It felt so good to sleep in this morning. Or at least I assume it did. I didn’t get to sleep in much at all, since I was swarmed by cats. Amusingly it was much like bees, this swarm, due to the rather constant buzz of purring that accompanied them. They all wanted pets and ear scritches and attention and they wanted to sit on my pillow or my stomach or my head and I finally gave up because there was just no way I was ever going to be able to go back to sleep.

We started the day off with a trip in to Davis for what has rapidly become our favorite weekend breakfast – cornmeal waffles with pecan butter. Then we walked down to the Farmer’s Market, where we picked up all the ingredients for a delicious dinner: fresh corn on the cob, a pair of white nectarines, incredibly sweet and crisp, and an oddly shaped tomato in a delicate green hue that actually managed to slip by my variable dislike of tomatoes. We also picked up golden cherry tomatoes and a few bunches of grapes.

I keep forgetting that there is this Farmer’s Market so close to us, and every time we happen to be in downtown Davis on a Saturday morning it hits me that it is there. They always have such a lovely selection of produce and the prices are usually fairly reasonable and there is no reason why we don’t go more often except that we just forget. So perhaps for the rest of the summer maybe we we’ll be better at remembering.

My main (and frankly, my only) goal today was to go look at rocks for the path around the raised flowerbed we built earlier this summer. There’s a place down the freeway but it’s never been open when we drive by. So after a quick detour to drop off all the fresh fruit and veggies at the house, it was off to the rock yard, where we got to pet a rambunctious white puppy and talk back to a rather talkative parrot perched in a little tree, and browse through piles and piles of rocks of every shape and size.

They’ll be delivering a ton of rocks to our driveway this Friday, in preparation for some happy path-building fun next weekend. I suppose earlier this year I might have found this a phenomenally huge amount of rocks, but hey, after dealing with 3 or 4 tons of rocks for the wall and a few tons of dirt, what’s a measly one ton of rocks to put in a path?

Much like the wall, whose components could simply be stacked and required absolutely no mortar, these rocks will be laid the easy way. We’re going to cover the ground with a layer of newspaper (in what is probably a futile effort to curb those rather tenacious weeds), toss on a few inches of loose soil, and plop the rocks around in a circle until we like the way it’s laid out. Then we’ll add a flat or three of creepers in between all the rocks, give it all a good hosing down, and then cross our fingers and hope for the best.

After we’d ordered the rocks and were trying to figure out what we wanted to do next, I mentioned that billboard on the freeway for the new chocolate candies at Jelly Belly. This is offered as explanation for why we next drove to Fairfield for the sole purpose of going in to the Jelly Belly visitors’ center and heading straight for the tasting counter. We’ve already gone on the tour (and on weekends when the factory isn’t even running it somehow lacks a bit of excitement), so it was a pretty quick stop – just long enough to taste a few of the rather interesting combinations (chocolate grape, chocolate and buttered popcorn, chocolate and orange juice). Plus we threw in a few of the regular beans just for variety (the Caramel Apple flavor is actually pretty good. I passed on the Tabasco flavored one, however), and then we were done.

But hey, as long as we were in Fairfield, there is a mall, and behind the mall is a Trader Joe’s, and in that Trader Joe’s are boxes of the nearly fat free (1 point each!) cheese blintzes we have both adore. Plus, it’s the only place we can find vanilla mints.

We were standing in the freezer aisle loading a basket with about 8 boxes of blintzes when we realized we were being watched. She asked, a bit tentatively about the blintzes, noting she’d been curious but hadn’t yet tried them. After we both waxed rhapsodic about how much we adore them, she picked up a box and eyed it consideringly. As we walked away in search of cappuccino wafers (also 1 point each!), I noted her adding a second box to her cart. Aha – another convert!

So now we are back home, where I made up for not being able to sleep in by taking a nap. Granted I was surrounded by cats this time too, but it being the middle of the afternoon, they were much sleepier and more inclined to just snuggle next to me and purr me quietly to sleep.

Another Friday Five, just for the heck of it.

1. What’s the last place you traveled to, outside your own home state/country?
The last place I traveled was to Reno, which barely counts as out of state, since it’s just over the border of California. Amusingly, as I was driving there on Friday I somehow never saw the sign that says ‘Welcome to Nevada’, and only figured out I was in a new state by the fact that the exit numbers started suddenly over again from one. I saw it on the way home only because I specifically looked for it.

2. What’s the most bizarre/unusual thing that’s ever happened to you while traveling?
I’m not entirely sure. Does the fact that I own a pocketknife that constantly defies airport security cameras count as unusual? Last time I flew (to Los Angeles and back – for work), they caught the other pocketknife, but not the ‘invisible’ one. Fear me. Or at least my pocketknife.

3. If you could take off to anywhere, money and time being no object, where would you go?
I think I would go to Europe first. I’d take perhaps six months, or even an entire year, and travel all over Europe, with absolutely no set schedule at all. We’d just wander around each country until we were ready to move on to the next place. We’d stay in little bed & breakfasts wherever we went and we’d avoid the typical tourist traps and I would make a concerted effort to learn something in each language, even if it was only “Excuse me, where it the bathroom,”, or perhaps “Pardon me, can I borrow your cat?”

If I have to narrow this down to just one country, it’s a little more difficult. But for now, I’ll just say Ireland, since I have not yet given up on our plan of going there for a month for our (extremely belated) honeymoon.

4. Do you prefer traveling by plane, train or car?
This depends entirely on where I am going. If I had all the time in the world I would take the train. You can get up and walk around, you can see the countryside as you ride by, and best of all, you don’t have to worry about finding somewhere to stop for gas or worry about how to read a map while you’re careening down the freeway or try to figure out directions when you hit a detour. Also on a train you never have to cram yourself into a bathroom the size of your average shoebox, or deal with sudden stomach-wrenching turbulence.

However, if the trip means we are going overseas, planes have it all over trains or cars. There’s that little matter of being able to go over the water, see.

5. What’s the next place on your list to visit?
In state, my next destination appears to be Yosemite, since it’s looking pretty likely that I’ll be attending a three-day meeting for work. I’m actually looking forward to this – and not because of the location (although that should be rather nice too), but because I think the meeting is going to be pretty interesting, plus I’ll get to write a big huge report!

Shut up! I lthink writing reports is fun!

Out of state – probably Seattle again, but not for work. Looks like we’ll be doing Christmas with the younger sister and her family this year, so my entire clan will be piling into planes and heading up north for a few days in December.

I was awakened Sunday morning by my little sister poking me excitedly because she’d gone off in search of coffee and ended up winning a sizeable pile of dollars in a slot machine. We decided this meant that she apparently had the gambling skill (since neither my older sister or I managed to win much more than a few dollars in quarters the entire trip) and were ready to hand over our loose change to see what she could win us. However she’d promised her husband she would return home, so she decided against staying in Reno to live a life of gambling and loose morals.

Sunday morning we decided to head over to Circus Circus because we were getting tired of the smoke and the slot machines and had a need to try to win poorly made stuffed animals just for the fun of it. Little sis continued her winning streak by promptly flinging a stuffed chicken into a pot to win a little stuffed tiger, and then we threw bean bags at beach balls hovering on columns of air for green and blue and purple splotched teddy bears, and then we rummaged in our wallets and scrounged up enough quarters to win enough tickets to score a rubber duck and a Matchbox car each. The Matchbox car was only so we could claim (truthfully. Sort of) that we had each won cars while in Reno.

The only thing left was to find a roulette wheel and then a blackjack table for little sister to play both games (since she was curious), and then we’d just about had it with the gambling. So going on the poorly remembered comments of the manicurist the day before, we all piled into the car and set off in several different directions to eventually find a mall (after getting an unexpected tour of Reno on the way). There was just enough time to wander around one store and get ice cream cones at a little sweet shop next door (thus ending the weekend on a high note) before my sisters needed to get to the airport.

I dropped them off and then headed home, with only a few detours along the way for gas and lunch. It was a bit of a trip down memory lane as I drove – passing the town where lived a guy I once had a crush on, the town where I went to high school, the town where I spent over a year working on a project for the Big Fish. I finally made it home, three hours later, somehow without falling asleep at the wheel, and promptly waved sleepily at Richard, pet a few cats, and then crawled upstairs to climb into bed and try to recover.

This weekend with my sisters was incredible fun. We talked and we laughed and we got a chance to catch up on everything we needed to know. We’re already starting a list of ideas for where to go next year, and the year after that, and the year after that. This weekend reminded me of how very much I miss spending time with my sisters. But at least I know that once a year from now on we’ll have a few days that are ours and ours alone.

My younger sister and I suffer from difficulty sleeping in strange places, so by the time we got out of bed on Saturday we really hadn’t slept much at all the night before. But hey, no big deal! We were in Reno! There was coffee to be found. Also donuts!

She and I went in search of the aforementioned coffee and donuts, while older sis took a shower. We ate our donuts and managed to get powdered sugar all over the floor of our room (the sign of a truly great donut, after all), and then we called our parents to tell them all about our (rather pitiful) gambling exploits so far, as well as our introduction into the world of nightclub entertainment (aka the karaoke). And then the three of us went in search of a salon for pedicures. Interestingly enough, as we were standing there, setting up appointments for later in the afternoon, who should walk in but Joannie Rogers, the female comic from the previous night. I’ll get back to that later, however, since we were off to explore other places beside our smoky and mirrored hotel.

We meandered down the street and ended up at the El Dorado and the Silver Legacy. It didn’t take much wandering inside to convince us that next time we go to Reno (if we ever go back to Reno, that is), we should pay the extra money to stay at someplace nicer. There was a larger variety of things to see and do, including a marvelous brunch buffet, where my little sister managed to spill her coffee all over both her and my older sister, and where we broke with the unhealthy eating to suck down as many pieces of melon as we could.

Next it was pedicure time. When we returned to the salon, the female comic was still there, getting her hair cut and styled, so we ended up chatting and joking with her for an hour or two while the manicurist lined us up and made our feet pretty, assembly line style.

Our toes are now painted in dark cranberry. And I point to the earlier mention of lack of sleep as the reason for why we were somehow talked into getting nail art as well. I have little gold-lined hearts on my big toes, people. I do not do nail art. I barely do nail polish as it is, but little shiny things on my toes make me do double takes every time I see my bare feet. I am making myself leave them alone in the hopes that they will eventually chip away, but I have a feeling that sooner rather than later I will get annoyed enough with them to drag out the nail polish remover.

But I digress. After the pedicures came more girly action, in the form of a happy hair dying party (for my little sister), followed by a few rousing games of cards and random laughing until it was time for dinner. We decided to abandon the healthy eating trend begun by those earlier melon slices and started dinner off with cheese fries and milkshakes. We also continued down the slippery path to sin and degradation by playing a few rounds of Keno (if only to figure out just what the heck it was).

And then we all piled into my car and drove down miles of twisty mountain roads (remember how much I don’t love twisty mountain roads?) to Incline Village on Lake Tahoe to see an outdoor performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream. We sat in chairs perched up the side of a huge hill of sand and the stage was perfectly framed by the mountains and the trees and the water. The play was accompanied by the night music of the lake – the water and the birds – and was extremely well done.

When we started planning to do a sister-only weekend, we all assumed we would all three be flying to wherever our destination might be. But when we finally settled on Reno, and I did an impromptu Mapquest query for driving directions it turned out it would take me a lot less time to just drive up there than it would for me to go to the airport, sit and wait for the plane, fly on the plane, etc. And besides this way we would have a car. So Friday afternoon, while my sisters were dealing with what was apparently the turbulence from hell on their respective flights, I was driving around the twisty mountain roads through the mountains toward Reno, reminding myself just why it is that I don’t like driving twisty mountain roads. And I especially don’t like twisty mountain roads when they are doing construction on them and have those barriers up that leave one no room at all to maneuver in one’s lane, especially when one is going around a corner next to a rather large and wobbly semi.

But somehow we all made it to Reno in one piece. I actually arrived first and checked into the hotel. The first thing that hit me was the stench of cigarette smoke (because really, what is one vice (gambling) without the others (drinking and smoking)). The second thing that hit me was the sheer cheesiness of the hotel – and the room. I think it was designed and decorated in the 70’s. There was much use of purple and neon red and velvet curtains.

Then it was off to the airport to pick up my sisters. We returned to the hotel, they dumped their stuff, we went back downstairs, and promptly ate éclairs for an afternoon snack to get the weekend off on the right (high caloric) foot. We sat around and talked and laughed and took silly pictures of our feet. We admired the wallpaper. And then we decided that since we were in Reno, we might as well feed a few bucks to the slot machines. This is when we discovered that:

1. We have absolutely no idea what the logic is behind all those slots with three rows and cute music.
2. If you win something on the aforementioned slots you get a little slip of paper with the amount on it to cash in later.
3. We are so clearly non-gamblers that this excited us so much that once I got mine (for a whopping 45 cents!), the other two immediately had to find a machine to give *them* little slips of paper listing out some ridiculously low amount of change. And then we all scurried back to the room to take pictures of us with the aforementioned credit chits, while laughing hysterically.

My older sister saw a sign in the airport indicating that the Chippendale men were at Harrah’s, and we figured that was an entirely appropriate activity for three women on their own for the weekend. But the show didn’t even start until 11:30 and unfortunately we are apparently too much of old married ladies to stay up that late. We didn’t think the guys would appreciate it if we ended up snoring as they went undulating past in their teeny tiny g-string undies. So instead we got tickets for a comedy show in the hotel.

There were signs all over the place indicating that Friday was Karaoke night in the bar, and I suppose it’s safe now to admit that I have always had this secret desire to do karaoke at least once in my life. There we all were in a town where no one knows us and would ever see us again and we had just enough time before the comedy show started so…we got up in front of everyone with microphones and did an awesome rendition of “The Shoop Shoop Song”, basked in the rousing applause for all of about ten seconds, and then beat a hasty retreat far, far away from anyone who might have actually *seen* us. It was actually so much fun that I think we should make it a tradition for our annual sisters-only weekends in the future, but I think my sisters may take a wee bit more convincing for that to come about.

The comedy show was a blast. There were two main comics and the club owner who started it off (and for some reason decided that since we were sitting right next to the stage we were fair game for light-hearted heckling), and there was a guy who could juggle better than anyone I’ve ever seen, and even though the main act wasn’t as funny as the woman who opened the show for him, we still were laughing pretty much the whole way through.

By the time the show was over it was so late and we were all so tired but my younger sister really wanted to get room service, so we ordered up huge ice cream sundaes and ate them in bed (or rather, we all ate about half and then couldn’t handle anymore). We called our respective husbands and told them all about our day (Me to Richard: “We did karaoke!” Richard to me: “Oh my.”) and then finally curled up under the psychedelic bedspreads and tried to ignore the train passing outside so we could get some sleep.

Richard is nearing the end of his summer class in children’s literature. Plus he came home from his one week intensive with more homework and a final project. So this means he’s starting to get really stressed and spending a lot of time when he is home glued to one of his computers, trying to get all his homework out of the way. I am strongly encouraging this, if only for the fact that the sooner the homework gets done, the sooner we get rid of the rather impressive stack of 50-something children’s books that have been camped out on the coffee table or the breakfast nook table for the past several weeks. Not that I have minded having that many books, per se, since I got to read all of them (and occasionally keep finding more that I didn’t get a chance to read), but it’s hard to put your feet up on the coffee table when it is covered in books, and I am too lazy to move them somewhere else.

So Sunday he spent most of his time doing homework except for the brief trip off to the hardware stores to gaze upon the pitiful selections of build-it-yourself shelving and workbenches for the garage, and Monday he stayed home to do homework while I went to dinner with my parents and my older sister and her family (although I did bring him dinner home from the restaurant). Tuesday night we met for Indian food on the way home but then it was back to the homework, and last night he was still plugging away at it too. At least Tuesday night the bulk of the books were returned (yay!) so that I can actually see parts of the coffee table again, and I suspect that the rest of the books will disappear soon enough.

I have been frantically busy at work this week on a variety of projects, but the main one has been this database. I had to figure out how to deal with linked tables once it is distributed and I spent two marvelous days in a crash course teaching myself how to build my very own customized Help and then figuring out just how the heck to attach it. Plus there was an entire day earlier in the week devoted to organizing a paper to look like a research study, and there was also the office picnic on Monday where I volunteered to bring a fruit salad just to have an excuse to use my melon baller. Only some of my coworkers seemed to understand this reasoning. I would say it was the women versus the men but that seems somehow sexist and it really just happened to end up that way so instead I will simply say it was the ‘people who like to cook’ vs. the ‘people who could not find a colander in the kitchen if it was staring them in the face and doing a jig’

By the time I have come home most days this week my brain has been reduced to little more than a big pile of grey mush in my head and all these other things I should be doing – like updating the format for our house and yard journal, or writing my July entry for On Display, or pondering healthy choices for dinner – remain undone and instead I have been camped out on the futon in the living room next to Richard, laptop on my lap, watching movies from Netflix (Galaxy Quest, which we should just break down and buy because of our sheer and unnatural love of the film, and then Jumanji because I had apparently forgotten just how cheesy the special effects are) and playing far too many games of Spider Solitaire. I am addicted to Spider Solitaire. Granted I cannot play anything higher than two suits at a time, but that does not deflect from my unnatural love of this game.

Today I did a million and one little last minute fixes to the database and I had fun with style sheets for that nifty Help system I built with my own little hands and I commandeered various coworkers’ computers to see if I could make the whole thing work, and I went through several versions of sheer panic when it would all suddenly and without warning crash in a spectacularly vile fashion, and then I finally got it all to work and once that was done I decided I had better stop poking at it because if something else broke I really didn’t want to know about it.

I am not sure how productive I will be tomorrow at work as a result. The database is off to be previewed at another office and if it breaks there is not a darn thing I can do about it. I have some nice easy tasks to accomplish that require a minimal amount of thought, but yet should keep me busy until noon, at which point I skip merrily out of the office, hop in my car, and drive up to Reno, where my sisters and I are converging for a wild and crazy girls-only weekend of husband-free, child-free fun. Pink hot pants, thong bikinis, and impractical shoes have been discussed. Donuts and ice cream and copious amounts of chocolate will undoubtedly be consumed. It is possible that one of us may actually toss a nickel in a slot machine somewhere, but seeing as how none of us are big into the gambling the chances of one of us losing the family fortune is slim (although you never know what three adult women under the influence of a box of good Belgium dark truffles and a spa pedicure might do).

Thursday night I drove home from work and stayed just long enough to check my email and pill the cat, and then I continued on down to Fairfield, where I met a few of my old Benthic Creatures coworkers for dinner. We went to Mimi’s Café because I am nothing if not a pushover for the buttermilk spice muffins they make. They’ve been passing out shell-polishing kits to all the lovely mollusks in Napa county and had been there all week, but had nicely avoided going to Mimi’s for dinner because they knew I’d want to go there for the muffins when we got together. Are they the coolest possible ex-coworkers or what?

I managed to get there early enough to hit the bookstore beforehand and purchase a book by Anne McCaffery that it turns out I had already read. But since this book was at least a return to her days of writing decent fiction (as opposed to the pure slop that describes some of the later Pern novels she produced) I didn’t mind too terribly much and sat inside the restaurant and read all about tsunamis and dragons until they arrived. And then we crammed ourselves into a booth and I had my muffin and salad and soup and they had other things that mainly involved pasta, and there was much talking and loud, raucous laughter, and it was almost like old times except that I did mention once or twice how glad I was I wasn’t actually *in* that job anymore. And they all very politely refrained from either smacking me or flinging their pasta on me, plus we all went to the bookstore after dinner (where I somehow managed to avoid buying any more books, even though there is a new Terry Pratchett Discworld novel out that I really wanted) and there was more talking and raucous laughter and hugging and congratulations on recent promotions and it was a lovely evening.

Friday night I picked up Richard at the airport where he presented me with a small stuffed hippo and we stopped at an Italian restaurant in Woodland on the way home (whose name has changed recently except that we cannot ever remember the new name so we always refer to it as ‘the restaurant that used to be Pietro’s’) because I was craving their garlic and broccoli pasta. I talked all about this database I am building and he talked all about his week at class learning all about how to store and index information (there was something in there about how they built a database around how to tell if food in the refrigerator is kosher or not but that part is a little fuzzy).

This morning we met my mom and dad and my older sister’s family and all headed off to Lambtown before it got too hot (because it has been consistently over 100 every stinking day lately and just in case it wasn’t obvious, we are all getting really tired of this heat). Lambtown seems to consist pretty much of what any other small town festival consists of – lots of craft booths displaying products that range in quality from really nifty to downright dubious, the requisite face painting booth and the temporary tattoo booth for the kids, and a small collection of booths selling the usual Fair fare – high in grease and calories and low in anything of remotely nutritional value. Because this is Lambtown, there were also sheep shearing demonstrations and sheep dog trials and clusters of people sitting around old-fashioned spinning wheels carding wool and then spinning it into thread. Also there was a little train which my nephews got to ride on, and a runaway sheep. I think the runaway sheep was the most amusing thing of the whole trip, since the entire time the sheep was running, a woman did a play-by-play, interspersed with warnings, over the loudspeaker. “Please do not approach the lost sheep. The lost sheep is now behind the cooking tents. Please do not pet the lost sheep. The lost sheep is now in the parking lot.”

After lunch Richard and I headed home for the exciting chore of sorting the recycling so we could take it to the recycling center. It’s a chore we both hate and we put it off as long as we possibly can but when the recycling bins are overflowing and spilling random sheets of cardboard and plastic bottles and bags and tin cans all over the floor of the garage, eventually something inside me snaps and I insist that we do it Right Now. And then we rewarded ourselves by going through every movie we have out from Netflix until we were in such a media-induced stupor that rational thought was really no longer even possible, and naturally this meant that despite having to wrestle with the recycling, it was a marvelous day.

I got my car washed yesterday. It was a spur of the moment decision, made possible only by the sheer fact that my gas light was blinking urgently at me and the station where I stopped happened to have an automatic car wash, and when I had filled the tank I was faced with the choice of saying yes or no and it occurred to me that perhaps the last time I had actually washed the car was far too long for me to even want to admit. So I paid for the highest upgrade they had and drove my car around the back and pulled into the machine and sat there and watched the it spray water and soap and wax all around me and then I pulled out of the carwash and drove home and did not think anything of it until I had to find my car later in a parking lot and actually did not recognize it.

The color of my car is officially called sea mist green, which really is just a kind of dull middling sort of green that is neither dark enough to be striking nor light enough to be pretty. It is just green, which is usually one of my favorite colors, but this green doesn’t have enough oomph for me to really care one way or the other. The only reason I got this color was because it was the only color that was not one of the million shades of white (champagne, silver, gray, whatever) that seem to be the predominant theme in cars these days, and I pretty much refuse to ever buy a car in one of those shades unless I can immediately take it somewhere and paint it a personality.

The problem is that since we live in the Sacramento valley and since I am surrounded by farms everywhere I drive and since those farms (plus all the wind we get around here) produce a lot of dust, and since I already mentioned above the whole issue of how long it has been since the car was last washed, I was used to my car being a lot lighter in color. More of a grayish green color, actually, instead of a true green. And now it is not. It is definitely green (sea mist green, yes, but that’s still a true green).

This ‘new’ darker color still startles me every time I see my car. Perhaps I should get my car washed more often. Heck, one of these days I might even break down and get the inside cleaned as well. Although at least there I can be reasonably assured that the upholstery will not magically change colors on me when that happens. Dusty it may be, but not dusty enough to turn brown upholstery any other color than what it already is.

I have felt vaguely unsettled these past few days. I suppose I could blame it on the weather, but mainly it has to do with the fact that I have this feeling I should be writing. In fact I feel as if I *need* to be writing. The problem is, I don’t know what it is I’m supposed to be writing about.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. I know what I should be writing about. Unfortunately, however, I can’t seem to manage to actually write. Months ago Richard and I hashed out the plot of what promised to be a pretty interesting book (that – surprisingly enough for both of us, what with our normal choice of writing topics – has nothing whatsoever to do with science fiction or fantasy, and everything to do with just normal life). But after getting the first chapter out of the way, I cannot seem to churn out another word on it. The story is there in my head, all jumbled up in circles and knots, and if I let myself think about it I can actually see the characters; hear them talking and watch the expressions on their faces. I know exactly how the main character twists her hands together when she’s distressed and how she sets the line of her mouth when she is determined. I know the way her friend – the strong one – sounds when she laughs and how her hair sweeps forward across her face when she leans forward to say something important. I know how the sitting room looks of the oldest friend – the prim and perfectionist one, how it closes in on the rest of them when they sit there, and the color of the décor and the flowers in the vase on the little table under the lace curtained window. But when I sit down with paper or a blank screen on the computer, or whatever other medium I might find, I cannot get a single bit of it out of my head.

I used to write a lot when I was younger. I always carried a spiral-bound notebook with me, and sometimes more than one. I liked the ones with three sections best because it was an easy way to divide work on three different stories. Granted I rarely finished those stories I would work on so diligently – I seem to be cursed with the inability to write middles, and can only reliably churn out beginnings and endings – but I was writing.
There were times when it was all I could do to pay attention in class when all I wanted – needed – to do was to pull out my notebook and write. Characters and conversations and plots would all bombard me and I had to let them out, get them down on paper as fast as I could before I lost them forever.

I don’t know if part of the reason why I cannot seem to write these days is because I have moved away from spiral-bound notebooks and tend to do my composing via keyboard more often than pen. I cannot write by hand as fast as I can type, and my handwriting is frustratingly horrible enough that even if I were to write fast enough, I would never be able to decipher the words once I was done. For that reason alone I have a hard enough time some months making myself write in my paper journal. I’m not sure the spiral-bound notebook is the answer.

I know that eventually something will click and it will come out – this story about these women I can see in my head, or some other story. I know if I am patient enough it will eventually make its way out of my brain and trickle down toward my fingers and allow itself to be captured. I just wish it would happen soon, because I am getting tired of this frustrating need to write things that stubbornly refuse to leave my head.

Before you do anything else, go here and read Richard’s story (Ten Foot Tall He Was…). It was accepted months and months ago and now it’s finally published (he got paid for it and everything). He’s finally a published author. Woo!

It was still hot last night but there was enough of a breeze so that I could open the windows and let in the night air. Still, I slept fitfully, and woke suddenly this morning, yanked out of a dream where all I recall is that I had just discovered a letter, quite distinctly in my mother’s handwriting, written to me because she thought I was dead. What woke me was the absolute certainty that I had heard a voice – a one-side conversation as if someone was talking quietly into a phone. I looked outside, expecting to see someone there (the elderly neighbors to our right have required late-night visits by paramedics before so it wouldn’t have been all that unusual), but there was no one in view. And then all seven cats stopped whatever they were doing in the bedroom and as one turned their heads toward the door and stared at it very intently.

Naturally, as only someone who is home alone in her house – and who has watched and read far too many horror stories than is probably good for her – can do, I panicked. I tiptoed toward the door and peered cautiously around the edge to look down the stairs but of course it was too dark to see anything, and I didn’t hear anything at all except a distant train, followed by the sound of the Littermaid running through its cycle.

I tried to tell myself it was nothing and I went back and sat in bed but I couldn’t sleep. So I finally made myself go downstairs, where I turned on all the lights like the big chicken I apparently am. After that there was no way I was going back to sleep so I sat in the computer room and deleted a whole lot of uninteresting email and then I heard the long, low crying of a cat and when I went downstairs to investigate Rosemary was hissing at the back door, and the big fluffy black cat who lives in the area was outside, singing to her. When he saw me he nonchalantly wandered toward the middle of the back porch and proceeded to clean his back paws, but Rosie wasn’t going to be deterred until he had disappeared, so I finally opened the door and that scared him off.

Only after all of that did I finally manage to get back to sleep (with all the lights on downstairs still) for the remaining twenty minutes until my alarm clock went off and I had to wake back up.

Looking back on it now it seems foolish to have been so scared. After all, this is not the first time the cats have played “Made You Look” (although to give them credit, they’ve never been quite this successful before – possibly because the seven of them have never done it to me as one group!), and even more importantly Zuchinni – the cat who is terrified of everything (including me) – was clearly visible in the bedroom the entire time and if there had been a stranger in the house he would have bolted under the bed and quite possibly to another dimension entirely to avoid actually being *seen*. But perhaps tonight I will sleep with my dagger under my pillow, just to make myself feel better. I’m not sure what I would do with it if something actually happened, except that maybe the burglar would be so taken aback by the sight of a slightly crazed woman with bed hair and bleary eyes leaping about at him in a Garfield (the cat) nightshirt, brandishing a dagger that is long enough and sharp enough to do some serious damage, that he might decide to rethink his actions and go away. Or at the very least he’ll be laughing so hard I’ll be able to get in a few good shots first.