and available here.
My story “Beer Goes to War” is in this one….
Monthly Archives: April 2013
How Beer Saved the World is now live…
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Story is…done. Skiing…well, didn’t happen. And I think I did a Lake-plus.
So I woke up this morning at 5:30, groaned, told DH “I’m checking conditions and if they’re crappy I’m coming back to bed.”
Mid-thirties. Raining. Uh-uh, not a day for skiing, and besides, I wanted to sleep in after dragging out at oh-dark-o’clock yesterday and writing like a madwoman in the car all the way to Clatskanie before swapping over to the pickup and cruising to Hammond to dig clams. So I dragged my behind back to bed…and got up at 10:30. Huh. Guess I was tired after all. I haven’t slept in like that without it involving an illness or international date line travel for years….
Anyway, the day got spent writing. Some time got dedicated to feeding birds, doing a couple of small projects around the house, but…mostly writing. 3600-some words today, probably more when cuts get taken into consideration. And the story is finished. Not beautifully, but it’s a good enough rough draft. I went back over the story today and slipped in some pieces early on to make the front end fit the back end better because, really, the story evolved over the fury of writing that took place yesterday and today.
And while the story is not a thing of beauty yet–first drafts never are, especially ones written like this one was where I had deadline hanging over me and I HAD to figure out what came next in the story to get to the resolution I wanted, but the events and the logic and the characters didn’t quite want to play—but in a weird, twisted way, it fits. One thing about writing stuff like this, with a given theme, a deadline, and the editor’s need for something professional that fits–in one way or another, I can usually beat a story into submission somehow. The results may be somewhat warped, but they fit together. I can’t decide whether these stories are better than those that I just write in general because I got an idea. Some of these themed stories are better, some aren’t.
I don’t know if I can yet craft the final product to evoke the parts I want it to. I pulled on some very old and dear parts of my past experiences to put it together, but I’m not sure that all the references work. It’s a very Bradbury-esque piece in its own little way. Middle America…with a twist. Plus it’s an entirely new world for me, so I was building the world and its magical logic as I wrote. Worldbuilding on the fly, which can always be a bit of fun but requires either ruthless relentless notetaking as the magical system evolves throughout the story or else incredibly detailed continuity checks. I’m opting for the latter, though there are notes scattered on bits and pieces around the computer.
It does look like I’m going to need to write another story in this world. Darn it, I had to scrap my original title because it no longer fit the story. But I like that title, plus it’s the name of an honorary title within the story, so…gotta write a story with that title in this world.
And then a funny. I got a sweet little rejection from an editor who clearly liked one story, but just couldn’t make it fit editorially–editor kept raving about how it would make a wonderful novel, I really had novel material there, if I wanted editorial advice editor would love to help…I half-grinned to myself. Y’see, I know there’s a novel’s worth of material in there. It’s part of a novel worldbuilding process I was doing when the idea came to me. It’s just not ready yet–but it does give me a pleasant feeling that there might be a market for that novel. Once I get it figured out. That’s one of my quirky little worlds which requires a lot of PITA worldbuilding because the weird needs to be the right kind of weird, and that means also being considerate of existing weird cultures that I don’t know a lot about. Yet.
Plus hey, I have friends who are excellent editors and whose judgements I trust. But still, it was nice to get that kind of feedback on a world I’ve built. Am still building.
Hmm. Maybe I need to go back over my list of published short stories and note what’s sold in what genres.
And I felt even more justified about not going skiing when I checked on conditions later in the day. Rainy and slushy. Nope, not a ski day.
But it turned out to be one hell of a nice writing day. Writing for the win. Now if I could just plan to have a weekend a month like this…
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Clammies…and oh yeah, some writing’s going on..a full Lake! (I think…)
It’s one of those busy weekends where you end up going back to work to get some rest!
First, of course, is the job search. Neverending at the moment. Nothing major to report.
Secondly, at the Portland SFWA Reading, I got asked to hurry up and write a story for an anthology that closes like, um, within a week. By yesterday I’d managed to get around 1500 words on a story that needed to be at least 5000, with a story line that wasn’t quite sure of itself.
Thirdly, we had ballet tickets for Friday night.
Fourthly, Saturday was a good clam tide.
Fifthly, we plan to go skiing on Sunday. And oh yeah, I need to finish a frackin’ short story this weekend.
So. So far this weekend, I have:
1.) Not applied for any jobs but will work on that tomorrow between writing periods.
2.) I put in 2500 words today. I am a Writing Studette. Since we were going clam digging this morning, I transferred files onto the laptop last night and charged it. On the way to our friend’s house in Clatskanie, I wrote–something like 1300-some words, Portland to Clatskanie. Got to friend’s house, put laptop on charger, went clam digging. Came back, between writing and deleting, wrote about 1700 words. End count today: 4059 words. A bunch of those words are utter dreck, but the problem is that my story arc can resolve in one of two ways, and I need to write about 3000 more words to figure out which arc is the strongest, then cut/recraft to fit. Just gotta get it done by Wednesday. And, oh yeah, go skiing, work at the Day Jobbe…and maybe ride horse. Horse could get dropped on Monday, since it’s the day before farrier that wouldn’t be bad. I might just get her the fiveway vaccination and do that on Monday.
Then there’s the AC repair…and a lot of other stuff. Nonetheless, the story will get done. I’m dredging up old 4-H Fair memories, mixing them with my memories of Fair as a leader, and then tossing in a healthy dose of hippie music festivals and Country Fair. Loving it so far…even the pieces that are dreck. It’s a story that needs to be overwritten, then pruned into shape.
Friday night’s ballet was okay. I find contemporary work either to be very good, evocative, and inspirational…or totally meh. I liked two of the works, the third was meh.
Clams–well, have a picture.
We went razor clamming near the South Jetty of the Columbia River near Hammond. I’ve never dug razor clams before, so it was a bit of a learning curve–but between the three of us, we dug 2 1/3 limits. I was impressed with the size of the clams and the relative ease in getting them–my last clams got dug up on the way back to our friend’s truck.
Plus we ended up driving on the beach to get to the good clamming space–would have been quite a hike with buckets and all for us. Lots of clams, lots of big clams–we could have probably limited out, but we got tired.The clams weren’t showing signs very clearly, so I dug a lot of false holes. Even though a clam gun ( cylinder about 2 1/2-4 inches in diameter, capped at one end with several different possible handle types) is easier than a shovel, at least for this razor clam novice, it gets tiring after a while. But I still managed to dig a respectable number of clams!
So anyway, I’ve uploaded today’s writing. Depending on the weather, I’ll go skiing tomorrow–and then shoot for another 2500-3000 words. Maybe start editing tomorrow night, maybe leave it for Monday. Looking good right now, though.
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Personal update
Those of you on Facebook saw the cryptic posting this morning from the ER. Yeah, another ER visit. Basically, what happened was that I got woke up about midnight with the husband panting and in some distress. Couldn’t stand up without being dizzy and nauseous. Called 911, soon had a bevy of paramedics and firefighters in the bedroom checking him out. We ended up with a quiet transport to Kaiser Sunnyside (15 minutes away) ER.
I ended up going home about 3:30 am as it became clear that this was possibly just another blood pressure medication overdose, but we had to wait four more hours for the conclusive blood test to determine if DH had had a heart attack–can’t be certain with this test until after six hours has elapsed, and we got him to the hospital and had taken the first blood test long before that. Plus he’d eaten plenty of aspirin and they were pretty comfortable with this status.
Upshot is–yeah, appears that once again his blood pressure meds are trying to stop his heart–he’s developed a sensitivity to this medication. He sees the doctor tomorrow. Right now he’s off of one med and reduced dosage on a second med. We can’t seem to find a happy medium of a medication that controls the BP without overcontrolling the heart rate.
I got up at 5:30, called people, got a sub, went back to bed until I collected him from the hospital at 7. Yikes.
And there were two particularly surreal moments throughout this…first of all, I remember suddenly noticing that the firefighter guys were–um–easy on the eyes, but also thinking that this is *so* not a circumstance I want to be seeing them, and then on the ride to the hospital, listening to the right wing ambulance driver rant about mental patients running scams in Portland and that we’re swamped with mental patients (He’d just come to Multnomah County from working in rural Clackamas County–huh? My experience is that Clackamas has as much–just a different type). Definitely surreal, especially at 1 am when your head is heavy with sleep, your heart is pounding with worry, and you’re talking so that the spouse in the back can hear your voice and know you’re there.
Enough ER visits for the year, ‘kay?
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Conquering the ski boot issue and writing process stuff
I think I’m finally getting this boot thing back under control. It’s been freaking annoying, really, because I’ve spent this ski season fighting my boots, my goggles, um, what haven’t I been fighting? Oh, yeah, the skis.
Anyway. After crashing in a stupid spot last Sunday, I went boot shopping and ended up with a pair of high level boots at a major, major discount (Dalbello Electras, for those who want to know). They’re as stiff as stone, but I feel the fit adjusting with each turn I take in them…and as I get used to these little darlings, I grow to like them even more. I’ve had three days on them now and today, they finally started softening up. Of course, I’ve been sticking them on boot warmers before I put them on, which I think is also helping…but learning how to best buckle these boots has also been a help. My feet are reluctantly relearning the proper ski form after being able to caper as they please in the other boots. They’ll still need a few more days to reset the bad habits, but…given that we had a huge dump of very nice, crispy snow up on Hood, and that I’m mostly through a lot of my extra paperwork sessions at work…I think I can work in a few ski days before work.
No Palmer this year, though. Not in condition for it, still working through the hip and leg issues as well as the boots.
It was a lovely snowy spring day, as well. Spring snowstorms can be cold and crispy but not as cold as winter–or they can be icy and sloppy and wet. This was a cold and crispy day, which produced nice fresh powder, lighter than our usual stuff. DH and I did three turns on the Jeff Flood runs before bagging out and heading for Norman. Flood was getting hit heavily and chopped up. Norman, on the other hand, was less popular (most folks riding that lift head for the terrain parks, not the run) so it was pretty nice skiing. We got four runs in on Norman, then got our sack lunch and ate in the lodge.
Then we did errands on our way home, chores, and then I finally got into writing. It’s been a while since I’ve been using the laptop instead of the desktop to write, so I pulled the laptop out and sprawled in bed. That ended up being a pretty good place to work so I got a major chunk of my rewrite started. Problem is, this was supposed to be a light edit before we put it up as the first freebie in the Netwalk: Foundations series. It’s a story I wrote sometime around 2000, before I really even knew much about Netwalk, about Kathy Miller. What I wanted to do was throw it out there to show a little bit of writer worldbuilding in process (which is what the Foundations series is going to be about; putting up bits and pieces of the world as I write sketches and stories to share how things fit together).
Four days after I first started, it’s turning into a major rewrite. Some of that is due to changes in the worldbuilding since the story was originally written. After all, I’ve had thirteen years to think about it, off and on. And yet the bones of the Netwalk Sequence are in it, as solid now as they were then.
But it’s not really a commercial story, it’s a worldbuilding story. Ergo, I’m figuring out some character development that will become important in the next piece of the Sequence (family interactions, family interactions, a big chunk of the Sequence rests on the conception that these people form a dynasty based on some significant dysfunctional elements…plus space! Family dysfunction in Spaaaaace!. Just not space quite yet. Getting there).
That said, I’m trying to make it entertaining infodump.
More later as it develops. For now, happy ski girl needs to go crash…to rest up for what looks to be a very busy week.
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Filed under Netwalk Sequence, ski bum life
It’s official…Beer Goes to War
My short story, “Beer Goes to War,” is part of a forthcoming anthology, Beer Saves the World, from Sky Warrior Press.
Glad I can finally share this one…it was a fun story to write.
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Another evening, another conditioning set–horse training blather
Cold rainy evening. The only way you can tell these damp cold April evenings from January at the barn is that a.) I’m not wearing my ski base layers and b.) it’s actually light enough outside once I’m done working Mocha that we can hack out to cool off. If it’s not doing something heavier than a very light mist.
The pony stallion was getting braided when I arrived. Even though Mocha clearly wasn’t in heat (not like last week, fortunately), we still had him moved away when I brought her out and tied her up. Even at that, he still snorted around and tried to Be Impressive, but none of us were having it, especially Mocha, who was more interested in licking the wall than checking him out. He is a pretty boy–nicely marked piebald, and with just a bit of work and grooming, he’s muscled right up. Good-minded, to boot–after a wee bit of fuss, he settled for just Watching Mocha, more interested in her than in the treats she was getting.
The Girl was initially a bit on the muscle when we started up, wanting to get bracy and strong. Spring mare silliness. I just pushed her forward into the snaffle–springtime is for snaffles–and we did some small circle walk work, but mostly a lot of bigger circle trot and canter work. By the time we worked up into canter conditioning sets, the edge was long gone and she just wanted the chance to stretch into a working canter and burn off the tension from collection.
I’m finally able to get my legs back where I want them to be. Not consistently, not yet, but I’m getting that good leg drape in fleeting moments at sitting trot, both Western jog and extended jog. We had a few good moments of coordinating footfalls and leg at the trot, maybe about three strides in a row, but…those were awfully dang nice, with a wee bit more elevation. I can tell the sensation is pricking Mocha’s curiosity. It’s a new way to move in balance, and she’s always interested in learning how to move in a new balance.
Unless it’s something that’s really contradicting her notions of movement, like counterbending. And even then, she can be convinced. This evening I worked her at counterbend in the figure 8, did a lead change in counterbend which of course made it the bend, did that for a circle, then went back across the diagonal, swapped leads, went with the bend, and then asked her to maintain it as counterbend and countercanter across the diagonal and around and back into regular lead and bend.
She did it with minimal fuss. OMG. I would not have dreamed of doing that like this even six months ago.
So anyway, after pulling all that stuff off, and then the two-track sets, we settled for the conditioning canter sets with me in two-point. After the first three loops in one direction around the arena, she settled in without straining or pulling ahead, hesitating if she even halfway thought I was going to ask her to stop. When I did ask her to stop, she stopped hard, solid reiner stop, lovely rounded, low headed stop.
And then we went for a hack outside. She’s conditioned enough that she picked up speed and asked to trot through the puddle she knows best (we spend a lot of time splashing and playing through puddles, I like splashing through puddles so she has to learn how to like it). It was a long-rein, light-contact hack with the biggest issue being keeping her from biting at the grass. She came back dry (well, except for puddle splashing) and walking in her big happy Going Somewhere stride.
After I groomed her and put her in the stall to eat, I had to laugh. She’d gotten both grain and her evening hay (alfalfa and grass). After the initial chomping of the grain, she kept wandering over to the alfalfa (she gets enough grain to mix with her Trifecta supplements). So it was a bite of grain, a bite of alfalfa…back and forth.
Just another cold rainy April evening at the barn, getting the conditioning sets in. Since I know there’s a show in September, this year I’m legging her up for that…and y’know, I can’t think of a better way to deal with spring itchies and hormones than to focus on conditioning while tossing in bits and pieces to extend stuff they already know.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens the next time I ask Mocha to cross the diagonal in counterbend without changing leads.
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Whew. Landing
Various things got resolved today.
Talked out issues of frustration.
And ended up buying new ski boots. It was a gorgeous stormy day at Timberline. Good soft powder, lovely ol’ Cascade concrete, stuff I usually gobble up and enjoy the heck out of.
But I was fighting it and frustrated halfway through my first run down Kruser.
Why?
I had no control over my tips. Or my tails. It felt like my first fighting sessions on skis. It felt wrong. I was breaking into tears halfway down the first run.
“Rent boots,” DH said on our way back up.
“Maybe I just need to warm up,” I said back. I’ve already put money into fixing these damn boots.
We pushed off from the chair, and I ended up falling halfway down a simple baby cat track. Ski popped off, I plopped down. Nothing bad or spectacular this time, just going down.
“Rent boots,” DH repeated as I stomped back uphill to retrieve my ski, sinking 18 inches down with each step.
“Damn right I’m renting boots,” I grumbled back.
Long story short, it took a while and trials of two pairs plus a binding release test before I was back on the slope. But it didn’t take but three turns to tell the issue. The boots I owned were a half size too big–and it was enough to affect my control. I didn’t like those rental boots–but the difference in effort and control was obvious.
DH and I talked about the possibilities of renting vs buying on the way down the hill. We stopped by the ski shop I prefer because he had a boot issue, and I tried on what they had in my preferred size–a high end version of the boot I didn’t like, and a beginner boot that the boot fitter looked at me and said “You won’t like it. It’s a beginner boot that is way below what you’re doing now.”
I didn’t like the high end boot any better than the rental, so when we got home, I called two other shops. Long story short, I got new boots for just a little over what it would cost me to rent boots for the rest of this season. It’s a brand I’ve skied before and I like. Problem is, from calling around, I’m in a size that’s fairly popular so there’s not much left at the end of the season. So this should work out well..and it’s from my second favorite local shop.
Yay. Maybe if I can ski again…..
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A rainy April Saturday–horse and union stuff
The brief flirtation with warm and sunny here in PDX went wandering off the past few days. Being as it’s a set of spring storms, though, the weather fronts come through as intense showers rather than anything that can last for hours (except up at work, where the cold driving rain seemed to go on all afternoon). Last night I took advantage of the time and the relatively mild early evening to finish off waxing skis and getting them loaded up for skiing on Sunday. It’s nicer to scrape skis with the garage door open, and it’s almost like being outside.
Today was about seven hours of Pre-RA meetings–preliminary introduction to the various issues we’re going to discuss at the OEA Representative Assembly (the governing body of the Oregon Education Association–teacher union stuff, IOW). It’s my second year doing this, and it’s somewhat like watching sausage being made. I’m watching some future political careers develop, and it’s…interesting in the mix. But–controversial and sobering stuff. We’re balancing our own budget and talking priorities. Arguing over various procedural situations. Looking at a loss of 500 members next year–ouch, that could very well include me.
Yeah. Makes the recent brief flirtation with the idea of Something New even more of a wistful dream.
Afterward, I jumped in the car and drove out to the barn. It’d been light showers out there with heavy rain and lots of puddles at some point. The indoor had good footing but was a little slick, and fortunately I had the place to myself. I threw the snaffle on Mocha, hopped up in the Crates, and we went for a good hard forward schooling ride.
March and April with The Girl are times where I really can’t expect much except mileage from schooling. She’s very distractable, even when she’s not in heat, and quite goofy for her (which is more like mildly goofy in most horses, except that she can get goofy at speed. Um. Not Fun). I tried her back in the full bridle with the romal last week, and she was pushy, difficult, and not listening. But…the pony stallion is now getting worked in preparation for driving this summer, and she was in full heat, so….
This afternoon was about mileage. The latigo leather reins on my Western snaffle setup are seven feet long, and I cross them over her shoulders. If I need to, I can flick the dangling length of rein from one side over to pop her on the other–pretty easy flick for me, a move I’ve practiced from childhood. It’s broad, flat, and stings a little, but tends to make more noise than anything else. The crossing of the reins means that if I want to kick her up to a long two-point extended canter set, I can get her started, pop up in my stirrups, brace my hands on her neck, and off we go. She likes these canter sets, especially in spring, and I just plain like doing them in this bridle set. The latigo leather has just the right mix of flexibility and thickness in my hands. It takes a lot less pressure to establish contact because it has a bit of signal to it and carries a little bit of its own weight. Gregg introduced me to these reins and I love them to death.
Galloping or extended canter work is also pretty nice in the Crates Reiner. I just dropped my heels hard, got up, and let her go, pushing her into the steady rhythm. Mocha was on edge and wound up after a set of countercanter, tempi changes where I really started asking her to come back to me and not speed up, two tracks, and random direction changes at the trot and canter.
We’re not doing a lot of arena loops just yet. Eventually, we’ll get to the point where we do these canter sets between fussy work, especially as she gets back into the romal and we have to work on the more precise control of the curb. Then she’ll rack up a bit of canter time, including speeding up and slowing down the canter in preparation for large fast circles and small slow circles. What I’m doing right now is just straightforward fitness sets, shooting for a fast, extended, rhythmic canter or lope with me in two-point. Once we get back into the romal, I’ll sit down and we’ll do them like that. I don’t tend to do this sort of work in winter because of footing and other issues–but once spring hits, it’s a lot more canter sets.
It was nice doing the canter sets this afternoon, hitting that smooth extended canter, hands resting on Mocha’s withers, feet braced against the broad Western stirrups, balancing on my legs and working on my leg strength as well as hers. Mocha sprung along smoothly, snorting in her rhythmic highblower pattern (strong exhales matching her hind footfalls, the mark of a horse moving efficiently at canter or gallop). Just sending her forward, seeking a steady, consistent movement. Cantering in two-point also does wonders for the hamstrings. Just sayin’.
Then drop down to walk, switch directions, long rein big swinging walk to air up, then pick it up in the other direction.
The canter sets work not only for fitness but they discharges Mocha’s tension after a bit of fussy collection work. She has little patience for this type of collection work in the spring, but she needs the work during this season as well. I finally discovered that letting her blow off her pent-up tension afterwards with a good hard extended canter in both directions not only led to a horse who didn’t get as sore, but she was a lot less fussy about the collected work if she knew that we were likely to have the hard canter sets as part of our final routine. So we do a lot of canter work after the bending, flexing, and collection schooling.
Finally, we took advantage of a break between showers to hack out along the road. She got a bit anxious about the big puddle–bigger than she had ever seen before–and we spent a bit of time splashing through it at walk and trot. Then we ambled down the road and back. Coming back, we took the big puddle at a trot and she calculated, trotted in two strides, then popped off a respectable jump across the deepest section of the puddle, neat as can be.
And afterwards, after a nice roll, she had a good hard grooming while she relaxed and mooched treats. It’s nice to have a horse who likes to get out and do stuff, and Mocha is one who definitely likes to go and to work.
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It’s…been a while. Obviously.
No, I’ve not forgotten about the blog. It has just been a long and weird time. What with the quiet, stealthy launch of Netwalker Uprising (available on Createspace, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords) and the underwhelming response so far, and, well, Life Stuff…there’s not been a lot of blog action. Plus I’m carrying around a lot of frustration and such-like, even in the midst of some hopeful glimmers.
Amongst other things, I had a possible exciting opportunity connected to the Day Jobbe career present itself but, due to lack of sufficient support from the family, mainly because it would require a significant relocation–I had to back off from it. I’m still working through the anger and sadness of that situation. My decision was probably for the best but…I’m still extremely unhappy about it. That closes a door to something I had hoped would happen about now, something I’d dreamed of for years–and it’s gone. Another dream dead, joining the piles of hopes and dreams I’ve had to bury over the years in the name of family choices.
The lack of response to Uprising also makes me think this is another dream that is going to die. Granted, I’ve perhaps not pushed it as hard as I should have, but when I think of those who were excited about it earlier, but who clearly haven’t followed through…sigh. Lack of promotion or lack of interest? I’m not sure which. I love the cover, I think the story’s a strong one, but still…crickets. Chirping. Nothing. Oh well, I own the rights to the damn thing and that’s probably the smartest thing I’ve done. There are other prospects I’m considering in connection to this world but it will take time.
One positive thing which has happened is that I’m in the midst of exploring some positive options and developing some projects which might fly. The depressed pragmatist in me says this dream too will get killed. But the hopeful optimist points out that, like with the package I pulled together for the Day Jobbe-related opportunity, even if this prospect doesn’t work out, I now have viable marketing packages for three writing projects that I will not need to modify too much to send out elsewhere.
But…I am also extremely angry at my government’s leadership and a President who seems determined to shaft people my age and younger. My parents and my much older siblings had and have decent retirements. It is not looking like I will have much of a retirement, if any, ahead of me. My spouse might, since he’s just old enough to slip past the worst of it, but it’s unlikely as there are circumstances that will entangle both of us and drag us down. Yeah, I know I blithely assumed this would be the case when I was younger. But facing that reality is pretty damned stark at this point. I knew the poisoned cup would get around to me. That knowledge doesn’t ease my resentment, now that I’m facing it, especially when I read chirpy accounts from various retirees who will not face what I am going to face.
I want a President with the cojones to tell the current Republican leadership to bugger off and quit starving the beast, we’re taking care of our people. But he’s been bought and paid for. I knew this in 2008, but I had hopes that my worst fears were wrong. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take the sop that the ACA threw us, but most of it is about screwing the 99% over in the long run. What really angers me is that I’ve seen this trend developing since the 80s, hell, I even wrote about pieces of it in the 90s for the Metrozine, but…I never tried to parlay it into something bigger. See dreams died, dreams buried for that one. There were reasons for not following up. Now I wish I had, and damn the consequences. Maybe things would have been better for more people if I had.
And part of the problem is that I have been extremely lousy at the sort of self-promotion that would advance my writing, that would advance my Day Jobbe career, that would advance me in a lot of ways. I have always been a girl who’s wanted to put my head down, do the work, and not fuss about promoting it. Guess who gets screwed with that attitude. In this modern era, it’s more important to blow your own horn than actually, y’know, do the work, and that ticks me off.
Grr.
Not all is grumpy. Some good things that I can’t talk about have happened at the Day Jobbe, not anything that will personally advance my career but things that confirm for me, deep in my heart, that my particular approach to sped teaching is the right one for this group of kids. I’m growing and developing there, and that makes me quietly happy even in the midst of things that make me angry and despairing. Part of teaching is that the teacher needs to be learning from the students and boy, has this ever been a year where I’ve learned from the kids.
I had a nice con at Norwescon, despite unrelated drama, and had much-needed interaction with my favorite tribes of writer people. I came home with a little dragon pet, Little Draco, who’ll get his own little blog at some point (no, I’m not normally a dragon person, but I have two dragon bracelets and Little Draco, who sits by me while I write and goes on my stick shift when I drive to work. Clearly they called to me. Why, I don’t know. I’ve only written one very sarcastic dragon story).
I’m also quietly happy about the other projects because hopefully they’ll pay off. If not where they are now, then somewhere else.
I’m happy about the package I put together for the Day Jobbe opportunity. I am humbled and honored by the praise I got and realize that what I do does matter to someone besides me.
And the ski boot issue may have finally gotten resolved, just in time for the end of the season (sigh).
So there are good things amongst the shadows. It’s just hard to see the glimmers of light through the curtains of darkness. And with that, it’s back to work, before I leave for the Day Jobbe.
Comments Off on It’s…been a while. Obviously.
Filed under Netwalk Sequence, personal life stuff, whining
