Day in the Life of an Idiot

I meant to update a while ago about the CAR. The short of it? All is well--for now. I was actually very butchily mcButcherson and talked to the car part store guy about my heater problem. He recommended that, since I got the heater BLOWING again, I put the extra fuses back on the shelf and try adding antifreeze.

Guess what?

It worked.

And it was a lot less butt-munching cold to stand outside with a bottle of antifreeze than it was to try to jam the stupid fuses into the stupid spot under the stupid steering wheel (seriously? Why there? So NOT convenenient.) At any rate, since we had a quick fix, I took the car to get an oil change thinking that if there was a massive hole in the oil works or antifreeze parts maybe they'd notice and tell me about it. Well, they didn't. But, the last is pretty obvious. The car stinks like she's burning oil. So, we're going to have to budget to take it in to the shop at some point soon here. In the meantime, I just keep checking oil and antifreeze levels and keep fingers crossed that nothing goes horribly wrong.

We had a mostly lovely weekend. Saturday was Mason's swimming lesson. He's in level 4 now, which is called "stroke improvement." So, he's learning the right way to do the front crawl and back stroke and all those official swimming techniques. I didn't learn those until high school, but I'm pleased that, no matter what happens in this class, Mason can swim. This is a good life skill to have in the "Land of 10,000 lakes."

Saturday afternoon was KidCon III, hosted by naomikritzer. Mason had a blast playing ALL THE GAMES. Shawn and I took advantage of being kidless to... (wait for it!)... go grocery shopping! I tell you, the romance is still smokin' hot, people!

Yeah. Kind of sad.

Still, it went a lot quicker this way and now the house is well stocked for any cold/snow snaps we might have in the next several days.

Sunday, as you know, was the Superbowl. I have to admit, I had no idea who was even playing, but as it is also the wedding anniversary of seanmmurphy and his wife Katherine, we often have an invite to a Superbowl party. Shawn was feeling under the weather, so Mason and I headed over. I have to admit to being not-in-the-best mood myself as we'd had a rather trying day attempting to get Mason to organize and put-away his LEGOs (I finally broke and just DID it myself). I'd also spent the morning and much of the afternoon giving the kitchen it's once-in-a-blue-moon deep clean. Thus, I was actually a little crispy and spent, but the Murphys had chili and treats and all the traditional offerings. Plus, it's a damn-near National Holiday, so I felt I really needed to at least have some Superbowl experiences so I could feel as though I was a pariticipating citizen of my fine country.

Wow. Go.Daddy, huh? GROSS.

Plus, I did. not. need. on a HD TV, which the Murphys have.

See, now I'm a hip, with-it American. You're all suitably impressed, right? However, here's where I have to confess that Mason and I didn't even last until half-time, so I missed all the excitment of the black out and the resurgance of the 49ners and their subsequent nail-biting defeat at the hands of the Ravens. This is what morning-after DJ patter is for, as well as the "superbowl ad recap/review" on the NY Times web site. So, while I heard that the pony-Budweiser commerial was a tear-jerker and that Iron Man's trailer was shortened by 30 seconds, I have no actual experience with either major event.

I did make it home in time to catch the first 30 seconds of Downton Abbey, though, but we recorded it for later since Mason stayed up late on Saturday (which might have accounted for some of the whiny/irritablity on Sunday) and we thought an early bed time was good, considering I'd fallen asleep on the couch at around 6:30 pm right after coming back from the Superbowl party. So, don't tell me any spoilers, especially you people who already watched this season on BBC.

My big plans for today are to get a few more words in on Samurai High, consider a number of other projects, and finish mopping the foyer and the dining room (the latter of which had been covered in LEGOs until late yesterday.)

Right.

Off to it.

Any minute now.

Hmmmm, first I should make some more coffee.

//Updated to add: I forgot to tell you all the ridiculously BAD NEWS. I'm apparently ready to test for my blue belt at Kuk Sool Wan this upcoming weekend. I think my head instructor is out of his bald-headed gourd. My head instructor actually looks *exactly* like this:



So, you know, you JUST DON'T ARGUE with a guy like that, so I will be testing next Saturday. Now, whether or not I will actually PASS is another question. Given how rarely I remember any of the steps to the techniques, I'm fairly certain that I'll be doing this more than once this month.

This is one way in which I am completely unlike my Bleach crush, Renji. I would pretty much rather never advance. EVER. I like just kind of hanging out in the lower-ranks where there is no pressure. But, apparently, my Zen-attitude of "it's the journey, man, not the destination" isn't going to fly.

*sigh*

So, yeah, what HAVE I been up to?  About 5'2" -- har, har.

But, in all seriousness, I've been away from the internets (mostly, but more on that in a second,) because I've been trying to get my brain wrapped around a proposal for a miliary SF novel.  I've got this awesome character, right? But, uh... no plot.  I've got and IDEA for events what should happen, but none of the "why the heck does this matter?" bits.  So, I've been banging my head against the keyboard A LOT this last week.

Of course, because I've been frustrated with the work I need to be doing, what's been pouring out of me like wine (or, perhaps "whine")?  Fanfic. 

This is part of why I said I think that fanfic can be addictive, in both the good and bad senses of that word.  The bad part is that "oh, holy crap, so much more FUN than thinking thinky plot thoughts!  OMG, look at me, I just spewed out 4,000 words in two hours!"  Followed closely by, "Wow, 80 people read it already!" 

So I've been trying the classic carrot/stick approach.  If I get some work done on the proposal, I'm allowed to go back to the fic.  But, I've been SO STUCK that it's been super-frustrating all around and has leaked out in fan art (see below.)  The only good news in all of this is that I have always had a profound sense of discpline.  If I want to continue to have the life of a writer that I've grown accustom to, I simply must "do my best!" (as the characters in my Manga are always saying) and get this thing out if it kills me.  I'm actually looking forward to tomorrow when I'm scheduled to hang out with my writer pals, so I can do some idea bouncing of their writerly brains. 

I kind of know my problem.  I need a good villian.  I laid awake a lot last night trying to figure out who that might be for this particular character.  I MIGHT have a bead on him now.  We'll have so see.  I'm off in a few minutes to learn how to walk a dog.  (I'm not kidding.  I'm learning the ropes of a dog walking job a friend needs help with during the High Holiday season.)  I'm hoping that letting stuff percolate without trying to force it out--which I'd been doing previously--might be the key.  I used to do a lot of my plot thinking on the treadmill, so the dog walkies might help me, actually.

Otherwise, Shawn had the day "off" yesterday.  In actuality, she had a fairly horrible test at the doctor's in the middle of the morning, and I not only drove her there, but offered to hold her hand afterwards.  It was actually pretty painful.  It involved electrodes and needles and... thankfully came out negative (the result that means normal.)  But, it also means Shawn still DOESN'T know what causes parts of her body to go numb randomly.  However, the doctor has pretty much ruled out anything that's super-life threatening at this point.  So it's a good news/bad news deal.

Mason is back to school.  We have some cute back to school pictures I should post finally.  Speaking of pictures, Shawn, the trouper, actually sent a gigantic order to Walgreens to finally print out the last two years of photos.  We spent nearly 70 bucks, but it should be nice to actually have hardcopies of some of these, and we can finally share some with Mason's school and our family.

Ah, so that's about all I know.  Hope you're all well.  I look forward to the flurry of spam this post is sure to elicit from the LJ spambots!

Holidays always mess me up, especially when I've had car troubles to deal with. I feel like _today_ should be Monday because Shawn was home on vacation yesterday. And since I spent all of yesterday chasing around after the car stuff, I feel kind of cheated out one day, you know? At any rate, it's been a bit of whiplash to realize how late in the week it is already. Yeah, it's only Tuesday, but Tuesday is almost Wednesday which is half way through.... !!

:-)

In the continuing saga of the small hassles of my life, something happened to the cord of my Dell so that it now no longer conducts electricity. Which is kind of the point, apparently. A cord that doesn't juice up one's battery is kind of useless I've discovered. Luckily, I have a fairly awesome battery. However, I'm going to have to replace the cord sooner rather than later since this is my main writing laptop. I've already sent copies of my latest WIPs to myself at gmail, and it's not like we don't have other computers at home. I shouldn't suffer any loss in productivity. (Erm, that, of course, implies that I have been productive... which I have to admit to slacking off a bit for the holidays. But, *Oh MY* how fun is "Fruit Ninja," huh? Or, how about that "Cut the Rope" monster, cute, or what?? Can you tell that someone got an iTouch?)

Also, it seems as an ice storm is coming into town just as I was planning to head down to LaCrosse for my great-aunt Clara's funeral. I'll have to decide how bad it really is on Thursday morning, and whether it's worth the risk. I might have to just send flowers, which would really bum me out. I don't know why, but I really feel like I ought to go. I haven't seen some of my extended family in a really long time, and it would be one (if sad) chance to reconnect with some of them. It's not worth risking my own life, though.

I have a new book to write (Tate's YA book #3), and I've been having a hell of a time getting motivated (or, as my family likes to say "motor-vated") to write it. I think the truth is that I've fallen out of the habit. naomikritzer and I have talked about this before. Even after however many years publishing books, it's still easier for me to write if I DO IT EVERY DAY. Writing *isn't* like riding a bicycle. I seem to totally forget how to write/have discpline if I take too long a vacation from it.

One of my big goals today is to actually put words on screen.

The weirdest part of this fallow period is that, although I have been doing quite a bit of "in-take" as I talked about before, I'm actually kind of excited about the proposal that I sent in. Book #3 should be fun to write. I just have to start it.

The weekend was busy. Friday was Mason's half-day, and we had a lovely fire and Mason read a lot in front of it. I did some more yard work, because we as many trees as we have, the raking is never done. I managed to put the herb garden to bed, which is a big project.

On Saturday was Mason's continuing swim class. He's still having a great deal of fun with it, and really seems to be on the brink of really, for real swimming on his own. Saturday, despite the wind, I did a little raking -- though the front could use another pass, since our really-late to change maple finally dumped most of its leaves. (With the early winters we have been having lately, this tree usually sheds onto snow.) I must have bagged about a dozen bags. Can I just say the compostable bags SUCK. It takes almost no pressure to rip them to shreds, so all I can say to the St. Paul garbage folks who will be picking them up: "sorry! But, dude, you brought this on yourself!" (The compostable bags are required now, or they won't pick up at all. It's awesome that the city picks up our lawn waste, but, man, the bags are whimpy.)

Saturday afternoon we did an exchange of junk with Shawn's brother Keven, with whom we've been estranged for two years. We reached a kind of truce via e-mail, which is... good? It's all very complicated and not something I really want to go into with great detail, because, honestly, the various problems we've had with Keven have spanned the entire twenty-five years Shawn and I have been together. Still, that first meeting in two years was nicely anticlimatic, but it still left Shawn and I exhausted. I think we'd had a lot of anxiety leading up to it, so we crashed hard afterwards. We ended up watching BBC's "Planet Earth" (a small bit of the several disc set) and eating Red Savoy's pizza in a daze.

Sunday we spent more time in the attic, which we are still trying to clear of roofing detrius. Not exactly a fun-filled weekend, and it was made somewhat less pleasant by the fact that the sudden change in barometric pressure gave me a sinus headache most of Sunday.

But tonight should be fun. Mason has an afterschool class called "staying safe at home." And, then, if we're not too pooped after that, we're going to try and hit the later kuk sool wan class for white belts/kids (we usually do the 5:00 pm class, but I don't think we can make that one with Mason's schedule tonight.) I feel badly that we haven't quite settled into a routine with karate yet, but I have faith that we will.

Okay. No more stalling. Off to write and then excercise.

Last night at Wyrdsmiths, the reception of my newest re-vision of the prequel was met with a resounding, "Uhm." My favorite part was when Eleanor declined to critique it until she'd heard whether or not everyone else was going to completely trash it. After Bill made happy noises that I was at least making progress, Eleanor decided "well, if Bill likes it, it's probably okay."

Wow.

So this morning I am starting again.

I have no fraking idea why I am struggling so much to write this book. I decided, however, that I'm still missing essential Mouse-ness somehow, and have decided to riff on an off-handed suggestion last night to write a short story about this article (forwarded to me originally by naomikritzer) that had inspired one of Page's footnotes (which were too long, too many, and not funny enough. *sigh*).

The book now starts like this:

"You know you're living in a true sh*t-hole when the army won't even send real soldiers. Drones they call 'em. Mohammad and I call 'em "parts."
Here comes another one now. It rolls smoothly on the wavy, shifting sand dunes that fill the narrow roadway between the crumbling buildings and half-buried stalls. Its motor chatters as it pings and ticks and whirs to itself, like the mutterings of an old, lost soul in this ghostly marketplace."

That has more something... more *je ne sais pas.* I think it will eventually lead me back some places I'd been before, but I need to see them all again with fresh, science fictional eyes.

I've been depressed all morning, though I did sit and compose a bit of the new stuff out in the backyard (horray for laptop batteries and outlets in the garage). The sun on my skin felt great and I was visited by a mangy, calico cat who sat and watched me suspiciously for several moments before rubbing her scent glands against the picnic table just to let me know it was hers. Later a squrriel buried a few nuts or seeds or just randomly dug holes like they're wont to do, and a juvenile robin sat on Mason's jungle gym before fluttering off to greener pastures, no doubt.

I really kind of want to give in to my cravings for a Coke or some chocolate, but I went to the gym this morning and realize that it would take more than thirty minutes on the eliptical to sweat off that one can of Coke. Bleah. Perhaps tonight I will drink too much Mike's Hard Lemonade and watch more of "The Closer." Although Shawn's friend Liz is coming over for homemade pizza -- the dough is rising even now, which should be fun, and distracting from my writing woes.

Well, nose to the grindstone. I may write a bit of Tate's YA, since that practically writes itself at breakneck speeds.

*double sigh*