Replacing fence posts. Wind storm wrecked the whole neighborhood. It snapped trees in two that looked invulnerable and ruined the last section of fence I haven't already replaced (from years past). I can't put up any fence slats though. Home Depot is totally out. I'll leave that step off until next week or the week after. That's not the hard part anyway. They were also trying to sell 8 foot posts for $55 each. Yeah . . . that's not happening. I managed to find a different one there for a sane price. Strange days.
Waiting for green chili to cook, the baby to wake up, and the older kids to come home. Deja vu all over again until I look in the mirror and see the old lady laughing back at me.
Came back from plundering the library. They almost locked me in there. Just getting ready for the next Lockdown. Can't believe the TP hoarders are still hard at it - Saw a guy carrying insane amounts among the Xmas shoppers. (Me carrying a huge bag full of books over my shoulder, instead of food or TP, is of course perfectly normal)
Recovering from a three hour drive involving a couple hundred miles of 40-70 mph crosswinds. Trying to stay awake until it is late enough to go to bed without risking awakening at 4 a,m,
Im back home from visiting my family and am now back at work after 2 weeks. I don't know how i feel...
I go back next week, but will still be driving back and forth weekly to take care of my new granddaughter for another month. After that, they'll move fifteen hours away. Too bad you don't live nearby. We could have tea and talk about conflicted feelings.
Starting 2021 year end financials at 12:06 AM my time. I've got one restaurant that still has a check open, and if they don't close it by 12:10AM, I'm going to drive over there and do it myself. I've got nooooo time to wait on mofos. The new year is six minutes old and I already feel behind!
Sitting in front of the woodfire working on my novel and waiting for midnight when I'll go out into the 0 degree night and watch the new year come in from the east. Goals was to finish the first draft of the last part of the novel by midnight. Not going to quite make it, but its close enough to make me happy.
Over the last couple of weeks I've been listening to Les Misérables at work and I might need therapy after this.
Working my way through the original CSI (into season 9) and installing Peppermint Linux on an old Dell laptop.
Riding on a train through the night-black countryside of western Pennsylvania. We're two and a half hours behind schedule, but at least we got out of New York City before the worst of the blizzard hit.
Reading Origin of species. My pace has picked up to a point where I may finish it by mid March at fifteen-twenty minutes a day. Langage is interesting. Monstrosity for what we now call mutation. Savages for natives of undeveloped areas &c.
In lieu of actual writing, I've started to organize my writing folder (just shy of 500 documents divided across 70 subfolders). It's going to be an ordeal, but I've spent entirely too much time looking for various WIPs, chapters, worldbuilding documents, notes, dossiers, or whatever. Few things kill motivation and inspiration so much as searching for your story for a good hour.
Waiting on my son-in-law to get home to care care of Baby so I can try and beat the winter storm that's rolling in. It's already snowing, but I hope it won't get too bad until later today. Traveling in the Rocky Mountain West is always a crap shoot this time of year.
Writing during lunch break. Guess I better get back to work. It's a modest hike to the next location, and I'd drive but gas is too expensive. I could get a bike, I guess, but I like to read my kindle on the way over and that would be too dangerous considering how I ride.
Instead of doing my WIP, I think I'll take the time to design a board and rules for an in-universe game that is only glimpsed, obliquely, in one scene and has no effect on anything. Starting to feel like a real author, over here.
Getting ready for my daily wake and bake, then a long walk through the watersheds that are research for some current non-fiction.
I'm preparing everything to start full-time uni in a couple of weeks as a middle aged man. While I'm experienced and excited, and understand that no one gives a shit about age, I still feel anxious about being out of place. The reason is that when you're young, you have an excuse to not know anything and to wander around aimlessly while you figure shit out. I guess I feel if I wander around aimlessly trying to figure shit out people will think; come on man, you should know all this shit by now. But I'll get the hang of it and I get along with everyone so it will all become normal. But still... new (ish, I went to uni for a year 19 years ago) experiences are the same at 19 or 44. And like my parents told me many moons ago, you never really stop feeling like a teenager.
You'll be just fine. I went back to school at 42 and finished with a 4.0, something I did NOT do at 22. Having learned some writing and organizational skills along the way, I could knock out in an hour an essay that took the kids a week of hard labor. I actually got along with the kids better as A Woman of a Certain Age than I had when I was a kid myself. Just for the record, I haven't felt like a teenager for decades... thank goodness.
Wondering whether I can get away with 86ing guacamole from my two Mexican restaurants. Or charge $15 in good conscience, of which, I don't have one when it comes to menu pricing. Avocados are running $80 a case (up from $45), limes $90 (up from $40-ish), white onions $53 from $36. Strangely, meat prices have been incrementing dropping. But produce? Sweet Baby Jesus....
