I am a lazy toad

I still haven't mailed the envelopes. I forget what happened on Monday -- first I was cleaning, then I was trying to figure out the math of how to get to the demonstration either before or after the washing machine repairman, then I was cleaning some more while the washing machine repairman was here, then I was trying to figure out if the demonstration would still be there if I left right now, then I was talking to the nice fellow and Frank about the demonstration, and then -- I didn't get to the post office. Or the demonstration, which was huge, but Frank got there. The nice fellow tried. Tuesday I had oral surgery. Wednesday I was with Gloria. Today is Thursday.

I have made a character grid for the paranormal romance. All my notes for it are on my jump drive, and so is the entirety of Afterwar. I love my jump drive. There are hours at a time at Gloria's where I can write if I have my work with me, and I do write -- yesterday I wrote most of a review for The Silver Bough by Lisa Tuttle, whose pub date was April 25 (short version: read it). It only needs de-gushing and a little intellect enhancement and then it's ready to go. And I didn't even have my jump drive because Frank needed to borrow it. Which makes me feel stupid: of course that's what I should have given him for his birthday.

Anyway, now that everything's on the jump drive I can finish Afterwar at Gloria's, and then start the romance.

I'll try to get the envelopes mailed from Watsonville today.

The sleep study was ambiguous -- I have an extremely mild apnea, not apparently enough to account for the blood pressure problem (which appears to have been solved anyway) but they want to treat me anyway because of my "daytime sleepiness" which I do not have (but I did have thirty years ago which they seem to have mistaken for a current problem). So I don't think I'll make that appointment -- insurance doesn't cover CPAP, and the nice fellow actually does have a problem, which will be expensive enough to pay for. And I think once I get him on the machine I'll sleep much better.

I think I sleep better if I go to bed first, anyway -- so I'm pretty well in sleep zone before he starts snoring and choking and stuff.

I am a lost and flaky thing

However, I did finally get those five stories mailed today. And I used the treadmill at Gloria's house though it was terribly boring because I couldn't get my book to stay in a readable position. The book is Kim which I read four times forty years ago. I wanted to read Zola, but I keep having this problem -- I hate the books. Is it the translation? Or is Zola really hateful?

We saw "Akeelah and the Bee" today and it is very heartwarming and sentimental, but it is also interesting and cool. There's some stuff about redemption through what? the dictionary? competition? helping? reconciliation? jumping rope? I'm not sure. Maybe all of these things.

Gloria's on a new medicine for the dementia, its stats look good. In general, her cognitive deterioriation has been accelerating, and physically she's been getting frailer. But this last two days, while she's been really very befuddled, she's been engaged, and her eyes have the light of human intelligence in them. No thanks to her regular doctor, who did not prescribe the medicine, and who, when I took her in last week for pelvic pain (and a history of bladder infections and intestinal difficulties) prescribed 800 mg of ibuprofen twice a day. No, we didn't do it. The other doctor gave her the dementia medicine and treated her bladder infection.

Tedious bad radio luck and annoying music most of the last two days no matter what station I turn to but I hit "The Elvis Blues" on the way home.I started free-associating about songs in general.

( in which I go on and on and on about mostly pretty obscure song lyrics )

On another front -- I finally know how Winston got his own apartment.  And it sucks that there's only one person in the whole wide world who's actually read The Conduit besides me and who therefore has a chance in hell of knowing or caring anything about it.  Since Forager Girl is the protagonist of the next thing I'm writing when I finish Afterwar  (real soon now, I've got five or no more than ten pages to go, and I'm able to do this again), I understand that Winston is a major supporting character.  And he also gets a true lover in this book, in the process of F.G. getting hers.  I'm pretty happy with the way it's shaping up and it just might be one of those fast ones like The Conduit.  

I'm about to get maudlin about writing all these terrific things and not getting them read, so I'm off to bed.