Raining here, raining on the deep blue sea

[ritaxis]

One of my earliest memories is of a rainy season like this. My father was a brakeman then and he had gone out of town on a run to I think Roseburg. There are only two people left in all the world besides me who might remember all the details. Anyway, the tracks washed out and they kept sending him farther and farther away. I forget how long he was gone in total, maybe a couple of weeks (he was usually never gone more than a couple-few days at a time even when he wasn't working the milk runs -- the short hauls around the Bay Area). It was raining and raining. I must have been four, or six at the most. I remember playing in the rain all the time, and my mother getting more and more worried. She was always kind of freaked out when my father was gone. She went into an actual depression later when my father spent months at a time on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

So there were a couple of days last week when it didn't actually rain, and both of those had sprinkles and high fog. Other than that it's rained for at least a couple of hours every day.

So I sent my poor dear Afterwar to Zeborah and she made a few comments and this had the desired result: I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel and better than that I can see that the book is much better than I feared, and it actually did the things I hoped it would do.

So the rest of this month, writing-wise, I plan to (1) rewrite the John Brown terrorism story from scratch to make a May 1 deadline: submit something to the Baycon writer's workshop by April 15th: and maybe get Afterwar complete and submit it.

In terms of other submissions, I ought to just gather everything up and send it all out again. I pledge to submit at least three other things besides the three I have already mentioned, and that one of them will be The Conduit.

I was thinking about going to Worldcon but it's sort of in the middle of the time we have available for visiting the nice fellow's brother at his sweetie's summer house in Denmark. Along that line, the time we're expecting to be in Europe is August 16-August 30th or so. (Emma, make sure I have the correct date for Jason's birthday) It looks like we'll be flying into and out of Amsterdam, but I haven't booked the tickets yet (you know, I keep getting cold feet, and it's only because the nice fellow insists that I do anything at all).

I went to see the other dental Borg today -- Dr. Cheng who plugs himself into the ceiling (this is so cute: he has this head thing that holds a little halogen lamp and the ceiling has a cable that he plugs himself in to). He's going to dig out my old roots in a couple of weeks, which have fused to the bone, and he's warned me that he may have to dig out lots and lots of bone to do this, and he says it's standard to do a bone graft though insurance companies don't pay for it. A bone graft is not what I thought it was. It's little particles about the size of sand, of mineral matrix extracted from cow bone. I had the impression it was tiny slivers. He says it's only a couple-few months before the body has resorbed the minerals and replaced them with new ones, anyway.

Then, somewhere down the road, I get implants.

I am soooo expensive.

And, well, I'm dizzy again. I wasn't earlier, so maybe whatever it is is going away. And I'm going to bed. Science News today has a bit about how not getting enough sleep makes people gain weight. Well, I knew that.

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I've replied to the thread on rasfc too, but I just wanted to say that there's a strong possibility that I'll be going to Holland in the summer to visit Amsterdam and to see Irina again if she's free. If we co-ordinate things right, we might be able to do lunch or something.

Were you just planning on changing planes in Amsterdam or actually staying overnight?

[pariyal.livejournal.com]

I'll be away from August 5 to 20 approximately, but before or after that, sure. (Goes for ritaxis too, if she doesn't mind well-behaved but boisterous children who like to practice their English)

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Maybe we can work it on the way back, then. Actually I'd lovce to meet your kids.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

We're still in planning stages, but I think an overnight would allow us not to bust an artery getting from one place to another. I would love to meet if it works!

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Let me know when your plans are finalised and I'll see if I can fit in round them.

By the way, did you get my email about reading Moving a Mountain? If you're busy, it doesn't matter, but if you still want to read it, it's available in Word, rtf and pdf formats. Just take your pick.