still takes some work, and leaves this unlovely little toe-pick scar wherever I pass.. Not an uncommon problem, as I understand, but I'm going to ask the chiropractor to see if there's a motion problem with that left leg---it's the same ankle I sprained when I diverted my attention to the field at Safeco Stadium---the Mariners had just done something clever on the field as I was coming down the steps from the concession stand, I caught a plastic sack hand-loop on the center rail, fought for balance, caught my left foot, and went down the steps backwards, severely bruising several ribs---quite a trick, but not one to imitate. My left ankle suffered a sprain, and I note that my skates don't lace as closely on that side, by about half an inch, which seems to indicate that ankle is now larger, although it has no pain or stability problem. Curious, at least, but the laces are coming closer the more I skate, so maybe the exercise is helping, and the boot is settling.We had lunch downtown---a certain restaurant downtown in the mall where we park does a good calamari Caesar. We got home just in time to get two deliveries, so our timing today has been impeccable. We made contact with Midsouthcon, which will be the first leg of our spring caravan. We're going to be there, Michael Sheard is going to be there (the Admiral in Star Wars), who is an absolute madman and darling, Selina Rosen will be there, and it looks very much as if Lynn Abbey is going to drive up to meet us. The mix should be funny and fun. In the meanwhile, we have to get our passports, get the cats their shots (only once every two years is required in Washington, but we'll cross states where they're required every year, particularly in the South, and I don't want to create an issue, should there be a problem). And we have to get the tax reports off. The long-awaited Maxtor drives have arrived, but somehow we're having too much fun at the moment to start in with that: right now we have essential computers working well, and we're not rocking the technological boat until we get through the the annual spring madness.
Date: 02/06/04..........................15022. A beautiful cold day. I decided to get the tax package ready, which meant, this year, installing TurboTax and attempting to work with it. Well, a very mixed success---unintelligible general questions and the help doesn't help, and it's supposed to be for business, but it isn't: it only works for a personal schedule C, not the corporate forms, and it doesn't handle the IRAs in any way I can figure out. I'm vastly annoyed. But I thought it might help my accountant if I went ahead and filled out as much as I understood, and I did, at great labor, trying to find all those pesky papers and statements. I just prepared it to print, not, emphatically not, to send out electronically, because it's a mess, and the stupid program thinks I own our whole massive apartment complex and wants me to depriciate it, can you believe?---but no. Out Of Paper appears. True. I fill the printer with paper. I run it again. This time the printer breaks, completely breaks, with a horrid machine-gun sound from the cartridge-carriage when it tries to operate. I think I jinxed it yesterday by even mentioning the Maxtor drives. At any rate, now I can't even turn in the monthly tax check without buying a new printer. And I'm handing the whole tax mess over to my accountant, where it belongs. It's the confounded IRAs that I can't figure---well, that and the quirk that convinced the program I own the apartment complex. Quel pain! Even the trip to the rink was a near-bust: we were really ready to skate, but we'd only warmed up when a busload of otters arrived. Not butterflies---the little kids who can keep their feet and flit around in the right direction, but otters, whose sponsors had not read them the rules about direction, and who mostly lay about on the ice, falling down every other step, when they weren't going directly across the middle of the rink, through the careening hockey-player practice. They were sweet, but they were everywhere, and most everyone who had been there left, except the hockey-lads, who had thus far not run into any of them. We had lunch downtown and went home, and collapsed. It started to snow fairly heavily. I don't think it was supposed to, but it did. Also I received a reader-request for a discussion of How do writers get paid? I suddenly recall I've done a couple of articles on writing for The Panel Room, and you'll find it there: I've added that bit on finance to the appropriate discussion, The Writing Life. If you want to get back here, you'll have to use the 'back' function on your browser.
Date: 02/07/04........................15532. It looks like a picture postcard out there, just gorgeous trees up and down the hills and the streets. I never get tired of this view---I love other seasons, but I'm always anxious for winter, especially one that's properly snowy and where slush is a minor factor. Jane reported she'd applied broghan mechanics to the printer---i.e., she'd forced the carriage---and it worked. Who knows? It can't be worse than merely broken, and sometimes if there are plastic gears involved that have just skipped too far over, you can indeed force them, because the same stretch factor that let it slip out can let it slip back in. Whatever happened, it seems to be operational again, which is dollars in our pockets. So I'll get to print out my tax work and the checks I need. We decided in spite of the fact it's Saturday at the rink---read, lots of small folk going all over the place---that we'd get one more good practice in before our lesson tomorrow, so off we would have gone, except that Jane wanted me to look at a file and shoved a pendrive into my notebook USB. Well, well, it seems since the reformat and reinstall of WinME, my faithful laptop doesn't recognize the pendrive. Rats! I looked for updates that might solve it. My next move is going to be to kick it out of the Hardware Profile and let it refind it. Never a dull moment. If this fails, I'm going to call Dell and get THEM to find the pendrive, which worked just fine until I followed their advice to reinstall Windows....So....having delayed with that problem, we arrived late at the rink, when we'd hoped to be among the first, practice, and go. We kitted up anyway, got out there, and warmed up. Yours truly didn't hear the "clear the ice" call, which was embarrassing, especially since I was fairly far around and had to make my way very slowly to a gate---sigh---but I hadn't heard because I was beginning to make a breakthrough. I've had all sorts of left foot problems, and had just adjusted the lacings just one more time, after which things were starting to work. So we stayed through the Zamboni, went back out in a tide of small skaters, and I actually managed to get away from the wall and skate. Jane and I had a fierce argument over which is the key to proper balance---getting your toe up or your heel down (I'm the heels down proponent) and technically she's right, muscle-wise: the front of your leg has to contract. But I walk on my toes, run on my toes, and have been skating on my toes...preferentially. When I began thinking about getting the left heel down in firm contact with the ice, the toe-pick behaved. Wondrous! I also found what I thought was true: the ice slants, quite a bit: there are two spots that you have to climb or watch out for if you're going the other way, because you can really sail along. I haven't learned to stop yet without using a hand on the wall. I can turn. I can even spin around, like a newborn giraffe, but stopping in mid-ice is something I think we need to cover tomorrow.
Date: 02/08/04..........................15532. Still the picture-postcard snow, at this present moment with blue sky and a glorious red, purple, and orange sunset. Jane and I just had a discussion about the work we're not getting done---but our assessment is that we haven't done any strenuous physical exercise, we're coming out drenched in sweat and totally physically exhausted, and we tend to come home and collapse, but the collapse, at first profound, is getting shorter and lighter---endurance is picking up, and this means that in not many more days we will be taking it in stride and being able to come home and do a normal day's work. What the exercise is good for is mental acuity and physical stamina, and I think in the long run we are going to get more writing done than if we continued our couch-potato existence. So we are going at this with wild enthusiasm and a determination to make it part of our routine---mind, it's only been two weeks, and from first wobbly steps, one fall each and one pre-helmet crack on the head (mine), we are now free of the wall and skating. We had our lesson, and we learned to use the edge to stop without touching anything (if not going too fast), to turn (which is far too attractive a sensation), to weave around obstacles (fun), and to skate backwards, if very slowly. And between-times, I was able to get out away from the wall and kite around at a fair rate of speed---including the attempt to stop that became a turn, that headed me for center rink in front of a batch of much faster skaters. I was able calmly to continue my turn and get back to the slower lane where I am much safer. But I didn't fall, didn't lose control, and solved my own problem, which, last week, would have landed me flat on the ice. And now we can stop, turn and go backwards---hurrah! That's a lot of ground for one lesson, but we practice all week, and hope to be turning and weaving and dodging with increased speed and steadiness soon. We also learned we can join the local figure skating club and get summer ice time. We're delighted. Nothing like ice skating when the outside temperature tests the 100's F. This is so enjoyable! And I just dropped two inches of belt size---another item which is going to improve our general health and attitude. Watch out, world! We're going to be energized and at least svelter.
Date: 02/09/04................................16033. A drive to the chiropractor, and a few things straightened out. Frosted trees, white, rolling hills, and clear roads. Can't beat that. And outside of that, not too much done, except some work on a play we promised for Midsouthcon. I think we have a good handle on it. I committed a really stupid mistake last night. I love the sound of running water---have always had fishtanks in every prior house, but since the last 1000+ gallon moneypit we constructed (salt, fresh, a 360 gallon sunken fountain and a foot-wide ten foot long indoor flowerbed converted to tanks, not to mention two reef tanks, several fresh, and the usual side-tanks you end up setting up because some confounded fish needs special space...we swore up and down that we were not even walking through the fish sections of pet shops, or buying the dreaded betta, the sole single fishbowl that will inevitablly lead you to fish stores and more tanks. We held firm on that, but I got a fountain, a little table fountain. Now, I should have known: the last time I had anything to do with fountains, they began to produce mold. And ultimately this one did. So I began to realize it was a mold-factory, and decided to run it with vinegar to clean it. This worked, for about one day, and the minute fresh water went in and the PH went down, up went the mold count. So I decided to try the aquarist's fallback, chlorine bleach, forgetting that we no longer have a big stock of chlorine-negator chemical that we used to maintain, to cancel the chlorine and restore the water to pristine condition---as well as take it off your skin. So I blithely used my bare hands---and had no way to just wash it off. The stuff played hob with my sinuses, my throat, and my night's sleep, struggling to breathe. I knew it hadn't gotten to my lungs---I wasn't that stupid---but it was a night of no sleep, until I recalled a product I'd bought for Jane during her bout with the flu, a saline-gel concoction called Ayr. This stuff is good. I can't use ordinary saline---the preservative does me no favors. But I can use this, and it enabled a few hours sleep. I'm not doing that again, and I don't think the fountain is worth another such experience. So when we got home, I crashed, and was worthless: we had the mandatory Cougar Burger, from the best little hamburger stand in Washington, and that did it for permitted carbohydrates, so we noshed on low-carb bars for supper.
Date: 02/10/04............................16136. Slow progress, but the front end of a book is like that: lots of thinking. A few solid words gained. Mostly it's important to maintain contact with the book, to open it up, reread the section in question, and to be sure that the stepping-stones laid down are leading the right direction---but not making the conclusion obvious, either. And when you're on the middle book of a set, you have the added problem of getting in enough reminders of what's already happened to jog the memory of a reader without totally giving away the first book in the first set of sentences so that the reader who mistakenly picked up book two at least has a chance to go back and get (and enjoy) book one. There's something to be said for an antisocial hero like Conan, who turns up solo and exits solo---a lot less worrying about who's where. Bren, on the other hand, is a social fellow, with a staff, and getting him organized and making sure he's got what he needs requires a little explanation. At times I wish I had a staff to keep up with him and his...On the skating front---we thought we'd met just about every sort of ice there is in three weeks: I'm beginning to appreciate the variations of this element: yesterday, at 30 dgrees, the air was so saturated with water that many surfaces, the rails and boards, etc., were absolutely sopping wet. I think there must have been condensation going on continually on the ice, because it was very, very slick: far better skaters than I am were complaining that they were continually leaning forward. The good news is that I was able to keep well away from the wall. I couldn't be as reckless as I'd have liked, because the surface was that slick and hard, and Jane was saying her ears (she still has traces of the flu) weren't helping. I think we just chalk it up as one more strange ice condition, part of this skating-outdoors thing. And the pigeons in the rafters above the open-air rink are starting to bill and coo with great energy: and pretty soon they're going to be gathering (and dropping) nesting materials. The outdoor rink closes in early March, and becomes property of the pigeons, at which point we shift our presence over to another rink. Spokane has two figure-skating clubs and three rinks, which is really a wonderful abundance of venues for a city this size, particularly the downtown public rink: a real plus. It really outdoes Seattle in availability. Much as I love the sea, the winter sports in this town, with skiing , including crosscountry, on four or five nearby mountains, skating at multiple rinks, snowshoeing, and all of that, do mean that if you love to get out in the winter, this is a wonderful city to be in.
Date: 02/11/04.......................17115. A busy day. Got a little work done. A little thinking. But Jane's still not over what she had. We got down to the rink., but Jane just couldn't get her feet under her---didn't fall, but her inner ears were not performing well. She hadn't taken her decongestant, and it wasn't a good thing. So we decided before someone fell and undid several days of work, we'd better go. Had lunch downtown and came home to clean up and get some last moment things done before a trip this Friday.
Date: 2/12/04...........................17115. A brilliant sunny day and everything cold and perfect to go skating, but both of us thought since a) we had a ferocious lot of housekeeping to do and b) the rink was scheduled to be full of group/party skaters, it might be less frustrating to stay home. So I did the banking while Jane wrote an article she’s promised to do. And I got the car washed...which took far longer than expected. A Ford Explorer was at the very exit, when the attendant slammed the door with the keys inside and the security system engaged. Now, a Ford Explorer in your automated exit is rather like having an elephant in your kitchen doorway—nobody can move until it does, and about ten other vehicles are stuck in queue and in process somewhere in the building, so we just have to sit and wait until a swarm of people, perhaps including a locksmith, assist the owner to reclaim said vehicle. But I got all the tax deposits made, just as the IRS informs me it’s missing yet another quarterly 941corporate return for last year, which I did turn in, just like the last one that turned up missing. So I have to refile it. You make a little progress and someone unravels it. I got some mail answered, located some missing receipts, and am getting accounts in order.
Date: 2/13/04........................17115. Took out for Seattle, cats and all, and Ysabel decided to serenade us for at least eighty miles...not at all like her. It may have been the snow all over everything. I don't think we ever have started out a trip in the snow, although she's seen enough during our travels. We hit one patch of freezing fog, but fortunately I-90 is so heavily traveled it stays a little warmer, and the road was all right under us. The fog produced a beautiful hoarfrost, nothing to weigh down the trees, just to turn them a beautiful flocked white against the gray sky. The Cascades were beautiful, no white on the trees there, either of frost or snow, except on the very highest peaks. We could't see Mt. Ranier as we came over the ridge at Ryegrass. It often hides on misty days, and this mostly was such a day. We arrived at Jane's brother's place, and Jane set to work fixing her youngest brother's malfunctioning computer...which, it turned out, was completely choked with files, so it wasn't as huge a hardware repair as she'd feared, but I often hear mutterings and the name AOL involved. It's a little old computer with only a 5 gig disk, and it seems to have been the victim of online gaming.
Date 2/14/04......................17115. A rainy day, but turning bluer as the day progresses. Jane's still trying to get the printer to run. Its drivers seem to come from the paleozoic, and the way this little computer is set up, it really really wants to go online and find AOL. Where Jane would like to find AOL we aren't saying. Jane hasn't done a thing except that computer, except for one foray out to breakfast at the crack of dawn. Happy Valentine's Day to us; we have designs on dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, which should be unusual, at least, if we can get in. If not, it's back to one of the diners. I'm mostly sitting about doing video games today---there's not room at that kitchen counter for one more kibitzer. I don't know why I get the idea I can do family visits and get some work done. It just doesn't happen. On the other hand, I'm doing some thinking, and planning, so it will actually translate into having done work when I get a chair I can work in. This one I'm using is better for relaxing than thinking. Tomorrow the weather in Spokane is going to start turning to snow around sunset, so we need to get out on the road at the earliest, to be through Snowqualmie Pass at noon and past Ritzville before the weather turns nasty. Ritzville is a very nice little town where we love to stop for a travel break, but it sits on the edge of the coulees:the area of scablands where the great Missoula Flood ripped through and created a deep low spot, which means cold air leaks down from the north about there in winter and can create unique local conditions, many involving freezing fog. You do not treat the stretch of I-90 between Ritzville and Spokane with any disrespect when there's cold air and water involved. So we'll be giving that stretch plenty of time and plenty of care, if it starts fogging up. Not impossible we'll stop and take a room rather than push it, if it turns that way. We tend to do that, because the fog always lifts, the snow always melts, usually by the following noon, and we lose very little time that way, nothing compared to being stuck, towed, or repaired.
Date: 02/15/04....................17115. A diet bar for breakfast and we pack up the now-repaired computer for Jane's youngest brother and we pack up ourselves and our cats for a trip back. Rainy day in Seattle---actually much rarer than the city's reputation. We were glad of the rain. But we wanted to get out early enough to time our trip through Ritzville to daylight hours. We drove through pine and crag mountains wreathed in streamers of fog and cloud, and at Snowqualmie summit we ran into snow, but nothing was sticking yet. We got down onto the eastern slope and it was all broken cloud from then on, across the deep gorge of the Columbia and on east. At Ritzville it was dry pavement, and we stopped for a salad, but there was a dark cloud in the east, and sure enough, by the time we got to Spokane, around sunset, the sky was overcast and threateningg. We watched the European Skating Championships over diet bars and unpacked. But immediately my fierce allergic reation started up again, which argues that while I'd eliminated one source of my problem in my room, I hadn't gotten all of it. About three in the morning, in the midst of a severe hay fever attack, I got up and started removing potential allergy sources---my much prized terrarium, which I had refused to think could be guilty: and then (insert chain sneezing) my ivy plant, which proved to have a white mold near its roots. I was thrilled---truly: it meant I'd found it, and it wasn't my bird's-nest fern, which is huge, my pride and joy, and I'd go into mourning if I had to pitch that. The ivy can go, no question. As for the cactus, now a yard tall, it was next on my removal list, but it's innocent, too, and the wretched thing lives on. It started out two inches high; it's grown badly and warped, and I repotted it, burying eight inches of its height: it was only happier, and grew. And grew. And I never can bring myself to do in a plant that's thriving, even if it grabs my sleeve every time I reach for the curtain pull. I would rather have ejected it and kept the ivy, but that's not the way things are. It misted snow all night and is foggy this morning. But I'm feeling ever so much better now that I've gotten that problem out to the living room. Now I'll have to nerve myself to put a perfectly good ivy out into the frozen air---or hope that vinegar can kill that mold. I may be able to move the terrarium back in, but right now, being able to breathe, I'm not taking chances.
Date: 2/16/04.........................17227. Presidents' Day holiday, but Jane's hard at work on her article, and I'm on the downside of a severe allergy attack, which usually means being completely wiped out---catching up on the sleep I didn't get while I was struggling to breathe. I detest molds. And this one was nasty: even Ysabel's eyes were running. It is now, however, out of my living space. I didn't get much done at all, except sorting tax papers into proper quarters, preliminaary in getting them sent off to the accountant. Got a little contact with the manuscript---a matter of discipline, if nothing else. I didn't mention in the Seattle segment that we did get to the Rainforest Cafe, which was a fun evening for Valentine's. It's rife with fake trees, robot snakes and elephants, and beautiful huge fish tanks, every surface covered with herbage or animals or animal-related things for sale: the outer rim is a shop like a zoo shop. The waiting list was an hour and a half that evening, but bars don't have waiting lists. So we found an empty table in the bar, sat right down, and had a really very nice supper, counting it's one of those 'show' places. As for Presidents' Day, it was a stay-at-home day. I wanted to go skating, despite the likelihood of crowds: while I'm learning something, I don't want to let up, for fear of 'forgetting' the body-sense. But Jane said she was making real progress with her article and wanted not to interrupt it, so we stayed home, and I didn't get much done at all. Didn't even have the energy to pick up the suitcases. It's rained all day: I prefer snow to rain, and I fear that a week of 40 degrees will not do good things for our outdoor ice: about time to seek membership over at the other rink.
Date: 02/17/04....................17351. Something strange has happened to our server. Can’t get this update to uplink, so I’m saving it until we figure things out. I pulled the modem card out for the Seattle trip...it juts out sideward and I was afraid it might be damaged. But I don’t think that’s the reason. The housenet seems solid...This has been, over all, a strange day. Worked a bit this morning, salving my conscience for being a complete turnip yesterday, then took out to the rink, which was crowded with a school group—it’s one of the penalties for our wonderful downtown rink, which is that schools from all over use it for a field trip, and if you’ve never seen thirty fifth-graders of all abilities turned loose on freshly Zamboni’d ice, you haven’t seen chaos. We skated, however, amid the otters-on-ice. Jane’s been having balance problems, and is fighting them by working close to the penalty-box rail; I’m having lacing problems—four or five re-laces during the hour. The least little change in tension makes a big difference in control of the blade. Then afterward, we decided to go out to the other rink, since this rink will close in March, and we tried to get information there. Nobody there knew a thing, about the club or the public skating, except one woman who advised us that the lodge that owns the rink could really lower our per-session costs, and that lodge membership wasn’t that expensive. Well, so we ended up going next door joining the lodge, which has a very nice adjacent lodge hall, with all sorts of amenities, and is a very common-sense, civic-project oriented organization, so I have no trouble supporting them and their causes. I was astonished at how little the dues were and how much they offer---not to mention the dart tournaments. That took a while. But we now have information and a membership, when we're voted in, as we're assured will happen. The people there were extremely nice, and it may be fun on its own.
Date: 02/18/04....................17553. Slow progress, and the server still isn’t answering it. I’ve pinged the server and have no problem in that regard. I’ve looked for patches for my newly reloaded WindowsME, I’ve looked for upgrades, I’ve deleted my modem out of the system and refound it. I just can’t figuree what’s going on. Sometimes I can get to the internet, but I can’t FTP. Back to the rink, another battle with the school kids and the laces, and the pigeons in the rafters, who drop, well, signatures onto the ice. I’ve discovered a new sport—pigeon slalom. You try to miss the problems. Jane’s still battling balance, but says she’s beginning to get it back...and meanwhile I’d seen something, during our foray over to the lodge, at the Fred Myers store opposite the lodge, that I’d been thinking about all day. I’ve been looking for some additional drawer space: much of my furniture that I brought with me in the move isn’t optimal for apartment living, but I'm also fussy about color and style: I've reached that time in my life when I want my furniture to match.. I need organization and drawers, and this store had a wonderful small dresser-like thing with substantial wood-bottomed wicker drawers that have real glides---and they had it on sale and cheap. I wanted one. Well, two. Together they make a really excellent storage. And while we were getting that purchase arranged (I wanted two of the honey color, not the white, not the walnut, if you please, and, no, not mix and match, either, a request which was driving the warehouse crazy---I got the feeling the poor chap was going up and down the ladder for every query) Jane found a chair that just fits her room—well, that would fit, with a complete furniture shift. So home we go in our faithful Subaru with two small dressers and a rocking chair. The chair came assembled; not so, the chests, which turned out to be a bear of a job. Unclear instructions, pilot holes in excess of what was needed, badly angled in one instance, screws that don't correspond to the instruction manual, and pilot holes so small it took soaping the screws and using a power driver (thank you, Black & Decker) to avoid cracking the wood or ruining our hands---which for writers, I assure you, is serious. A bad angle on a pilot hole did give us one small crack, which we backed out of, redrilled straight, dropped Elmer’s glue into, and reseated the screw, so I'm sure the chest is as secure as can be. I’ve also never seen a piece of really nicely-finished furniture with two splices on a two foot board and a couple of knothole faults in one top and perfectly gorgeous ripple-grained wood in the other. I really pity a novice furniture-assembler who buys one of these units. We’re expert and have a good power drill---a thing I recommend for anybody setting up housekeeping as the most essential thing in the universe. Don’t try this with the screwdriver they recommend...But it looks very good. I was so excited I began cleaning up and assigning drawers. Jane began shoving furniture about in her room. I can still hear bangs and thumps from in there.
Date: 02/19/04...................17553. Still no server. We got up and decided to move our health and first aid collection from the wet-bar into two drawers of the new dresser, which stands right in the entryway of my room, and that meant taking down the flimsy rescued-from-the-curb shelves we’d used in the bar closet to support coffee, tea, and vitamin pills, and that simple move turned into a heck of a project, a great deal of pitching old bottles, etc. But oh, it looks better. We put in our practice at the rink full of school trips, and I did fine, except I must have hit one of the pigeon-offerings on the ice. During my just-one-more lap of the rink I got back on my heel and then forward and went down, which proves the helmet and wristguards work: the only bruise was to my ego, give or take a general need for Advil. Rule one: if you’re going to fall on the ice, be wearing your helmet and collapse sideways. Those half-pipe wristguards to afford a skidding landing are also helpful. But I was tired and cold when I got home. I absolutely collapsed, while Jane continued moving furniture and putting up shelves in her room.
Date: 02/20/04............17711. And again, no server. The rink had not one, but two school field trips, which was just a zoo, all grade-schoolers. We gave up early and hiked three blocks up to the gym and cancelled our membership there, figuring f we’re going to be skating year-round, we decided the gym was superfluous. We also discovered in the newspaper rack outside the gym the news that Spokane was contending with Boston to host the 2007 US National Figure Skating event, the results to be announced that afternoon. Well, when we got home, I made another try at the internet, and was able to get up long enough to read the news that Spokane had won. We’re very excited, and absolutely are going to get tickets, the first day they’re available. And in the late evening, after battling the server all day, I finally called our server-provider on the phone and asked what’s going on. Turns out they made a big technical speed change on the 17th, surprise, surprise. That’s going to take some fixing, but now I think we know what our problem is, and it should heal itself if we just shut down the housenet and come up again...seems they didn’t think they needed to tell us about this because most people shut down and come up daily. At least that should be solved soon—but not easy, because the shutoff is likely to cause a reset of our long-running housenet, which is a pain, and even reaching the shutoff switch requires a ladder and some rearrangement. Computer armoires are wonderful until something goes wrong that requires access to cables. Tomorrow, tomorrow.
Date: 02/21/04...............17888. A little work, and off to the rink on a Saturday, which was an absolute madhouse. The morning headlines involved Spokane's winning the Nationals bidding, and I think it must have prompted every kid in Spokane to beg their parents to go to the rink. One fellow, an absolutely wonderful figure skater, said he'd driven clear over from Seattle to enjoy the outdoor ice. And then the news cameras showed up. I do hope they didn't catch me catching my skate in the trench at the gate and taking a sideways sprawl. It was entirely stupid---but the zoo on the ice was so distracting I wasn't even thinking about my feet. Bam! Flat on the same side. This is a two heat-patch day. Not to mention that I caught my foot in the pigeon-stuff again and had to scramble for safety against the boards. On a less crowded day you have the chance to choose your path; today you just skated where there was space to squeeze in edgewise. But I withstood being shoved, run into, and darted-at, and Jane withstood someone catching the tail of her skate, without falling, so we figure this is good training: if you can keep your feet while being run into, you're beginning to get the hang of it. We came home and Jane attacked the internet connection problem, and by the fact you're reading this, she did it---got the net running inside an hour, despite my really bad handwriting on all the passwords we needed. So the journal continues. If you see it fall silent for a time, don't despair, just keep checking: it's likely more tinkering on the net.
Date: 02/22/04..................18559. One of those billiard-shot disasters, one ball hitting another. Recall that I'd reformatted my hard drive? Which means that I dumped every bit of data I hadn't backed up? Well, today my Palm Pilot went down, really down---I'd left it too long, and it lost its basic memory. Well, restore it from the computer backup, right? Ha! No data. I've lost all my notes about where I am supposed to be when---all the conventions, all the phone numbers, all the birthdays and appointments and tax due dates----so remind me if I've promised you anything, and meanwhile I'm going to be hand-inputting all those things I can remember. Right in the middle of year-end tax-prep is not the time I'd have chosen to have this happen, thank you. I didn't know the Palm would do that. I should have guessed, but, oh, well. Now I know why it beeped at me while I was driving. It was dying, poor thing, and I paid it no attention. Now I'm sorry. I seem to have gotten over that hump with the book, being stalled on a thousand-word segment, which involved the meeting of two long-parted individuals, and necessary business. It also was Sunday, and our skating lesson. I was a little sore, counting I've been practicing falling down for two days running, but I was very pleased not to continue that today. Our instructor suggested I try the cross-over turn, which I hadn't expected to do for months, and it worked. I was so pleased with myself. The only problem is that it turns you a lot more sharply than the leaning turn, and this means if you do it at the end of the rink, you end up going down center ice, which is a speed zone I'm not comfortable with. Sunday wasn't quite as crowded as the last several days, but I'm still uncomfortable being a slow-moving object in a fast stream. I also succeeded in turning and skating backward, however gingerly. Jane has been working on her fine foot control, and had her turn at falling down on open ice---caught a toe pick and fell badly, which is to say, flat forward. She banged her elbow, but nothing worse, thanks to the padded coat. This still doesn't bring us even in the fall department. You know how you get sore on the third day after an injury---well, I'm on the third day after for one fall, the second day after for another, and I'm very sore. Thanks to all of you who have written with remedies for bruises. I may need it. Beyond that, our outdoor rink shuts on March 8, and this means we need to make the transition over to the Eagles rink, which is very large, very cold, and very smooth ice. No pigeons there, but fast ice, and a whole new environment.
Date: 02/23/04...............18559. Off to the chiropractor to get Dr. Mike to straighten out the result of sequential falls, but no great problems turned up. He said the exercise was showing up in flexibility---good news. Jane was still having grief from her shoulder, but the injury seems more strain than displacement. Lots and lots of pain-patches. We think we're going to buy stock in the company. I can't say enough for the virtues of a really, really good chiropractor. Ours doesn't use machines at all, just has the knack for putting things back where they ought to be, including the fact I took a header over the handlebars of a bicycle onto concrete some years ago, for which I paid for years and years, and if it weren't for good doctors, I'd be a mess. Jane can say the same, having taken a few notable flying landings off horses.
Date: 02/24/04.................18865. Work in the morning, still straightening out that one scene---which won't be at at spectacular in the book, but which if I don't get it right, will be noticed. The best writing has to go into keeping things natural, an 'of course' rather than the slam-bang stuff, which is easy to write. If you don't see the magician's hands move, that's the good stuff, not the rabbit. We skated, had a nice day with a few of the best skaters, good ice, and no school kids. I wasn't as steady as I could wish, fought the lacings for four re-laces, but over all, progress. Jane's getting up and about the rink again after her battle with flu and inner ear, and over all, I've got a lot of practice to do on the new stuff. We're still battling the banking and trying to get that all in order, not very exciting stuff, but full of aggravations: the bank changed all the online log-ins on us, and all that has to be fixed.
Date: 02/25/04...................19224. One of those mornings when things start with a misplaced bill and proliferate into a set of messes at the bank---overdraft notices which they sent in envelopes that look just like routine statement and which, no email, no, no, a paper letter, which took 3 days covering ten city blocks. Clearly the 25.00 per incident fee doesn't motivate our bank to move faster to notify us of a shortfall or to slow down the instant resubmission of a bounced check. And the usual time our accounts get messed up like this is when we're completely absorbed with accounts, like end-of-quarter, end-of-year, etc. Never fails. Paper piles up, bank envelopes get stacked, and there we are. The weather is warming, china blue sky overlain with spotty cloud, and a little spit of rain. The Black Prince has taken to pulling the insulation out of the window, because he wants fresh air, and this is a trick I hope he forgets soon, since it requires a battle with the dreaded three-foot-tall cactus to put it back. The rink is showing signs of melting, too, and we will lose our outdoor ice on the 8th of March. We have both concluded that a pigeon bearing an olive branch is not a sign of peace: not if he drops it from the rafters onto the ice, in his nest-building efforts. But over all it was a beautiful day. I began to discover what's behind my balance problem, which is toe-clenching. Relax the toes and the balance becomes much easier. And I had just discovered that when it was time to leave.
Date: 02/26/04.................19302. Still trying to get the tax info together. Still trying to get all the e-mail answered---forgive me if you've expected an answer: I'm about 300 letters behind. For our morning relaxation, we went to the rink, got the skates on, and about fifty very young children showed up, most of whom must never have been on the ice before. They hit the ice like seal pups, skidding every which way, there were banged-up crying kids at both ends of the rink, and I kept saying "take small steps" to dozens of small skaters who evidently believed that achieving early velocity was the key to staying on their feet, while others clung desperately to the wall, slipping violently every third step along the way. There were bumped chins, heads, foreheads, knees, and rears, and forget remotely following a traffic pattern: I don't think the kids had heard about that rule in advance, among several others. Kids were going onto the ice with skates that wouldn't buckle, and no one checking the fit---a wonder that lad didn't break an ankle---with skate laces draped onto the ice, with only a couple of helmets in the lot, and only one of those buckled, and many without so much as a coat on bare elbows. And the ice was melting in numerous places and super-slick, particularly by the entry, and in a number of surprising locations out across the ice. After a little of this, we gave up in complete frustration. Jane then went back and worked on the finish and polish of the article she's been laboring over for two weeks---and having finished it, ex'ed out of the word processor, only in the act realizing what she'd done. Yes, dear readers, we live with these machines, and occasionally we get tired and do things we really wish we hadn't done. The program had no backup. No save. Nothing. Gone. I've done it. We've all done it. It makes it no easier when it's your finished, perfect version of something you've labored over for weeks, and you just get to thinking about it rather than about the routine movements your hands are making. So you'll understand if, between that and the accounting, Jane is a bit behind on her page. Sigh.
Date: 02/27/04.................19889. There's something about working on the accounts that makes it near impossible to do any creative work. It's as if my brain shorts out of creative mode and I haven't got a creative thought left...hardly anything left at all, not even the ability to edit. I tried. I tried really hard. This time, after sorting out accounting disasters from last year, I took up the ancient ledger method and decided to keep a duplicate, paper record of the most difficult items to track, in a systematic way, in a notebook in the file drawer. I never had problems when I kept a paper ledger, bad as my math is, and it's notoriously bad. And we went back to the rink, which had many fewer skaters, but the ice was melting, and there were definite problem patches, not to mention the gifts from pigeons in the rafters. Did you know that skating over a pigeon feather on bad ice produces a sudden stop? It was difficult to keep one's footing, let alone learn anything. We've decided to switch over to the other, indoor rink tomorrow. We also picked up some costume items for our venture to the Memphis convention---items which involve a couple of wigs, one purple, and a, yes, genuine rubber chicken. Those who miss this great drama will be so sorry.
Date: 02/28/04.................19997. Inching my way along, but making progress by erasing outline and creating new solid text, so there's been a bit of number-reverse involved in that word count. Jane is still struggling with her article, and at first said she didn't want to go skating. I was greatly disappointed, because I've seen the ice at the new place and it's beautiful, and I was so looking forward to this. But Jane came into my room later with a change of opinion, so off we went, and it was gorgeous. The new ice is very much larger than the other, and doesn't have a deep trench along the wall. Perfectly smooth, perfectly reliable, and no need to watch the ice ahead for pigeon activity. I was able to go out onto center ice, and there were so many very small wall-huggers it forced me out there, which I am doing very well, thank you. I'm still practicing the crossover step, and have a chance of recovering the knack before my next lesson tomorrow. But one thing both of us have noted and are working on is the right-footedness engendered by same-direction skating. I can glide like a bandit on my right foot. The left veers and behaves badly, and can't be relied on. I think I'm not centering my weight correctly. Jane concludes the same. So we're back to skating round and round, this time relying on the left foot as primary and staying off the right as much as possible. Wretched headache this evening. Can't figure why.
Date: 02/29/04.................20635. The story is finally starting to move. People ask me if I outline. Yes, but...and the very strong 'but' is that outlines are somewhat necessary to remembering where you're going and doublechecking to see that you got all the points in, but the downside of outlining is that it's such an absolute pain to know you have to be writing toward what I call a 'marker', that you don't want to set very many of them. A 'marker' is a point where, no matter all the maneuvering and goings-on, the characters absolutely have to hit their spot in order for other things to happen. These 'markers' are like one key sentence or visual image which has to happen, and everything points toward that point and leads away from it toward the next marker.. Sort of like planning a trip on which many things may happen, and you may see and learn a great deal you never planned, but at a certain point in the plan you absolutely have to get to Denver before you can get to Kansas City. To continue the analogy, there may be other conceivable routes, which is how stories mutate, or why two writers can write the same tale and have them come out so differently. These 'destinations' so absolutely set the tone and meaning of a story that you have to get there, no choice, must do, or give up that story and write another. I recall being in literature classes (I was writing by age ten) and being as confused as everybody else by terms like 'plot' and 'outline' and 'theme' and all of that sort of thing---didn't mean a thing to me, and still is kind of queasy in my mind. The mental math I go through while constructing a story doesn't bear those names, and doesn't greatly resemble them in function or operation, either. Plot and theme are useful for people trying to explain or describe what a writer has already done, i.e, as analysis of an existing work, but I don't find the concepts useful to the actual creative process.......On the recreational front, we went back to the downtown rink for our lesson, and our very excellent young instructor attacked the right-footedness problem---very successfully. She provided the information that I, in particular,was trying to solve the left-foot balance problem by leaning in the wrong direction and using the outer foot to counterbalance, when what I should have been doing was lean into the center of the circle I'm making (the absolute opposite of what one does in the wall-hugging, clinging to any support stage of learning) and I should not put the off foot out sideways, but tuck it right into the axis of balance, right behind the gliding foot, though off the ice. I tried it. A miracle! Instant doubling of glide-time on the left foot. Jane and I discussed it later, and decided that hockey players are more like cutting-horses, braced wide-legged to head off in various directions and move with force....while figure skaters have to be 'collected' on their feet, like dressage-horses, which is the old war-horse training: stay over your feet, 'collected' on your point of balance, and be ready to pivot and jump and land. So you worry a lot about posture. Curious, curious, and we're working on this theory.
Date: 03/01/04....................21102. Well, well, well. I think we may have discovered a really big item in our skating careers. Seems that when we bought these completely brand-new skates, the pro shop was supposed to sharpen the blades. We haven't a clue what the blades are supposed to look like---but Jane finally asked the right question, plopped her foot onto the rail in plain sight---she's ever so much more flexible than most human beings---and asked a kindly instructor about the condition of her skate blade. The instructor was a little surprised that either of us had made the progress we have. This edge should have been done at time of purchase, in the arena shop, and, she said, it accounts for a number of problems we've had, including why if I go a little out of perfect balance, my blade pn the less secure foot skitters sideways. And probably it accounts for why leaves and pigeon feathers have been so lethal, but I don't know about that. We're still laughing---and we left the skates to be sharpened, which really seems to involve not making the edge sharper, as the instructor explained, but in routing out a groove on either side of the blade that should make the blades a little less slippery and a little easier to "edge" (lean) with without falling over. Jane's also getting her bottommost toepick tooth flattened---it's more extreme than mine, and has a tendency to hit the ice way too often. I'm just amazed that we lasted this long without breaking our necks, and our regular instructor is going to be amused when we tell her this Sunday. She had every reason, since she knew where we'd bought them, to believe they'd have been expertly sharpened, since that comes with the purchase. She'd have had to pick our feet up like horses to figure out this part of our problem, since it's not apparent at a glance---and of course, being both of us well-read and full of opinions, we always know enough to sound as if we know what we're doing---certainly not so, in this instance. You know, I almost asked the fellow who sold us our skates if we shouldn't have them sharpened, but the pro shop was in meltdown at the time we were buying our skates, a hockey game going on outside and players having equipment crises in the shop, so we were just glad to get our purchases made before closing. Now we know, and we didn't break any bones in the interim---we may even be better at some things, because we've had nothing at all to help us keep our feet from skidding, just a flat, unaltered surface. I wonder if I'll be able to glide as freely as now, once this is fixed. So tune in tomorrow, dear readers, to find out what happens when we hit the ice with actual edges on our blades.
Date: 03/02/04............................23889. Up with the sun---and a hungry cat with sharp claws. A clear, blue day, very little to remark, except it's inexorably getting warmer, which (sigh) I suppose is wonderful, but I prefer the snow. I worked quite happily once Ysabel had her morning brushing and I had a breakfast bar---no particular problems, and as usual, an arriving character has to act up, just to claim the scene. But it makes for fun writing: you just don't know if you can keep the blighter under control, or whether you'll have to take it it out. On the continued good news front---the diet has dropped me to a weight I haven't seen in a decade---or so. And of course, the big question about the skate blades. This proved interesting. They don't visually look different, sharpened, but if you run your finger down the blade, there are two fine ridges, one on each outer edge, and the center is just a little high. On the ice---a whole new world of stability: not a huge change, but less likelihood of a foot going off to the side. No effect on speed, but a vast difference in slaloms---plus if you even wiggle your toe toward another direction, you go there. And spins. A violent move would previously get me a 180 degree turn. Today it was 360 plus. And to stop the spin, elbow in the opposite direction. Really quite remarkable. Jane had a little trouble, since she had asked not only for sharpening, but also to have the bottom tooth of the toepicks beveled off, and the bevel went perhaps just a little more than she would have wished, and left a toepick, but one considerably further from the ice. So between one thing and the other, her foot is not meeting the ice in quite the same way. And this new ice, while mirror-smooth, isn't perfect. Jane went down hard on one shin, caught her breath and got back out on the ice. She thinks it was the lack of the toepick, but I think quite the opposite, that there is a high spot there: I was skating along and caught a toepick for no truly good reason. That seems as if there's a microscopic rise right there, and Jane's foot found it, which has the effect of braking violently on one side and not on the other---paradoxically, with the toepick shaved down, she has to reach further than she expects to exert any cautionary force with either foot, and this micro-startlement on a slick surface can take your feet out from under you.. She's bruised but undamaged, and she certainly has my sympathy: that's the same spot I fell twice in two days on, and it's still a lovely shade of yellow two weeks later. On the positive side, I'm doing much better two-footing it on the new edges, and I'm ever so much more secure on slaloms---have learned to hold my speed, using weight and balance, but nothing like Jane's command of this trick: she can hold her speed with nothing but that for the entire length of the rink. And she can stop. I can't. I'm going to have to work on that. The other thing affected is the crossovers, where you plant your free foot in front of the other, take the weight and step aside, in step after step---I'm still reckoning with that edge. AFTER the skate we went to the mall, one of our rare visits, which turned into a shopping expedition---I decided my shabby green coat and baggy jeans have to go (the weight loss has nothing to do with this, of course) once we hit warmer weather, because a Polartec coat just looks silly in ordinary temperatures. So I got a pale blue and gray DKNY track suit on the sale rack, which will go ever so nicely with my mustard-yellow skateboard helmet---can't you just picture it? and Jane raided the boots department, scoring a really neat pair. I got a new sports bag: mine was just about to rip; and we lugged our purchases out of the mall like a safari on the retreat. If I get really style-conscious, I might get a white helmet like Jane's snowboarding number. Tonight I'm cooking---no restaurants to blow that lovely result on the scales.
Date: 03/03/04................................23889. My complaint about the weather brought snow, evidently---quite a nice snowfall, lasting most of the day and actually sticking to the ground. There's supposed to be a bit more through the week, but alternate with rain, that will wash our pretty white coating away. I'll enjoy it while I can. Jane got her article finished, and started cleaning and sweeping; and I got the car to the dealer and got the oil changed, which was about a thousand miles overdue. We put so many miles on our cars and rely on them so much, we're really quite meticulous about oil and filter changes. Also, when you live in the Inland Northwest, there is volcanic dust, which is a lot different than the soft red-clay dust of the American Southwest. This stuff is unkind. The oil change (the dealership is clear across town) took a big slice out of the day, and we decided, since we had the lodge initiation that night, that we'd actually put on good shoes despite the sloppy weather and dress for the occasion---haven't had a spiff occasion in a while, which meant hauling out our good clothes and figuring out what still fits. THE DIET: down another half pound. So what do we do but head for the Italian restaurant that is our major downfall? But we were good, and my dinner arrived lukewarm and not too appealing, so it went home in a box, to be nuked later, and the manager, unasked, comped it, while Jane could only eat a quarter of her dinner. So I think we have supper for two more nights off this. I always hate to complain, and I didn't intend for the meal to be comped; but if there's a problem in the kitchen, best, I think, that they find it out from someone who knows what a wonderful restaurant this is (Tomato Street, for those of you near enough Spokane) than for someone who's there on a first visit to have a bad experience and never come back. They are good, and have made some adaptations for those of us on the Atkins Diet, which is pretty good for an Italian restaurant. THE WORK: Didn't get a thing written today, just one of those days where ordinary life has to get handled, and it's just too chaotic. The story, however, stays in the back of the mind, live and under assembly in a way that can't be allowed to lapse. SKATING: Jane's knee was pretty sore and we had so many things to do today we just couldn't get to the rink. Tomorrow, tomorrow.
Date: 03/04/04.........................23991. Slow progress this morning, but progress: things are getting in order in the book. The snow all melted. AND THEN: Jane is preparing to back up some working files and get down to work on her novel, when her Toshiba gives a loud electrical pop, goes down, and when rebooted, gives another pop and fails. She was remarkably collected when she arrived at my room to report the fact. We discussed some possible solutions like pulling all batteries and rebooting, but one battery is frozen into the machine, very much as if fused in place. She declared we were going skating, and dropping off her computer at CompUSA. Well, so off we go, and the good news is, it would reboot when one battery was pulled and the machine was plugged in. We still couldn't release the other battery, which is stuck fast. The computer has to be sent off to a repair center. Seven to fourteen days. We bought a keydrive to see if we could get the data off, before turning it in, but XP began to try to create a restore point before accepting the keydrive. Aggravation upon aggravation. So we now own a new keydrive---which won't work in my machine since the reinstall, since the Dell Restore disk isn't the same modern version of ME that was shipped with my machine, and it doesn't have a critical USB map file. I'm so thrilled. Jane, who is in the middle of several important e-mail exchanges, is now e-mail-less, incommunicado, and that took out her web-machine as well. So when she went to set up her website on the desk machine---remember we never had gotten that Maxtor drive situation completely solved---she got handed the blue screen of death on that machine, so she is now dealing with that, in what frame of mind let no one ask. The bottom and mechanism of the zipper pull fell off---fell off---the new track suit I bought and intended to wear today: that has to go back, and it was the last one in my size: I tried to fix it, Jane tried to fix it, and it's a lost cause. SKATING. We did go to the rink amid all this, and for starters, Jane couldn't get her feet under her: I suggested it was the adrenaline charge with which we had started the day, and I don't think I was immune to the shakes, either. It was bitter cold, I had to put on my gloves, and I exited the rink after an hour and a half when my left foot began to go unstable. AFTER. Since then I've been sore and a little sick at my stomach---computer woes are good for just generally giving you a nasty jolt. Jane's still in there working on hardware, on a day which had dawned with the blithe promise of her cleaning up the last of the article and getting back to her novel, with all sorts of good ideas and a bright day. The physiological reaction and the sudden change of direction of ideas all ready to go and the computer going out from under you are horrid. I'm now waiting for a reply from Dell Technical, and the cats are extraordinarily quiet. I wish I could help, with the other machine, but there's only room for one in that machine's guts, and Jane is very collectedly working through its problems, with the singularity of purpose of a person who had a perfectly good novel scene in her head this morning.
Date: 03/05/04....................23991. It snowed again this morning, and melted three hours later---welcome to the Inland Northwest. Work? No such luck---we had the computer emergency still in full swing, since Jane discovered last night that she had given the wrong cord to the repair desk, and that her backup was too old. She had requested the file recovery option, and first on the agenda was finally to run the test on the new Maxtor drive, which we would take to the repair desk for them to use in recovering the files. Meanwhile I started a simple internet search quest for usbntmap, the wretched little file my notebook doesn't have, which will enable the pendrive to run. I found a nice site that has a large collection of drivers for older machines, read, any machine above a year old, contributed by users, a free site. It promotes a software that backs up and installs and searches for drivers: driverguide is the software in question. But I didn't get to test the new USB drivers I found, because I'm not about to install anything until I've backed up my novel file, and every time I try to do that, the main computer is testing or doing some operation. MIDMORNING: The Maxtor tested all right and we grabbed our skates and the cord and the drive and ran off to CompUSA, which is right near the rink. Got everything turned in and went off for a little nerve-settling at the rink, exited sore and worn out and feeling much more cheerful.. I haven't made any new quantum jumps in skills, but I'm getting steadier and faster. We had no sooner gotten home than we discovered the backup had worked and the Maxtor was available for pickup at CompUSA. SO...back into the car for another run. Lunch today was an Atkins diet bar wolfed down with black coffee while I was lacing up my skates. And then a salad, somewhere in the middle of it all. And after we came back from the computer store, with the Maxtor, we settled down to yet another diet bar and battled computers some more: I got my backup done, installed the new driver, and lo and behold, the pendrive works. Jane is meanwhile looking for a good hard case that she can use for a shell around her old Toshi that has a broken lid: if she could locate the one that lets you actually mount the laptop to the shell, she could use that computer without laying out a couple of hundred dollars for the second new hinge it's needed---that model Toshi is notorious for those hinges. I, meanwhile, am really tired, and Jane is about to fall on her face, but her files did come through the restore---she installed the Maxtor back into the main computer, and she now has access to her files via the housenet. I also dropped off some tax forms that needed to go in, and dropped off the damaged jacket and got a new one in exchange---if the zipper flat falls off when unzipped, that