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Sunday morning
Apr. 6th, 2008 10:03 amSunny, and in the 40s already! Could hit near 60F elsewhere, but we're near the lake and can easily run 10-15 degrees cooler.
But the grass is greening and the daffodils are several inches high in spots. Haven't seen my scatter of crocuses yet, but they're in the part of lawn that's been seriously waterlogged, and I'm hoping they didn't rot in the muck. We could get rain tonight, which would only work to maintain the muckiness. My sump pump has finally stopped going on every few minutes, which means all the snow and rain is finally being absorbed. No basement leakage after the last rain, which is another sign that the ground is starting to keep up. But parts of the lawn still go *squish* when I walk on them. A dry week would be a good thing, but we're apparently not going to get it.
Should clean out the front gutter today, just in case.
Wrestling with opening chapters, working out when to drop the first hints of unease amid the everyday. It's slow going but my brand of fun, thinking of things that will have one meaning when the reader first reads them, but take on another one entirely as they go further into the story. It's an adjustment writing everyday events with no hint of The Shiny. As the story goes on, there will still be no Shiny, only Messy and Cruel, which is one thing that separates most SF from most brands of dark suspense/horror. Not that SF can't be messy and cruel, but those aren't qualities inherent in the overall genre (wih the exception of space opera).
Someone will bring up The Cold Equations. I know someone will bring up The Cold Equations.
The light classical station is playing. Dogs were napping, but are now debating which of them really owns the blue Kong. I'm sitting in the dining room, looking out over the deck and the snow shovels that need to be put away, the boxes I dragged up from the basement and need to break down before setting out for tomorrow's trash. Spent an hour and a half or so in the basement yesterday, my limit for the week. Found a tape of Sense & Sensibility with Emma Thompson, which I'd forgotten I had. Old photo negatives and copies of my folks marriage license and first few mortgage agreements. A copy of the disbursement of my grandmother's estate. Bills marked Paid that dated from the 1960s. All mashed up in one box. Dad never threw anything away. Unfortunately, he also never stored things so that they could be found quickly. I feel like an archeologist exploring a site hit by earthquake. All the layers shifted and I'm finding eras and dynasties all mixed up. Break out the carbon dating.
Also tossed a chair and table that I know Dad picked out of other folks' trash, and an old vacuum cleaner. Next weekend, another hour or so, and so on and so on, until all that's left to toss is the big stuff, which is when the junk hauler will get a call.
Watching the Rings trilogy the weekend (with limited commercial interruption but they still manage to break at the damnedest times), with Return of the King playing tonight. I can follow things a little better this time through--I never read any of the books but for The Hobbit, and for the most part the story lines as played out in the movies have always struck me as a complete muddle. I like Sam, and Gollum/Smeagol is a work of wonder. But I'll be watching and all of a sudden X Son of Y will show up and everyone will look at one another meaningfully and then we'll see a shot of Sauron's Eye and I will get the feeling that I missed something Important even though I've been watching the whole time.
And I know mine is the minority opinion, so I will just finish my coffee.
Comic book Movie of the Week was Blade:Trinity with Wesley Snipes wearing sunglasses at night and Parker Posey stepping out of her role as Indie Queen to play a vamp with vagina fangtata, which is discussed but not actually seen given that this is regular cable. The no-neck brother from Prison Break plays the KIng of the Vamps. There's a vamp Pomeranian and some improbable biochemistry--well, more improbable than usual for movies like this. Many fight scenes, with some visible overlap between CGI and real-life which I'm sure was simply error or sloppiness but that reinforces in a weird way the comic book nature of the story. Except I thought comic books were better-plotted than this.
And now the guys are napping at my feet. And I need to get back to plotting.
But the grass is greening and the daffodils are several inches high in spots. Haven't seen my scatter of crocuses yet, but they're in the part of lawn that's been seriously waterlogged, and I'm hoping they didn't rot in the muck. We could get rain tonight, which would only work to maintain the muckiness. My sump pump has finally stopped going on every few minutes, which means all the snow and rain is finally being absorbed. No basement leakage after the last rain, which is another sign that the ground is starting to keep up. But parts of the lawn still go *squish* when I walk on them. A dry week would be a good thing, but we're apparently not going to get it.
Should clean out the front gutter today, just in case.
Wrestling with opening chapters, working out when to drop the first hints of unease amid the everyday. It's slow going but my brand of fun, thinking of things that will have one meaning when the reader first reads them, but take on another one entirely as they go further into the story. It's an adjustment writing everyday events with no hint of The Shiny. As the story goes on, there will still be no Shiny, only Messy and Cruel, which is one thing that separates most SF from most brands of dark suspense/horror. Not that SF can't be messy and cruel, but those aren't qualities inherent in the overall genre (wih the exception of space opera).
Someone will bring up The Cold Equations. I know someone will bring up The Cold Equations.
The light classical station is playing. Dogs were napping, but are now debating which of them really owns the blue Kong. I'm sitting in the dining room, looking out over the deck and the snow shovels that need to be put away, the boxes I dragged up from the basement and need to break down before setting out for tomorrow's trash. Spent an hour and a half or so in the basement yesterday, my limit for the week. Found a tape of Sense & Sensibility with Emma Thompson, which I'd forgotten I had. Old photo negatives and copies of my folks marriage license and first few mortgage agreements. A copy of the disbursement of my grandmother's estate. Bills marked Paid that dated from the 1960s. All mashed up in one box. Dad never threw anything away. Unfortunately, he also never stored things so that they could be found quickly. I feel like an archeologist exploring a site hit by earthquake. All the layers shifted and I'm finding eras and dynasties all mixed up. Break out the carbon dating.
Also tossed a chair and table that I know Dad picked out of other folks' trash, and an old vacuum cleaner. Next weekend, another hour or so, and so on and so on, until all that's left to toss is the big stuff, which is when the junk hauler will get a call.
Watching the Rings trilogy the weekend (with limited commercial interruption but they still manage to break at the damnedest times), with Return of the King playing tonight. I can follow things a little better this time through--I never read any of the books but for The Hobbit, and for the most part the story lines as played out in the movies have always struck me as a complete muddle. I like Sam, and Gollum/Smeagol is a work of wonder. But I'll be watching and all of a sudden X Son of Y will show up and everyone will look at one another meaningfully and then we'll see a shot of Sauron's Eye and I will get the feeling that I missed something Important even though I've been watching the whole time.
And I know mine is the minority opinion, so I will just finish my coffee.
Comic book Movie of the Week was Blade:Trinity with Wesley Snipes wearing sunglasses at night and Parker Posey stepping out of her role as Indie Queen to play a vamp with vagina fangtata, which is discussed but not actually seen given that this is regular cable. The no-neck brother from Prison Break plays the KIng of the Vamps. There's a vamp Pomeranian and some improbable biochemistry--well, more improbable than usual for movies like this. Many fight scenes, with some visible overlap between CGI and real-life which I'm sure was simply error or sloppiness but that reinforces in a weird way the comic book nature of the story. Except I thought comic books were better-plotted than this.
And now the guys are napping at my feet. And I need to get back to plotting.
