And then, my head exploded: Exploding Head Syndrome

Actually, my head didn't explode. But I do occasionally suffer from Exploding Head Syndrome, a weird phenomenon that, since I've had it for as long as I can remember, is probably more common than anyone realizes. It's just that, who are you going to tell? And what are you going to say?
(Simulated conversation)
"Honey, someone hit the house with a car!"
"Um, no they didn't."
"Then it must have been an earthquake!"
"Um, no. No earthquake."
Googles. Sure enough, no earthquake in the news. "All the doors in the house slammed at the same time?"
"Now you're just being silly."
"Okay, okay. It must have just been my head exploding."
"What?!"

I've felt burning, prickling, and even stabbing sensations in my sleep associated with dreams, or perhaps the dreams try to 'explain' the sensation by making me suddenly walk over sharp coral or getting shot or stabbed. And no, I don't wake up with a body part that's fallen asleep when this happens. So that's pretty weird. I've had full-color (which isn't supposed to happen) full sensation, vivid dreams that border on hallucinations. These dreams, separate in experience from my other dreams, are associated with a period of time when I had severe sleep disturbance issues that they tried to treat and ended up giving me epic nightmares. Ugh. I've also had 'normal' full color, no sensation dreams that nonetheless seem so vivid and important that I remember them for years afterward, like the one where I found a newspaper article about the first centaurs created by science in someone's tower-house attic. I've done lucid dreaming (fun, btw) where I can consciously seize control of the dream environment and continue to dream. And my creativity is clearly linked in a reciprocal fashion to dreaming. If I don't write with full engagement of all my powers of Kami every day, I'll start to dream weirder and more vivid dreams, then nightmares, until finally I find a time when I can do some serious writing and then the dreaming returns to my regularly scheduled programs. And if I'm in the middle of an intense writing period, I'll get incredibly lame, super-boring dreams where I'm shopping for an item and can't find it, or I'm at work. And then I have to wake up and go to work or go shopping. Ugh. What a waste of good dream time. It's like all the creativity that poured out of me into my writing drained my lake-o-inventiveness and left behind a sludge of boring.

But this annoying thing, this exploding head syndrome thing, though it doesn't happen very often (maybe a couple of times a year) is so bad, so frightening ... and yet it's happened often enough now that when it happens and I wake up (today it woke me at a reasonable hour, 5:30 am, which is nice because now I can get an early start on my day) I can accept (almost every time–not this morning though, whoooo boy!) that no, the house wasn't whisked away in a tornado and we didn't just land in Oz with a tremendous crash that killed one of the wicked witches.

As awesome as that would be.

And I can usually go back to sleep.

Not always, though.

This morning, it's good that I'd pretty much had a full night's sleep because I could not have gone back to sleep. My heart was going a million miles an hour, I felt hungover (and no, didn't have a drop of alcohol, actually hadn't had even a nightcap since Sunday–hey, could that be my problem? :P ) and I was absolutely, positively sure that an intruder had dropped something incredibly heavy, as in, the entire house when the jacks had given way (except there was no falling sensation just before so maybe it was just the half of the house I wasn't in.) (And there were no associated rattles or glass crashing so clearly it was emptied already of all our stuff.) (And the wood framing had to be stabilized in some way because there were no snaps, crackles or pops.)

It was really unpleasant and frightening, to say the least. I was actually afraid to explore the house, I was so sure that there was a crazy, clumsy intruder downstairs.

Some doctors believe that you'll get clusters of these exploding head thingies when you're stressed. I don't know about that. I am incredibly stressed and overworked right now, but I've been incredibly stressed before and I didn't get them. There's no way for me to remember if I was stressed when this happened before. I suppose, now that I've blogged about it, I can make a little note on future blogs at the end and we can track it together.

So, if you see something about my head exploding at the end of future blogs, don't be alarmed. It's for science.

And now that my head has exploded, I can start my day. I hope you have a great one! And may your head never explode.

Bad Phone Company, No Bone for You

It appears that we won't be entering the 21st century for at least another week.

Sadness!

Much as I love visiting the library, I'm more than a little irritated. The phone company didn't call and let me know there was a change of schedule. I'm glad I had the day off anyway, as I was able to attend a very informative class on small business tax law for my state, but half the reason I decided to take the day off was to make sure I would be home for the installation. And I had a ton of things I could have done in the morning instead of waiting for the crew, such as grocery shopping and picking up a load of hay, straw, oyster shells, and two loads of landscaping material. The place closes at four--I'm not going to get home and back in time to get that done. Drat and drat.

The day they rescheduled us for without consulting us as to whether we'd actually be there just happened to be, by pure unadulterated luck, a day that R. would be home, otherwise we'd have to reschedule their unannounced rescheduling for sometime in March.

I feel like I'm five years old again and a week is for-ev-er! I've already waited over a week. Whine!

Sometimes patience is hard. I'm all about patience when I'm fishing. Waiting for internet service, it seems, not so much.

But I've been waiting for two years, so I guess I'll just have to put my big girl panties on and tuck in that lower lip. But not before one last hmph.

Hmph.

The Trials of Marketing Part One

OMG.

I just spent all day ordering my first ever promotional postcards.

Okay, maybe not allll day.  But it felt like all day because I had to redo the postcards so that they fit within the bleed margins.  I thought I already had, but apparently not.  Also, apparently my powers of math are weak, because they weren't quite proportioned right.  After playing with resizing the existing postcard sides, I gave up and rebuilt them from scratch.

Then and only then was I able to upload them, order them, and I then find out that with the not-cheapest but not most expensive shipping, they will arrive the day before Orycon.

!!!!!!!!!!

That's a little tighter margin than I like, but I'll live.  And they are done.  Done!  For this batch, anyway.  With the heart attack moment at the end of ordering time (finding out when they'll actually arrive) I think I would have preferred to go with a local big box instead and worry about getting the cheaper price later.  Especially since the shipping was scary expensive.  The moolah I saved I basically lost to shipping.  Assuming the quality would have been the same (I'm not sure it is) I think I would have rather spare myself the heart attack and buy the cards at a higher-per price and driven them home myself.

But, having said that, now that I'm a (scarred) postcard-creating veteran, I can save buckaroos by ordering larger batches with essentially the same shipping from the same company.

Or not.  These postcards may not result in any sales.  If not, I guess I'll be out about $60, which is not devastating in the grand scheme of things.  If so, it'll be money well spent even if it only initially sells me a couple of copies.  That'll be a couple of chances for reviews, a couple more chances for the word to get out, but most importantly, a couple of chances for the writing to prove itself (or not.) 

Customers that make me cringe

Had a return today from a gentleman who didn't like the flip flops he'd bought.

"These have two problems," he told me very seriously.  I put on my best grave attention face.  "First of all, I want you to see this."  He took a flip flop and pushed it across my counter as if it were a Hot Wheels special edition car.  It went about six inches.  I had a really, really hard time not laughing, especially since he looked even more serious.  "Did you see that?" he exclaimed.  "I wore those on a vinyl floor and almost had a very serious fall.  You should pull these all off the shelves immediately."
I imagined demonstrating the Hot Wheels flip flop to my boss and almost laughed out loud again.  I think my serious face cracked a bit around the edges.  "I don't think they'll let us do that."
"Then you'll just be part of the pay out for the lawsuit against the manufacturer when someone is seriously injured in these."
I thought about people suing because they wore high heels in sand and broke their ankle.  Mmm, not so much.
"The second thing is that they have this cloth on the bottom that's peeling off," he said.
"Yeah, that's really bad."  I finished processing the return, thinking about kids skating gleefully around hardwood floors in these things, and why more people don't sue manufacturers for making those hard plastic bottomed slippers that are far, far worse than the Hot Wheels flip flop.  But I left it alone.  "Sorry those didn't work out for you."
He gave me that 'you'll be hearing from my lawyer' look and stalked off.

I also had a lady dash in.  "I just bought this," she said breathlessly, setting hair color on the counter.  "I just want to trade it for a lighter color.  It's way too dark.  I didn't notice until I got outside."
The color was 'Clove,' a very dark, reddish, almost black brown.  "Sorry, I have to run this as a return unless we're trading it for the identical color."
"Can I go grab the one I want?"
"I need your information--"
She left her ID on the table.  I filled out the stuff while she was away.  When she came back, she had a very, very dark brown, but without the reddish tones.  "This is the one I want," she gasped.  "How much longer will this take?  We're buying a pickup truck and I have to meet someone."
And you're buying hair color ...? Now?  Oh, never mind, it's not worth it.  "Just take this to the cashier and you're all set."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome."  Enjoy your almost indistinguishably dark brown hair color.  It'll cover your light brown hair ... a lot.
I expect to see her back tomorrow.

Too Much Work

I'm a bit overwhelmed at the moment. Masks is eating my brain and I don't want it to stop until every last cell is gobbled. I've got to get the water sealing problem fixed on the sliding door while the weather holds--when I have no idea because it'll be almost dark when I get home and I can't do it now because it needs to be cleaned up under there first. I have to work on House of Goats, I have to get two book covers done, and I haven't touched my Wyrd Goat website (I have the domain but I'm still working on the bones of the actual content.)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

I wish I could call in sick but I'm too ethical. Okay, that's totally untrue. The wishing part is untrue, not the ethical part, because wishing for it would be wishing that I was unethical, and I don't. Argh, I'm confusing myself! Help meeeeeeeee

There's only one cure. Soup for lunch. Soup for lunch makes it all better. I'll go pack some into my snapware container that I use for hot lunches and just focus on day job work.

Maybe I'll take my laptop with me to work and get something, anything done during my lunch hour. Yeah ....

What do you do to cope when you have too much to do and not enough time?

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One

I just saw the latest Harry Potter movie in a second-run pub theater.  Great company, good food, but the movie didn't work very well for me.  I'd read a little about pacing issues, so I didn't go in with high expectations.  Even with that in mind, though, I had serious trouble with the way the story moved.  The elements were mostly there--fine actors, beautiful special effects that didn't distract from the story, etc.  But I kept wondering what happened to the dialogue, to the ideas, and most of all, to the charm.

I was charmed by the books, and I was charmed by many of the movies.  I don't think it was a case of no-surprises.  I enjoyed watching the story I knew come to life on the big screen in the other Harry Potter movies, as well as other movie-from-book films I'd seen.  But life is precisely what was missing here, at least for me.  

For example, I delighted in the derigible plums.  At that point I reveled in that little taste of what had been omnipresent in the books and most of the other films--the color, the environment, the quirky things that belonged there despite their often unusual character, and the sometimes awe-inspiring beauty.  These things convinced me of the existence of another world as marvelous and complex as the real one we live in every day.  I had little to nothing except those plums to convince me of another world this time.

There's an important lesson here for storytellers everywhere.  The 'telling' details often mentioned in writing courses and critiques and in criticism are really important.  They ought to be called the 'showing' details, though.  Because they show us so much, without saying a word.

Bravo to actors, special effects folks, camera men, makeup artists, costumers ... and bravo to the writers, director, producer, etc. for all the hard work, but alas, I can't recommend this movie, and I'm likely to buy it only on discount in order to complete the set after the next movie has come out, assuming this next, and last, movie doesn't do the same or worse as its brother.

Ex-Siding Developments

Our siding has some rotten places.

I discovered this when I prepped to paint.  I went up with caulking, started injecting ... and found that a few hand-sized places were essentially painted veneer with sponge-like wood underneath.  I stopped caulking immediately, realizing that I was basically trying to glue together sawdust under a thin coat of wood held together with paint.

After a lot of tapping and testing, we've found all the bad spots, so we'll replace the siding in those areas and paint them while we still have dry weather.  I'm disappointed that we won't have the painting done in time to beat the incoming wet weather, but that's okay.  Another dry spell will come along.  

Eventually.

I hope.

That's both dry and above freezing.

The good news is the vast majority of our siding is surprisingly sound.  Yay!  I'm looking forward to how the house will look when it's all done, and I'll sleep a little easier knowing that we'll be in good shape to weather the next long stretch of years.  All in all, the house really is getting into really good shape.  When I look back at how it was, both home and property, and how it is now, I'm amazed.  

It's hard to realize how far we've come when I discover a problem like this, until I start to think about how major some of our problems were (like my office flooding) compared to what they are now (a little bit of rot that will only take a few hours to deal with.)

I think we're going to be more than okay.  I think this house is turning out great.

The House, She is a Mess

I looked around in despair yesterday at a living room completely dripping with clutter sauce and a kitchen that had either crumbs or something greasy or both on every surface, including the stove. Gaaaah! The kids and I started cleaning up a bit, so it's better, but it's not good. I still flinch when I look around, but I can actually do something in those spaces other than run away screaming or start cleaning with a crazed look in my eyes.

I will have to clean some more, not just for my own peace of mind but so that I can concentrate on work. I used to have a higher tolerance for clutter. That tolerance is wearing thinner and thinner the older I get. The good part is that overall, our house is nicer. The bad part is that if I fall behind on cleaning, my writing pace really starts to fall off until I get my housekeeping act together. Fortunately I don't put off housework so long that it's a clean-by-diverting-a-river kind of situation anymore (most of the time, ahem) but like now, I do sometimes ignore it for long enough that the clean up will take a not-insignificant amount of time to rectify. Ugh.

It's that time of year to wash windows, too. The recent profusion of sunny days has revealed the quality and quantity of dirt on all my exterior glass surfaces. If I don't do something about it soon, all the windows in my books and stories will be grimy, dusty, cobwebbed things.

I just want to dance in a circle chanting ick ick ick ick ick! I wonder if it's possible to train cats to clean.

That should be enough whining for now. I think I'll go write about someone with a really bad housekeeping problem.

Rats!

Sorry about the lack of posts. We're still in iffy territory as far as internet connection and my office. We're working on it. I've also got a rotten cold of some sort. Bleh.

Anyway ...

I keep telling myself, it's not nearly as bad as last time.

But still.

We're finally tearing down the ceiling downstairs to rid ourselves of our ongoing vermin problem. In the middle of this (of course) the power went out in half the house. The half with my office.

Never fear! The good news is that I don't lie awake at night wondering if the house is going to burn down because a rat or mouse chewed through an electrical wire. Well, not too often, anyway. Turns out the wiring all looks pretty good except for one small spot that had nothing to do with the power going blink blink out. Turns out the power went out because of an overload on one of our breakers, now fixed. Yay!

The boo part is that we still have more ceiling to take down, and one of those rooms is my office. So there's really no point in setting up the computer in there, only to take it out again to make sure falling debris doesn't pop the screen (again.)

Blogging, email, everything computer-communication related is pretty much toast on the home front until we finish tearing stuff up and cleaning out icky mouse nests and making sure the wiring is safe and sound. Then I'll set the computer back up to its designated line and we'll be limping along at blinding (as in sometimes I think I'll go blind waiting for pages to load) dialup speeds. Because of line noise on our main line (yes, I've tried a noise reducer and it doesn't help that much) we have limited incoming email capability, no outgoing email (it times out) and very limited ability to look at web pages. Sorry.

My DH took point on the ceiling tear down. Have I mentioned lately he's my hero? Now, we didn't find bags and bags of dog food and rice like the last time I had to do this (in the boy's room, which is still blissfully clean.) But it's still disgusting to have that stuff raining on your head and arms. The ick factor doesn't shower off all that easily. Oh sure, the dirt rinses right off but the heebie jeebies need some serious scrubbing and the bleck bleck bleck requires toothbrushing, gargling, and then a second shower before it comes off. And of course we have a new influx of eeeee! spiders! that have until now lived all content and happy between the ceiling and floor.

We got the family room/library done in a day. Hopefully it'll only take a day to do the bottom of the stairs (there's a mousie spy hole there--they know we're coming and probably setting up ambushes, but they never man up to ever follow through,) my office and my daughter's room. We hauled off 840 pounds of gross stuff to the transfer station. Unfortunately that day or two won't be immediately forthcoming--we need a good combo of weather, lack of cold/flu stuff, and uninterrupted hours. It's bad to start a ceiling tear down and stop mid-way.

Where will we go from here? We have a cunning plan for what to replace the ceiling with. Details will come out after we've tested the system. Wish us luck!

Captain Obvious

Yesterday I went to workout.  After some time on my favorite elliptical torture device, I went to stretch and I discovered something.  My low, low back was tender.  WTF?  I toyed with it, figuring it was just tight.  It didn't get worse with exercise, and I had no problems during my weight-lifting routine.  My physical trainer (the train part being that thing with the bright headlight that hits you when you're in the tunnel) ran me through an arm routine that made me a bit sore in the shoulders but nothing debilitating (yet.)  Not even a twinge from the back.  But sitting in the car?  OMG!  Sitting anywhere, unless I'm careful to keep a curve (toward the stomach, not hunched--that makes it worse) is painful.  

I went over my activities.  I got that furniture from IKEA, but I used equipment to move it and I used good mechanics and it wasn't even hard.  I didn't do anything weird at the test.  I took the garbage to the curb.  I vacuumed--hmm, I have a track record for doing bad things to myself while vacuuming.  But that doesn't seem right.  So I checked my IUD to make sure it hadn't started to migrate.  No, all good there.  My friend M suggested it might be back cramps.  Well, it's early for cramps, way early, and I don't get them like I used to.  Still, I took ibuprofen.  Didn't touch the pain.

So I'm telling my DH all this over the phone, and then tangentially mentioned that O and I moved the futon down to the porch the day before yesterday.  And it happened.  I had my Captain Obvious moment.  Or, to quote MST3K for "Cave Dwellers" (a classic!) "This arrow may have something to do with her pain."

Moving that futon was a bear.  It was awkward and dangerous and at one point I slipped and had to catch myself before me and the futon as one big nasty package were delivered on O downstairs from me.  Could I have tweaked my back?  Heck yeah!  I'm surprised one or both of us didn't end up in the hospital when I slipped.  (Note to self, scrub algae off of deck when feeling better.)  

I feel dumb, and yet, vindicated.  I figured it out, and I didn't hurt myself doing something innocuous like drying myself off with a towel.  (Been there, done that.  *sigh*)  I hurt myself valiantly.

I just didn't realize it at the time.  D'oh!

Programming Pre-Hell games

So I was all feeling proud of myself for putting out one of my personal fires for programming when I decided to deal with another situation.  It's only 2:30 am, I reasoned.  I can do another half hour of work and knock off one of my last chores before programming hell.  Piece of cake.

So I opened up the database, and blinked.  And stared.  And realized that it was not to be at 2:30 am.  In fact, it might not be to be until Monday.  Granted, Monday is when I figured I'd get my data together, but since I'd planned on getting my data via the database on Monday, and it's not there, I will now have to get my data another way.  It will probably involve chocolate shipped to certain addresses and possibly some groveling and hopefully by Monday these things will have paid off and I will have actual useful data on Monday.

I know.  These non-specific whining posts are so dull.  I'm too tired to care.  And I'm annoyed.  But glad.  Glad I caught this before Monday, because if I caught this on Monday, I'm not sure when I'd get my data.  Later than I want it, later than other departments need it.  So staying up late to finish this stuff paid off.  I'm now aware of a problem that I didn't know was a problem.

On the other hand, I have a problem.  Poopyhead software.

Barn it!

My barn, the Siberia of the Miller Household.  Neighbor's house not included.

I'm so grateful that we have a gigantic truck.  It's full again of stuff for the dump.  Some of the stuff is out of the house, but most of it is out of the barn.

For those of you who haven't had a barn before--OMG.  They're wonderful, but they do tend to fill up.  It's very easy to get into the habit of sending things that you don't want to deal with right now to the barn.  It's sort of a Siberia for the private land owner.  "I don't know what to do with those boxes--oh, just take them to the barn for now."  "Lawnmower isn't working?  Um, put it out in the barn, we'll fix it later."  "Gah!  Stop fighting you two!! Okay, that's it, both of you, go to the barn!"  

I need to send me to the barn.  I haven't written a thing in a couple of days and I have stuff I have to get done, the main thing being finishing a couple of polishes so that I can get a couple of stories out.  Yes, I now have completed stories that could be sitting in slush piles but instead are languishing on my hard drive.  Bad Kami!  Bad!  Go to the barn and don't come back until you're ready to apologize.

Oh, wait, already did that, and I filled up my truck with boxes that I didn't want to deal with at the time.  Well, huh.  Guess I just have to say sorry, and get back to writing.  Just don't send me to the barn again!

Driving Everywhere

Gas prices smash prices, I gotta drive.  Everywhere.  At least, that seems to be my doom flavor of the week.  Today I have a write-in, I have to pick up the kids from my mom's, and I have to get the car into the dealer for its regularly scheduled maintenance.  Tomorrow I'm driving forever, all day, there and back again so that while the kids spend some time with my MIL the animals will still have someone who loves them waiting on them hand and foot.   I'll have to drive again on Friday to get the kids back, but that's Friday.  I'll have a whole day (theoretically) of not driving on Thursday.  That sounds like bliss about now.  I'll be driving again on Saturday, so I'd better make the most of Thursday.

Don't get me wrong--I actually enjoy driving.  I have my tunes, I have A/C if it's too hot (though sometimes I go ahead and waste the gas by rolling down the window,) I enjoy watching scenery/landscapes even if I've seen them a hundred times, and the traffic gawds love me so I'm rarely caught in a jam.  But I don't think I'd enjoy driving every day.  It's hard to write when you spend most of your time on the road.  It's hard to do anything, for that matter, except driving when you drive.  Yes, hands-free talking on the phone, yes, recording notes, but it's not as satisfying as doing these same things while not-driving.

I usually appreciate the privilege.  Our not so distant ancestors were severely limited by how far they could travel, and the risk of travel was considerably higher even if you factor in car wrecks.  This week, however, it's too much and I'm hoping next week I'll be able to take a long vacation from driving.

You gotta be kidding me

The refrigerator is leaking.  The appliance guy will be here later today to fix what he believes is a problem with the defrost drain.

You know, I mentioned that on the (seemingly more unlikely) day that I remodel the kitchen the only appliance I'm interested in replacing is the refrigerator.  I also mentioned that I wanted a new washer and drier, and noted that because the pump is so noisy it'll probably go out soon and need to be replaced.  Guess what's all died recently?  Is the washer next?

I would like to now make an announcement.

Everything in this house is fine.  We don't need anything new here.  What we have is serviceable and fine and I'd like to continue to use it please.  Thank you!

Unfortunately I have been talking about putting in hardwood floors, replacing some of the furniture and, eventually, the tv.  Anyone want to take bets on what breaks or goes bad next?!  Gah!

Let me entertain you!

So, our pump went out this morning.  We knew this was coming.  It was making lots of noise, letting  us know that it was a very, very unhappy pump and wanted a hug.  The timing of it, though--oh so good, and yet oh so bad.  I mean, it's like there's a mini-fate that keeps an eye on us.  She never throws us anything we can't afford, but makes it expensive enough that our financial plans are shot.  Remember the hardwood floor in September?  Poof.  

Well, maybe not.  But it's looking unlikely.  This isn't an ordinary pump.  Nope, this is a 3/4 horsepower well pump sitting at the bottom of somewhere around 200' of pipe, and it all has to come out.  Yep, all of it.  Pipe, wiring, plumbing and pump are all coming out of the ground tomorrow.  It's a half day job ($$) with a bunch of guys ($$$$) and some heavy lifting equipment to pull the pipe straight out ($$$) plus the new pipe, pump, and any plumbing that has to be replaced ($).  So the money I'd planned on spending on hardwood floors downstairs ($$$$) will go toward paying off the credit card.

What, you say?!  Credit card?!!

We can afford it ... in two weeks.  Not tomorrow.  Two weeks.  And they're coming tomorrow because I want to flush my toilets, thank you!

Mini fate, I love you.  Kiss kiss, sweetheart, darling.  Thank you for not throwing us more than we can handle.

Sigh.

So this week's entertainment will be the plumbing circus.  I thought, whatever, let's call the appliance guy and just repair the drier if possible while we're at it.  Because the new drier ($$$) I wanted?  No point if there's no water getting to the washing machine.  

I'm not disheartened, I'm really not.  I'm grateful that this isn't going to punt us into bankruptcy or put us into debt for the next X number of years.  It's just another thing to keep me busy.

This weekend.  This weekend we'll settle back and relax.  Really.  It could happen!

Wishing for On the Rocks Laundry

Three and a half hours.  That's how long it took me to do the laundry I brought to the laundromat.  I think I did somewhere between 12-15 home-sized loads (I have a really big washer dryer set too) in that time, which is lightning fast.  I had six of the largest washers going at one point.  Thankfully the dryers were really huge and I was able to dry things fast enough that I didn't have time to sit down and read (which translates to wasted time which translates to even more time spent at the laundromat.)  I had about ten minutes of free time and then one after another the dryers would run out of time, I'd pull out anything that was dry, restart them, and start folding.  I usually didn't get done with folding what I had before I had to fish out the dry stuff and restart another dryer.  Intense, but worth it.  The laundromat's owner was a peach of a man and kept my sense of humor going through it all, even when my back was whining about how heavy laundry is.  (Boo hoo, do you want to sleep in clean sheets and blankets or not?!)

I may go in next week and do what's left over plus anything that accumulates in the meantime so that I stay ahead of the game instead of falling behind while my dryer is non-functional.

The only disappointing part is that I was sure I'd have time to sit and write on something.  Next time I'll know just to put my driver's license in my pocket, about $25 cash in the other pocket, and forget all the writing stuff and reading material that was supposed to keep me distracted.  Oh, and an iPod shuffle, of course.  

It did make me a bit nostalgic over my old college days and the Suds N' Suds.  Beer and laundry.  I think it's a perfect combination.  Margaritas and laundry, even better.  Salt and Suds?  Blend N' Tumble?  Or, heh, On the Rocks Laundry, for those of you who remember that much laundry was done (and still is done) by beating it on rocks.

BTW, ma'am, in case you read this:  Put your entire effing load in one dryer next time, please!  You can dry more than one towel in one dryer, one pair of jeans in another, and three t-shirts in yet another.  I can't believe you had the nerve to hold the last one in the bank for your husband's soccer uniform (one tank, one pair of shorts.)  I can tell you're used to people not arguing with you.  Well, I was no different.  I used a dryer on the other bank.  Why was I smiling?  Because I know you're a poopy poopy poopyhead and having to live with yourself is its own worst punishment, not to mention you plugged in a whole lot of quarters for no reason.  You were there for two hours, too, with less than a tenth of my laundry, because you couldn't tell when the clothes felt dry.  Poopyhead.  Poopy poopyhead.  I'm way more mature than you.  So ha!

Green Drying

Today my dryer went kaput.  Won't even tumble.  It's just dead.  It's dead, Jim.  It's an ex-dryer.  Now, I had been planning on getting a new washer/dryer set.  Tomorrow?  No!  Like, September, October or December.  Not tomorrow, not next week, not three weeks from now.  And I'm not going to do it.  Not not not!  (Stubborn stomp.)  The good news is that it's summer and the stuff I had in the wash can line dry outside.  The bad news is that I have to line dry outside until I figure out what I want to do (besides research washers and dryers and cave and go to the laundromat.)

I've line dried before.  And those of you who plan on waxing rhapsodic about line drying including how it makes clothes have that special smell and so forth, go ahead but be warned that I may feel an irresistible urge to hunt you down later and talk about how we should all go back to catching and killing our own food and eating it raw.  I can talk for hours about that.  Days even.

Here's the deal with line drying in my limited and reluctant experience.

Upsides:  

• It saves lots of electricity and yes it makes clothes smell nice.
  

Downsides:  

• The clothes often don't feel nice unless you beat and shake them after they're dry.  I especially dislike crispy towels, but some people do like them so this may be an upside for them. 
  
• That nice smell includes an infusion of pollen, so if you're allergic, guess what!?
  
• Spiders and bugs will quickly find the clothes and cuddle up inside their nice shelter.  You have to turn everything inside out and shake to make sure you don't have any unwanted passengers.  Fleas or ticks will not shake out, but fortunately they rarely hop on in the time that you've left the clothes outside.
  
• Birds will settle on the line and leave little whitish and grey presents.  Happy birthday!  (But it's not my birthday ...)
  
• It takes a lot of room.  The pic shows one load.  While you're line drying, unless you have a really nice line drying rig (which I covet, btw) you're limited by warmth and wind as far as how many loads you can do in a day.  
  
• If you want to dry anything big, like sheets, you need a much higher rig than I can conveniently string right now.
  

Hints:

• Don't use a stretchy string or a string that will stretch when wet (like cotton, unless it's woven around a non-stretchy core like many clotheslines are.)
  
• Don't let the clothes touch plants.  Bugs will crawl from the plants onto the clothes.  They'll still creep up the posts and along the line or simply hop on but you won't get as many as you will from the plants.  You'd be surprised how much traffic there is on a single grass stalk.
  
• If you use your spouse's rappelling rope, don't take a pic of it and then post it on the web.  (Oops ...)
  
• Unless you're in a windy area you don't need a lot of clothespins.  Only for socks and underwear.  If you need to put wet clothes out to dry in an emergency situation where your dryer has just quit, assuming it's not super-windy right then, hang the clothes first so they start to dry and then go get your clothespins.  You're less likely to overbuy that way plus they'll be drying while you're driving.
  
• Try not to hang them at a time when they'll be out overnight unless you have no choice.  They'll get dew damp in the morning and you'll have to wait until they dry before you can hang your next load.
  
• Try not to hang clothes in strong winds.  They collect a lot more dust and pollen that way.
• Don't run long stretches of line.  They'll sag a lot.  Additionally, put heavy stuff by the posts first and then hang the remaining lighter stuff in the middle of the line.
  
• If you have jeans out to dry expect that they'll take forever to dry.  Jeans and other heavy clothing items need to be turned and/or turned inside out in order to finish drying.  The rest is fine as-is.
  
• Take in clothes as they dry.  On a warm day things like light polyester or poly-cotton blend work shirts, handkerchiefs, thin socks and/or nylons and scarfs can dry in just a few minutes.  Generally speaking, woven clothing dries faster than knitted.
  
• You can dry stuff outside in very cold, even freezing weather.  It takes longer, but if it's very dry (like it often is in winter around here) the ice in the clothes will sublimate (dry off.)
  

Please feel free to shoot me down or disagree or give me helpful hints or fun laundry stories.  I'm open to ideas, encouragement, and laughs.  Just so you know, I'm also resisting the go to the laundromat option.  It's pretty expensive and inconvenient.  But I'll probably get up tomorrow morning, look at the laundry pile, and cave.

Yes, yes, I'll be looking at Energy Star products, Craig's List (aka I stole this list,) and Sears is at the top of my list for places to shop.  Btw, I've never, ever had a new washer and dryer, so I'm a little excited about the possibility that I'll be getting a new or late-model set.  Not excited enough to offset the aggravation of the timing (couldn't it have quit a couple of months later?) but still.  

My appliance guy had just fixed this thing recently, too.  I may have him take a look, but I've already poured a lot of money into it for repairs, so ... Ugh.

Oops, I pushed my character and he broke

I'm still feeling yucky today.  Hopefully this will lead to long term betterness but for now I'm sore and feeling bloated and low energy.  Up until now I've been getting up early and getting lots of work done.  That's out the window.  

But I'm still writing.  Thank goodness I can do that while in sitting-on-butt mode.  Today is transcribe day.  I'm wondering if the stuff I hand wrote last night will read well on the screen.  Yet another opportunity to edit by looking at the prose from a different angle, though personally I don't care to edit on unfinished novels.  Then (yay!) I can launch into the next chapter.  I ended the last chapter with a bad thing happening and I'm eager to get writing on the consequences.  This will push all the characters to their limits.

There are times when writers push their characters too hard, though, so that they snap and then just curl up in the fetal position and do nothing or thrash around uselessly.  That becomes annoying to a reader fast, especially if they're smarter than the character on the screen.  It turns into a one-sided shouting match.  What do you mean there's nothing you can do?!  I can think of three things off the top of my head and I don't even care if you do any of those, just do something!

That isn't a usual problem, at least not with beginning writers.  They tend to go soft on their precious babies.  But when the challenge is well beyond what the character can handle, it's just as bad for the reader.  Now, this is different from a character being momentarily overwhelmed.  That can be very, very fun.  But eventually (and sooner rather than later) the reader wants the characters to find their feet, regroup, come up with a new strategy, or even just run away, so long as they're active on the page.  And if the characters come back stronger and smarter and overcome the challenge that originally knocked them on their asses, that's sweet.

Lecture (rant) of the day is over.  Use the rest of your classtime for homework or free-time quiet activities.  Thanks for listening!

Despite doc's best efforts, Kami is still writing

Today I had a (TMI! medical procedure.)  Everything went smoothly and other than some very minor discomfort I'm doing fab.  Fab, unfortunately in this case, means I'm walking around like an old woman (not hunched but shuffling) and easing slowly when I get up and down.  I'm sure I'll be less sore tomorrow morning.  By Thursday I should be feeling back to normal, just in time for a mammogram.  I tell ya, trying to stay healthy is a lot of work and yuckiness.  But at least my hand feels a lot better.  It still hurts when I make a fist, but the fact that I can make a fist is spectacularoso.  

I got a lot of novel writing (by hand) done at Fireside today.  I broke an old man's hip.  I'm such a meanie!  It's really good that my characters can't get to me because I'd be in big trouble with some serious bad-asses.  

And now, for my next trick, I will finish (I hope!) reading and critiquing a book manuscript before bedtime.  I've got about ten more days to work on it but I want it done so that I can get back to my real job eating bon bons.  Er, I mean writing.  Yeah.  And maybe even some art!

Thursday

It's gray and cool outside, perfect weather for gardening.  Unfortunately I'm in the dumps.  Lots of complex emotions working through me.  But I've had my morning oatmeal and that makes almost anything better.  Just waiting for it to kick in.  Maybe I'll have some chocolate for a quick pick me up until the more complex carbs start their magic.  Yep, it's called better living through chemicals.  No artificial ones required today.  Mother Nature has more than enough luvin' for me.

Last night I wrote some on a short story.  I'm waiting for the twist to occur to me, but in the meantime I have plenty of normal plot to work through.  I think I might be getting better at the whole short plot thing.  The issue now is how to keep the writing awake and alive.  At novel length I have no problems (or at least I don't think I don't) keeping the world active.  There's so much going on not just in the pov character's life but all around it--political stuff, weather, economic issues, cities and nations teeming with problems, rural life keeping the urban dwellers fed and the disconnect between them, things spiritual, societal attitudes changing and staying the same in a swirly vanilla chocolate cone of cultural existence, on and on.  Things come at the characters from way in the outfield, or sideswipe them.  There's opportunities for random things.  Grandma passes away.  George gets the flu.  There's a storm, or an earthquake, or a heat wave.  

There's not much room for those sorts of things in a short story.  There's not very much room overall in a short story.  So I struggle with richness.  I feel a little impoverished when I write a short story, in addition to feeling inadequate.  But at least when I'm actually writing instead of thinking about writing, all those worries go away.