You're Doing It Wrong

The transit mall has see-thru roofs for the bus stops. When they built them I was skeptical but I like them now. Yesterday there was a huge downpour while I waited for my bus and it was fun to watch.

Last night I had a scary dream and woke up with my heart pounding. When I tried to remember what it was all about what I could remember was that I had a bowl of strawberries I wanted to take back to the mini-mart because I knew some of them were clowns. Meanwhile, this scary lady in a truck was following me and told me she knew I was responsible for the chicken paste.

Your guess is as good as mine. I didn’t even eat anything weird yesterday.

Another gorgeous day in paradise.

Normally nature sounds don’t bother me but some bird has taken up residence right outside the windows by our bedroom and my writing room.

It goes like this: tweet TWEET tweet GURGLE chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp

Pretty much continually during all daylight hours which is 5am to 9pm at the moment. Shouldn’t it have other things to do? Find food? Enjoy the sights? Poop on cars?

I might have to go out there and throw rocks at it but I’m hoping our neighbor will do it first.

Southpark: my favorite spot for food (paella!) and happy hour.

I have nothing to say that you haven’t already heard a million times.

I have a long list of things to do that I can’t seem to get to.

This is my last weekend before World Cup so I had high expectations. I made progress on the writing stuff but not really anything else.

Yesterday was nice enough to do yardwork and I ran around like a madwoman clipping, weeding, pruning and planting.

This morning I woke up to hard rain on the roof and wept quietly into my pillow. I love living here. I love rain. This is too much.

You know when I bet the weather is going to get fantastic? Next weekend when I’m glued to the TV. I don’t know. Maybe not. The sun seems to have forgotten us.

I’m out the door right now for TIMBERS! game which would be fantastic if it wasn’t raining.

For those of you keeping track, the August 2010 of Asimov’s with my story will be for sale on June 22. Don’t worry. I’ll remind you.

Amsterdam, March 2010

The power went out this morning. I guess it’s never going to stop raining or storming here. At least it was nice in February.

I saw my clock blinking so I got up and checked the real time and set my cellphone alarm.

I had the clock on the microwave set so that I knew the exact time by the minute that I needed to leave to catch my bus. This morning I was at a loss.

I guessed but guessed early and had to huddle under the shelter until the bus arrived.

I’ve reset it but I think it will be another couple trips before I have it perfected.

Klamath River, Summer 2009

I’ve had two sales and they both come out this month.

The whole issue is here:

Innsmouth Free Press. Issue 4.

And my story is here:

Estelle Makes the Casino Run.

I’ll have details of the other story as soon as it’s available.

Madison, Wisconsin

Last week was the 30th anniversary of the Mount St. Helens eruption. I didn’t live up here then. Bob did.

There was a PBS Nova special about it and Bob asked me to DVR it so we could check it out.

(Aside: Great St Helens stuff at the Spokesman Review if you’re interested.)

It was half super-interesting and half overdramatic hoohaw. We were a little bit disappointed by how corny some of it was.

In 2005 the mountain started burping. I was here for that and I’m sure I wrote about it but since I’m still putting off the skull beating it’s going to take for me to figure out how to fix my archives, I can’t link to it.

The Nova special emphasizes that we were moments from violent death. That crazy mountain could do anything. Then there would be some musical beat to punctuate just how big the danger was and a lingering shot of a doe and fawn tiptoeing into the trees. No doubt they would be incinerated shortly

The only thing I remember worrying about is that something would happen and I would miss it.

From the Old Timer’s Picnic in June 2009, Orleans, CA.

Where did all the time go? I had all these plans for this evening and now it’s already bedtime.

Here’s my favorite article/comment thread in a long time:

How To Use Hyphens (Hint: Avoid)

Finally. I have my candy drawer at the office reloaded. I accidentally let my supply run out. At one point I resorted to looking for (and failing to find) stale cinnamon bears in the back of a drawer in co-worker’s desk.

Last night I tried a terrific recipe: roasted asparagus and walnut crema. Basically you make hummus out of walnuts and then spread it on a plate of pasta and cover with roasted asparagus and sprinkle with chopped walnuts. The recipe calls for some froufrou cheese but we used Parmesan. Bob and I each hoovered a giant plate. (aside: hey! my spellcheck automatically changed hoovered to hovered, bastards!) I suspect you could put that crema on just about anything and it would be delicious. I might have to have a crema and Nutella sandwich tomorrow.

I’m not going to say too much about Lost. I was super annoyed when I turned off the TV last night. I had to wind down and try to get to sleep because it was so late. I managed to get to sleep but then I woke up at 3:30a and started thinking about it again and couldn’t sleep. I passed the time by torturing Bob who was in dead-to-the-world mode. I kept putting my feet on him and tickling his arms and whispering that I couldn’t sleep. He just kept snoring. I’m going to put a Sharpie in the nightstand for next time.

So I’m functioning on 4 hours of sleep today which was okay until about 3pm when I felt like I’d been beaten and left for dead. I punched holes in filing and organized things that could be done later. I’m going to go to bed at about 7p.

Back to Lost, I was less annoyed when I woke up this morning but I still think the last 15 minutes was overly stupid.

Here’s my question: where did that runway come from? (That wasn’t the part I thought was stupid.)

This morning I read a comment thread on the episode and the two best comments were from people who never saw the show. One guy said he’d seen the commercials and he’d had an idea that [how the show ended] was where the show was going. What a liar! The other person said he’d never seen the show and proceeded to write a 500 word comment with his thoughts about it.

Amsterdam.

I feel like the world is conspiring to make me crazy. It’s one frustrating problem after the other.

Today’s development: ants in the kitchen. I crawled around on the kitchen floor for a half-hour with a flashlight trying to figure out where they’re coming from. I think I found it. Temporary solution has been put into action and after lunch we’re going to the store and look for reinforcements.

Meanwhile I got notice that my old webhosting intends to bill me three times my actual annual rate next month. I have to go through this with them every year and fax an email that shows what the agreed upon rate is. However, three weeks ago I phoned billing to cancel my account because I changed over to this stupid wordpress-hell thing. I knew it was too much to hope for that the cancellation would actually be processed correctly. Please, waste more of my time.

The weather rarely gets to me like this. I don’t mind rain. But this unseasonable cold and endless cold hard rain is filling me with despair.

I’m going to stay up 2.5 hours past my bedtime to watch the series finale of Lost tonight. I’m a fan but not diehard but I don’t want to worry about any spoilers tomorrow.