My new project

I have written a letter which I am sending to major newspapers in swing states.( text of letter here )

I've sent it to the Detroit Free Press, the Miami Herald, the Jacksonville I forget what, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and a newspaper each in Cincinnatti and Cleveland.  And I wrote a thousand words, skimming over the gamers explaining the genie class and writing a rather truncated version of the mugging, which I can already see how it should and can be expanded.

Oh, and I did a couple other things -- made progress on the kitchen, and went to a training for the FIrst Flush program.  No, Zara, not the kind of flush you've been talking about.  This is water quality monitoring for the grassroots coastal organization whose name I always mix up with the government one.  During the dry season, they conduct Urban Watch measurements of the runoff going into the bay.  And after the first significant rain of the season, which could happen any time now but probably not until October, we skedaddle it out to the storm drain outflows and sample the water.  I've never done it before, and I'm a little anxious because they could call at any time, and they almost always call after midnight.

This is part of my ongoing attempt to be a real person.

 

finished chapter 17 (1335 words)

This chapter is going to be humongous some day, because it has two sections which must be expanded. well, humongous by the standards of this book. It's already 3550 words, which is a little longer than the others mostly.

I hope and trust Chapter 18 will be easier. It's just the superstitious wino and his stupid wishes and the revelation that Meranda and Carleen both survived the earlier fracases (which means that Carleen is one tough cookie -- she survived two of them, one with the nonhuman watchers who want to kill everybody and everything that exploits the conduit). I believe though I am not sure that the next to the last showdown occurs in this chapter.

And then I have to figure out some reason that my guy is slightly protected for a while after he meets Candelario and Araceli. Nope, I just figured it out. I had it in my pocket all along: Araceli is the daughter of a curandera. The curandera will have her own special way of understanding my guy, something syncretic and Catholic and Maya, but she will nevertheless be able tor protect him somewhat and for a while, and that will allow the time for the various other events to come along. I guess it means that Araceli has to tumble to his nature pretty quickly.

Today's the day to return the kitchen to functionality. I have done the fun parts already -- putting little artifacts back up on the crown molding/plate rail thing at the top of the California cooler. I used lots of museum-stuff sticky wax. Having lived through one Pretty Big Earthquake, I know what I ought to do, even if I don't always do it.

more fluff

( story fragment of the day )