You're Doing It Wrong

I’m not sure if I can pull this off for the entire month. I think I’ve done 30 posts every November except one since … 2005? Who remembers when NaBloPoMo started? But have some extra difficulty thrown in at the moment. I don’t like to do a lot of personal stuff on my work machine and since the great ouchie back debacle of 2015 I haven’t brought my laptop to the office.

I have carried heavy bags since then. And although I have felt a twinge now and again, I consider myself to be a solid 99%. But I hate to tempt fate.

My main writing related activity for November is dealing with Season of Us (First draft was written during NaNoWriMo last year). My actual writing goal for this month is finishing my Indians in Space story which I have been working on since the Carter Administration. Wish me luck. Whatever state it is in on November 30 is the final.

In December: urban Indian romance. Or, maybe Adobe Illustrator tutorials. Let’s get done with November before we get crazy planning December.

I am rapidly losing my ability to handle two or more things at once. Last weekend I was doing my bread baking while I was doing manuscript things and later while I was exercising.

On the baking day there are several timed steps which normally I can do in my sleep. You bake 30 minutes with lid on and 15 minutes with lid off. During my rush I set the timer wrong. Luckily, I could tell the bread wasn’t finished and I use a thermometer to check the final temperature. But there was a long moment of head scratching where I was trying to remember what the hell I did.

In my defense, I’m still a wee bit over extended. I should be back to normal schedule when I retire sometime around 2030.

And yes, it would be easier to buy bread but now I’m so used to homemade I can hardly eat store bought bread.

We loved our visit to the Rosenbach Museum & Library in Philadelphia. I found this sign charming. It’s hard to see but it says, “The Rosenbach regrets that this locker is out of order.”

How long has it been since I complained about my phone? I got a new one which I hate less than my old one which isn’t much of a recommendation. I never finished the book about the old one but I bought a book about the new one. So someday, if I get time to look at the books, I may start doing this from my phone. Haha. No I won’t.

Mostly I avoid apps because I don’t want to expend the time and energy to learn to use them.

But I did get one that tells me to stand up every 45 minutes. It makes a little chime and I have to click on something. I spend so much time hunched over a keyboard I need the reminder. I use a different system at home. It’s funny how fast 45 minutes goes sometimes.

Depending on what’s going on, I sometimes will get up and stretch a little. Or get a cup of tea. Sometimes I forget that my phone is in the bottom of my bag and when I take it out, there are a bunch of reminders on the screen.

I ran across an article recently that explained how pie charts are terrible. Actually ‘explained’ is too soft of a word. These days articles online demand our attention:

“Why Pie Charts Are the Worst Thing Ever and Threaten the Fate of Mankind.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come across an infographic like the one above that I could not figure out. Those ones with the straight line and then dots everywhere. Wuh?

I get pie charts. And, as has been well documented here, I like pie. Stay tuned for my crowd-funded project “Save the Pie Chart.”

The good news: very soon there will be no more excuses about the writing project that is almost done. It’s done but it is now in a new phase of transformation. Probably next weekend I will have reader copies. Hopefully out in the world soon after that.

Meanwhile, it’s weird to not have that project sitting here as my priority. I’ve spent the last couple of hours dealing with a couple of long neglected other projects.

November is coming. Hopefully more interesting content then.

I’ve been having a small concern with a couple of my teeth so I’ve been a maniac about regular flossing. Normally, I’m a sporadic flosser. My dentist always says my teeth look amazing so I don’t feel bad about being a sporadic flosser.

However, now that I’m flossing all the time, I am working my way through all my floss samples and half-used containers of different brands and flavors. What is a unit of floss called? A reel? A packet? A winding?

There are some crappy flosses out there. One is so thin it disintegrates on the second tooth. Another is more like ribbon but also disintegrates so you get these fibers in your teeth. The best one in my drawer is the Glide.

In other news, the writing project drags on. We’ve had too many things going on and I don’t want to rush the last bit. This weekend is busy, too, so maybe Halloween weekend.

A couple of months ago I watched The Big Chill again for the first time in ages. It came out in 1983 and I remember liking it then and it held up for me, although I think a young person watching it today would lose their mind over an admittedly ridiculous plot point that I am still willing to give a pass to.

It’s a 30-something ensemble movie about college friends who are reunited when one of their group dies by suicide. The wiki article says this film was the inspiration for the TV series 30-something. I did not know that.

The movie has a great cast including Glenn Close, William Hurt, Kevin Kline and Jeff Goldblum, who were all in their 30s when it was made plus Meg Tilly who was 23.

What was interesting for me watching it now vs. watching it 30 years ago, is how after having a bunch of years of life behind me, I now appreciate what it means to have those kinds of friendships. People that you are incredibly close to at one point in your life and years later you get together and they still get you. And also the intensity of your emotions in your twenties and the connections you make. I still remember how dramatic everything was back then. I’m not sad that life is flatter these days.

It was also funny seeing a different time. No seat belts. The smoking. There’s a scene where Mary Kay Place’s character is smoking in her office. I remember my first 2 jobs out of college I sat next to chain smokers. Remember when people smoked in restaurants? Do not miss that.

Bob and I were trying to come up with similar movies since 1983. We came up with ensemble movies with a particular time and place: Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Reality Bites, St. Elmo’s Fire. But none of those are post-college people who have settled into grown-up life and then are brought back together.

For the first time in years, I managed to grow lemon cucumbers.

Today I started setting up technology related to the project of August which later turned into the project of September.

If you’d like an insider sneak preview, (warning: work in progress) feel free to take a peek: Project of Probably Beginning of November.

Don’t try that email because that part is still total fubar. There was a problem that I wasn’t aware of until it was too late and in the process of trying to fix it I messed up something else and I don’t have time to fix it. Or even know how right this second, to be honest.

If you want an advance copy send me a note to my regular email (if you don’t have it, it’s on my bio page). Meanwhile, hopefully next weekend I can make it all work and look pretty.