2003-06-02 - 2:49 p.m.
Lightness of being

I'm all in lilac and cream today; I feel frothy, like a confection or something.

I've written 2,000+ words on my story in the last day or so; hopefully my reviewers haven't forgotten all about me, it's been a week between chapters the last month, and I started it back in April. But I think I've gotten past the hardest bit. I don't know the voices of certain characters very well, so it's a little difficult to run through a scene picturing how they'd react when I haven't any clues to work with from canon. Now I'm onto the voices I know very well, and it's starting to flow. Phew.

I've owned my elliptical machine for a week now, and I just took it out of the box last night. But I'm thinking that was probably half the battle. It looks much less intimidating in pieces on my floor than it did as a big chunky box that weighed half as much as I did. Now, I've just got to borrow my brother's toolset and bolt the thing together. It's got to be easier than my last bookshelf was.

I went up to Granddad's place on Saturday, visited with him and Grandma W and brought back Version 1.0 of his novella to edit. Seems he has writing aspirations too, only he started pretty damned late - he's 79 years old, almost 80 - and he taught science, not English. So he's loaning it out to me to go over with a fine-toothed grammar comb. I'm not sure whether to dread the project, or look forward to it; depending on the writing style, it could be really awkward to work on. Grandma W (wife # 5, all but one of the previous in the grave) made taco soup while I was there and I gave her one of my toe-rings and she beamed and chatted about family; Granddad muttered about their cat and how he was so grateful that my brother went out last week to clean their windows. God, they're lonely. I should visit them more often.

I got my final for the telecourse in the mail. Guess that's almost over already - it was a bad idea to take a not-in-person course. Maybe a nightcourse in Criminal Justice this summer? Bet I'll meet some interesting people there, and hey, fodder for a real-world mystery type novel. There's always an application for anything that can be learned, and bonus! I still like learning.

Hell, maybe I'm manic-depressive and not just depressive; reading my last entry and gauging my mood today, I feel like it was two different versions of me from different planets. Maybe I just need more sun and some exercise on my new machine to counterbalance the moods with natural endorphins. I don't know. I'm just ... me. Searching, self-mocking, slightly cock-eyed in worldview; I work, I am, I endure. And in carefully caught moments at windows and on hillsides, I even sometimes ... rejoice.