Fighting chaos

Today I switched my bedroom and my living room with the help of an orderly friend. He says it's a small victory in the battle against chaos. There are many small battles still raging in this apartment, and I really hope I win.

Tonight my bed is in a new place and the walls look whiter than they did when they had things in front of them and my tapestry and pictures are still centered over things that have been moved.

Change is good.

But it is bad for sleeping.

I'm back!

My computer is sooo healthy! I've got a new keyboard, iSight camera, display, heatpipe, a bunch of latchy things, something called an inverter, all covered by Apple Care!

My joy can only be expressed by singing children!



I think I might be the last person on the planet to discover the PS22 Chorus, but they waited for me, and I'm so glad!

Pauvre bebe!

My poor computer is ill and in the shop.

Which means I don't have internet at home.

Which means I can't blog much.

My computer misses you! But maybe I will see more of some of you in real life. I've realized this week just how plugged in I really am. I'm all right with it, but a break every now and again is not a terrible thing. My house is more organized than it has been all year.

And, yes, all my stuff is backed up. The novel is backed up three or more ways. All is well.

Gingerbread

I just posted to the Monkey blog about all the arts and crafts we took on for the Loyola Park show.

I'm particularly proud of my gingerbread cookie puppets for Diamond J.'s "Gingerbread Diary" story.



What's even cooler about this story is that the author is my neighbor. I ran into her and one of her brothers while taking a walk the other day. Another time she saw me outside of the park and told me "nice shoes." We were both wearing Birkenstocks.

I took the leftover gingerbread cookies to my Monkey neighbors' house for Thanksgiving dinner.

I almost can't handle so much community goodness! Love, love, love!

It was the radiator

I don't know what that's a metaphor for, but it's fixed.

While I waited for it to be done, I wandered around the library picking up anything that caught my interest, and I left with a whole stack.

I could go into why each book attracted me, but maybe a list is more fun . . . draw your own conclusions.

Bagavad Gita

Edgar Cayce's Mysteries of Reincarnation: Intimates Through Time

Bohemia: The Protoculture Then and Now

Stella Adler: The Technique of Acting

Acquainted with the Night: A Parent's Quest to Understand Depression and Bipolar Disorder in His Children

Tracks in the Psychic Wilderness: An Exploration of ESP, Remote Viewing, Precognitive Dreaming and Synchronicity It's about the government studying these things as a way to gather intelligence.

Kids in the Syndrome Mix of ADHD, LD, Asperger's, Tourette's, Bipolar, and More!

Love that exclamation point.

So after I picked up this stack of books, I decided to wander back to the mechanic's because I had no cell signal and thought I might have missed his call. When I walked in, he said, "you may have long life," because he had just turned around to call me. My precognitive powers slash good timing really freaked him out.

Metaphors

I got rid of the spoiled milk yesterday.

And the recycling.

I kept the insides of the pumpkin I carved and the seeds because I still have hope I might actually do something with them.

My car overheated, but here's hoping a dose of the proper fluids will bring it back to life.

I don't like the burn scar on the engine -- it isn't new, but after yesterday it might be worse.

There's always my bike. The seat's falling apart, but it's comfortable. Can't decide whether the bad feng shui of it crumbling or the comfort trade-off of buying a cheap new one is worse.

Sure I could save up for a nice new one, but it would probably get stolen. That's happened before.

All these things are true. And metaphors for bigger things. Funny how that works.

Blood on my hands

A lot of my recent work on my novel has had to do with sorting out secondary characters and figuring out if and how their stories serve the main plot.

I did a lot of work to revise one of these characters, to try to help her fit, but it turns out she's still getting the axe. It should simplify things. I can always add her back in if I need her, but my instinct is that she's done. She always felt a little tacked on anyway, and she brings up some issues that distract from the main plotline.

I started the bloody work of extracting her from the manuscript on Tuesday, and she's been shrieking a little. It isn't pretty. But ever since I heard Rita Williams-Garcia give a lecture on revision called "There Will Be Blood," I take some pride in allowing this part of the process to be as violent and gory as it feels.

It's kind of like how even though I only eat veggies and seafood, I unleash my inner carnivore whenever I order udon noodle soup with baby squid. You have to crunch down on their whole little bodies to eat them, tough tentacles, rubbery little heads . . . It's satisfying.

So goodbye, child of my brain . . . Crunch, crunch, crunch.