(no subject)

So I had this revelation while my writing group was being very kind but honest about the direction the book did not seem to be going. In order to make the story actually be a story: that is, progress from one place to another, with the experiences beign cumulative and the tension building and things seeming to matter,

I have to start over.

I so don't want to be back at the beginning.

However, I really need to. I need to tear the little bits of the story apart and put them back together in a different way. Things are at the beginning that should be later. Things that happen later shoudl happen earlier. The two guys he has encounters with ought to maybe be one and definitely ought to have less attention to them. (I'm also thinking that the "I wish you cared" followed by "I wish you'd be reasonable" can be shifted altogether to a different episode that already happens later -- nota: Forager Girl and Winston respectively)Ditto tomato fields. Ditto, probably, most everything else. Also he ought to try to flee situations that he simply suffers now.

All this shaving makes a very short story. But the group wants more about the research group so maybe I can get myself to a conventional length by doing that.

On another front, it's still not raining. The bottlebrush tree next door looks dry. That takes some doing. However, the ground is not dry. That's that pogonip for you.

normalnormal

I have the most normal lipids I have ever had in my whole life.

Tada! I mean they are not just in the normal range, they are smack dab in the middle. Thanks to weight lost, new food plan, and doubling my simvastatin.

My A1c glycolated hemoglobin is still 6.1, but the doctor says that's good because it hasn't risen, and if I keep it like that for the rest of my life he'll be pleased.

I'm still at 39 pounds lost, which is three pounds or so short of where I wanted to be right now, and honestly I don't think it's likely I'll catch up before the New Year.

In other words, I'm healthy. I have a kajillion diagnoses, but I'm healthy. If I never went to the doctor, I would be healthier on paper and much sicker in real life. Ironic, right?

and my stepmother is doing well, and I'm seeing her this weekend. And saying goodbye to Rosemary, who is leaving for Wisconsin, where she's from a long time ago.

and cruzio is giving free domains for a year this weekend. Which means, yes, I'm claiming ritaxis.

Thanks to all you kind folks here and the nice people at Making Light, I sent the young doctor a link to an address for Western Union in Prague, and also asked him to set up a pay pal account with his Czech bank as a base for it. Still to do: his loans for next year -- in his court, because I sent him the forms, though I have to sign them too -- and getting his account in his California bank usable.