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Journal Entry: August 3, 2009

Friday
Last Friday I got to work to find an email from the Deputy Secretary of Transportation encouraging all FAA managers and supervisors to support a (highly symbolic) DOT Telework Day. Any employees who wanted to were encouraged to try out telework (that is to say, working from home), in the hopes of more permanent adoption.

We got that email on Friday, when 2/3 of the office was out on RDO (including, I should point out, all the managers and supervisors). DOT Telework Day is today. That was the least useful Department-wide memo ever sent.

Anyway, contractors are not allowed to telework, so it never would’ve mattered to me. Still, bummer.

I got home from work a little early on Friday, which gave me time to work out before heading out to our July Poker Night. (Yep — just barely slipped that one in). My sister let us use her place again, and D– and K– both made it. D– brought with him ingredients for a vodka cocktail called the “O. G. Diddy,” and after his clumsy attempts to make it I took over bartending and we all found the drink remarkably good. So remarkable, in fact, that it directed the fortunes of all our evenings (and most of our mornings on Saturday, too).

We defied nomenclature and played Rock Band for a couple hours, until someone’s wild thrashing brought the XBox crashing off its shelf and engraved the Rock Band disc with a shiny silver line that rendered it worthless. Instead of being concerned, we probably laughed hysterically. It was that kind of night.

Then we played poker for two hours and watched Mean Girls. After that, a little bit past midnight, my little sister drove us all home. I stayed up for a bit playing Fallout and hydrating, and cursing myself for making the same fool mistake two weeks in a row.

Saturday
Saturday morning saw me awake a bit before nine, and I killed a couple hours working on the computer and playing with AB. Then, half past noon, we headed to Edmond for my niece’s birthday party.

That was at McDonalds, and we had family from Dallas up to visit, as well as my dad and brother-in-law (with all his little ones) from Little Rock. The party was two hours in an enclosed play area with, what, ten kids under ten-years-old. It was a lot of noise, with echoes. I gather from more reliable sources that it was a lovely party for a four-year-old. So I’ll leave it at that.

Afterward T– took AB to go swimming with the rest of the party guests, but I went back home for a nap. Ended up playing Fallout instead, but it was just as recuperative. T– brought AB home for a late nap, and when she woke up we headed back to Edmond for dinner at my sister’s house. There was pizza for all, and movies for the little ones. Dad got started watching The Incredibles, which he’d never seen before, and found he actually liked it.

Halfway through the movie, I had to leave to head over to K– and N–‘s place so they could go watch Harry Potter. Dad came with me, tearing himself away from the movie, but he was gratified to learn when we arrived that K– had a copy of it, too. They put the baby down to sleep, then headed to the movie, and all I had to do for the night was be there in case of emergency (and, of course, there was none).

While we waited, Dad got out his laptop and I borrowed N–‘s, and we watched The Incredibles and talked about getting published. Dad talked me into querying a new literary agent who’s specializing in science fiction and fantasy, and I talked him into starting a blog. We spent much of the next three hours doing the tedious work necessary to follow through on those ideas.

Then one o’clock rolled around and K– and N– rolled home, and we got their quick opinion on the movie and then headed home to get some sleep.

Sunday
Sunday morning we woke up late enough to skip Bible class but early en0ugh to grab donuts on the way to service. Or, as I like to call it, “the magic hour.”

I delivered unto Courtney her marked-up manuscript, then hastily took our seats before service started. We ended up filling the row with family, when my sister brought all hers and the brother-in-law with his, and N– had to sit in the row behind us.

Afterward, the whole family went to P. F. Chang’s for lunch, which was a mess. I’m just saying, that’s a lot of little kids. It was awesome as always, though. Then we said goodbyes in the parking lot, and the Little Rock folks headed home, and we took AB home for a nap, and then…I guess I spent the afternoon playing Fallout.

That game has to come to an end at some point, but I don’t see it happening anytime soon. That’s okay, I didn’t really want to get a book finished this month anyway.

We’d decided on the way home from lunch that we wanted to have dinner at the newly-opened Freddy’s on north Penn., so as six o’clock rolled around, we called D– and K– and N– to see if anyone of them wanted to join us, and they all said yes. When we got to the restaurant, I heard a woman call out my name just inside the door, and we turned to find our stylist, Karen, there with her friends. She got to meet AB for the first time, and T– and I both got to fight down the urge to introduce her to D–. Then she went back to her booth, and we went to ours, and we had phenomenal cheesesteaks for supper.

And frozen custard for dessert.

And then when we got home we had just time to watch an episode of Leverage, and then put AB to bed, and then it was bedtime for us, too. We read for a while, and gradually drifted off to sleep.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Wrath of God

As you already know if you’ve read through my many posts on religion, I don’t really believe in a punitive Hell. If you think that frees me from fear of God, though, you’d better think again. No, I live in constant, trembling horror of the threat in the Parable of the Talents. I wonder if I’m alone in this.

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Writer’s Group

Writers are supposed to group. This is a thing. Just trust me.

J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis were in a writer’s group called The Inklings. Look it up. I’m not lying.

I started something like a Pogue Family Writer’s Group back in ’07, when I sent an email to my dad and older sister telling them, “Next month you’re going to write a novel.” That was our first NaNoWriMo, and we spent all of October and November in fierce email exchange exhorting one another toward the goal. Since then, it’s been nothing so formal, but in ’08 my younger sister joined us all in writing, and then we ended up having a family writer’s conference at a cabin in Branson, where we spent a weekend critiquing each other’s work, teaching lessons and participating in exercises. We’ve all benefited from that.

A while back I accidentally spent a Small Groups session discussing my book, and then when I wrote Gods Tomorrow I shared it with our preacher (who is also the host of our Small Group), so inevitably word got around at church that I was a writer, and the preacher’s son realized we had a number of writers among us, so he suggested a writer’s group. Word of this suggestion reached me via T–, and my immediate response was, “Nope! Not gonna do that.”

On Saturday, we had our first meeting.

The members of our group were Shawn McElroy (the aforementioned preacher’s son), Courtney Cantrell (the recently much-mentioned, here on this blog), and J. T. Hackett (a poet and storyteller from the youth group). We got together at Courtney’s place at two.

(As an aside, Shawn and I showed up first, and I had the unnerving experience of encountering IRL things with which I’d become familiar IBlogger. Specifically, Courtney opened the door to greet us and had to stop Pippin rushing out the door, and I thought, “I know that cat!”)

Anyway, we began our discussion with the weirdness of dreams, and the usefulness of journals, and proceeded to a discourse on sleep schedules. One phrase often uttered among us variously (at least at first) was, “I know I’m going to sound like a freak, but….” The answer quickly became, “I don’t think you need to say that, here.”

That’s the point of the writer’s group. Writers spend a lot of their time thinking about things sane people shouldn’t be thinking about — and often in ways sane people cannot think about things. We dedicate huge amounts of our time to learning to do just that. If you’re reading this blog you know me, and you know I’m a little off, and yet those first few sentences are clearly exaggeration. They’re not, though. Writers just know how to hide it, when they have to. The things I’ve discussed with you only barely scratch the surface.

Part of the joy of a writer’s group is getting to let that guard down — to just relax and say what you’ve really been thinking. When I said, “That’s what I’d been looking for for years! A mechanism to bring about the end of the United States!” It got a laugh, sure, but they knew exactly what I meant.

More than just indulging in our special weirdness, though, the writer’s group gives an opportunity to vent about the special frustrations of writing. The actual process of writing is such an isolated experience that it’s easy to feel alone in your struggles. I’ve found — first with teaching my family, and then again in our conversation Saturday — just how valuable it is to hear someone else say, “Oh yeah! Me too.”

As I understand it, we’ve got two veterans and two novices in our group. I don’t know exactly how long Shawn’s been writing, but he presented himself as new to it. Courtney and I have both been scribbling since high school, and we’ve both gone through the same Writing program at OC. It’s nice to be able to bring that experience to the table. It was nice when Shawn said, “These are the things I’m struggling with,” to understand them and be able to give real, solid advice. At the same time, I was able to take a lot of energy from Shawn’s enthusiasm, and some of the stuff he said gave me a new perspective on material I’ve been staring at for years.

We went around the circle and discussed our major projects — with much interruption, of course — and by the time we were finished with that we were all anxious to read each other’s stuff. We talked about our literary influences and made a round of book recommendations, and we all agreed we’d like to do it again. Regularly.

Thanks to Courtney for hosting, and to Shawn for suggesting it in the first place, and to T– for gently prodding me toward participating at all. I can’t wait for the next one.

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Journal Entry: July 21, 2009

Yesterday I spent all day in a meeting at work, which was brutal.

After work, I did forty minutes on the elliptical machine while getting killed by fire ants on the XBox. It was…fun? Anyway, I did my workout, so that’s good. Then I helped T– hang some stuff in AB’s room — a mirror and shelf over the changing table, and some pegs for coats and backpacks near the door.

After that AB grabbed T–‘s laptop and showed me her new favorite games on the Sesame Street website. Her favorite is an Elmo game that lets her push keys on the keyboard, and Elmo names an item beginning with the letter she pushed. Up until now it had just been typing letters in a Word document, but she’d always end up getting distracted with the auto-repeat functionality and stop searching for new letters. So I think this is an improvement.

Then she went to bed, and T– and I watched Leverage while I typed up some pages I’d written during the day. That put me over 10,000 words (close to 11,000), and halfway through with chapter 4. I feel like the story is finally starting to flow, but it could easily prove me wrong in the next week or so.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: July 20, 2009

Friday
As I mentioned on Friday, my parents came in Thursday night for a brief visit — primarily to celebrate T–‘s birthday, since they couldn’t make it here next weekend. I had to work Friday, but they drove down my way to meet me for lunch at On the Border. Then shortly after I got home we headed up to Carino’s for T–‘s birthday dinner.

My little sister’s family came to that, too, which made for quite a crowd. It was hectic, and afterward we went back to our house for ice cream cake and Madagascar. My parents had never seen it, and of course the little girls appreciated it.

They didn’t make it all the way through the movie, but even so it was well after nine before my sister packed up her kids and took them home. Mom and Dad watched the rest of it, with many a hearty chuckle, and then they slipped away, too. T– went to bed and I spend a while considering all the things I could get accomplished with a few hours of peace and quiet, but the pillow called to me. I was asleep by 10:30.

Saturday
Saturday morning T– and Mom headed up to Edmond to meet my sister and N– for pedicures, so Dad came over to watch AB with me. He played with her in the back yard while I took care of some stuff around the house, and then she came in to play with puzzles while Dad and I talked writing.

Of course, she wanted some attention, so she brought the puzzle over and sat down right between us while we talked, but that gave me an opportunity to show off how well she knows her letters (she only really gets confused between M and W, and Y and V), and even her right and left. Dad was suitably impressed.

We spent most of our time this weekend talking about his book. He’s been about to finish it for the last three months or so. I read it right up to chapter sixteen, when everyone in town has hardened their hearts against our fair hero, and then he left me hanging. So I’ve been more a demanding fan than a mentoring coach ever since, trying to bully him into getting it done. It worked. While AB and I were doing puzzles, Dad pulled out his laptop and started writing.

T– and Mom got home around 11:45, and I had to run out immediately because I had a haircut scheduled for noon. Under normal circumstances I’d have rescheduled, with my parents in town, but I had plans later in the afternoon for a writer’s group — which I found intimidating for reasons my regular reader will instantly understand — and I always feel a little more confident right after a haircut. I mentioned that to Dad (who’s quite familiar with my social anxiety), and he encouraged me to keep the appointment.

It wasn’t that bad a plan anyway, because the rest of them were just going to spend that hour eating lunch, and under the circumstances there was no way I could have eaten. So I ran up to Memorial and Penn, got a chop, and then headed back home.

That left me most of an hour to chat with Mom while Dad busily hacked away at his keyboard. Then as two rolled closer, Mom started telling him to wrap it up and he lamented that he was so close to the end, but yeah, they had to get on the road. So he packed up his laptop, we all said goodbye, and then I headed out to writer’s group at the same time they headed back to Little Rock.

I’ll give a full accounting of writer’s group in its own blog post. For now, suffice to say that even with the social anxiety going full strong, it was awesome. A great experience, and I’m looking forward to more.

At three T– had her monthly crop up at the church, and N– attended that, so while I was in writer’s group I got a text message from K– asking if he could bring Jason and hang out at my place. D– was there watching AB, and at the time it seemed like we were about to break up, so I replied and said, “Sure,” without any sort of explanation.

As it turned out, we were not about to break up. So K– hung out at the house with D– for a while, put Jason down for a nap in our room, then Jason woke up and K– took him back up to the church, and all told it was 6:30 before I left Courtney’s place. As I was walking out the door D– messaged me to say AB was getting hungry, so I called K– to convince him to come back to the house again, and then stopped and picked up food for all of us at McDonalds.

AB had missed most of her nap, but she was still a pretty good girl all evening. K– and I tried to put some new remote control software on my HTPC while she watched Dora, but it was to no avail. I could fix the situation with an upgrade to Vista and a new $30 remote, but there’s not a lot we can do with pure software solutions. We finally gave up on that when K– had to leave to pick up N–.

Shortly after that AB went to bed, and D– headed home, and I had the whole quiet house to myself. Once again I pondered all the useful things I could accomplish, and of them all I chose a stupid little computer game and spent the rest of the night doing that.

Oh! There was one interruption to it. Dad called me to let me know he’d finished his book on the drive home. Go Dad! I have it waiting in my email even now. I should have a strong review for him by the end of the day.

I ended up going to bed around eleven. T– headed to a late Harry Potter after her long night at the crop, so I have no idea when she got home. She was still awake before me on Sunday morning, though.

Sunday
Sunday morning we all got up in time to make it to Bible class, but we didn’t make it to Bible class. That just sort of happened. We ended up getting to the church halfway through, so we dropped AB in her class (two-year-olds don’t judge), and then T– and I slipped into the church library to pick a couple new books for AB and wait for classes to break. While we were there I told her all about our writer’s group.

Then the bells rang and we headed to the auditorium. Courtney came over to say hi, and then I spent the service getting started on chapter four of Restraint. I like where it’s going. I fear (like too much of this book so far) the chapter is going to be about half as long as it’s supposed to be, but maybe this one will surprise me.

After that we had lunch at Jason’s Deli with D– and K– and N–, then we all went our separate ways. AB took a nap, T– and I watched Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and then T– woke AB up to take her to small groups in Guthrie. I decided to skip that to spend some time with D–.

After four weeks of him suggesting we go see Transformers II and me saying I didn’t want to, I suggested we go see Transformers II. It was not good. I don’t regret seeing it, but it was not good. There was so much third grade humor in there that did nothing to improve the movie. You know me. I am not easily offended. But every bit of comedy in there felt childish, forced, and overdone — and there was lots of it. The only line I laughed out loud at was, “We’ve got Jordanians!” which — I assure you — was not meant to be funny at all. That was actually supposed to be high drama.

Anyway, after that we grabbed dinner at Moe’s, and then came back to the house to watch an episode of Dexter. That show is creepy. I cannot recommend it, but I’m having a hard time not watching the next episode. Creepy.

T– got home with AB well after nine, we put her in bed, and D– headed home. T– and I watched a random episode of Newsradio, and then we went to bed.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: May 28, 2009

I worked a little bit late yesterday, but still got home with enough time to do a short stint on the elliptical while checking out my new monitor. I played an episode of Comedy Central Presents, and watching TV on this screen is so much better than watching it on the laptop monitor was.

Then we rushed off to meet D– for dinner at El Chico. Afterward T– took AB to church, and I headed up to Books A Million to meet my little sister for a discussion of the Ghost Targets series (which she had just finished).

It was a fantastic discussion, and took a good portion of three hours. I’ve been feeling more and more anxious to write the third book in the series lately, but I’ve been trying to fight down the urge because I just have too much to do. I don’t think my resistance will last long, though. You can probably expect a review copy by mid-July.

Anyway, I got home around ten, and ended up playing Civ for an hour or so, with more Comedy Central Presents on the second monitor. That was fun, too. I’m definitely glad of that purchase.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: May 1, 2009

Tuesday T– made enchiladas, D– came over for dinner, and we watched TV while I played Demigod. The end.

Wednesday, D– came over right after work to babysit AB for the evening so T– and I could go out on a date. We’ve started something of a ritual of going out to dinner whenever I finish a novel (and she finishes reading it), so she can give me her full feedback and I can ask any pressing questions I have (such as, for instance, “Is it any good?”). That’s always a lot of fun, and this week’s was no exception. We went to Texas Roadhouse and talked about GT: Expectation.

Then after that we went to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art to check out the openings of a couple exhibits. One featured Oklahoma modernist architecture, and the other was a collection of original prints (woodcuts, lithographs, that style of thing) from nineteenth-century France. That was pretty cool.

We also wandered upstairs after checking out the exhibits to stroll through the permanent collection again, and ended up spending some time on a couple medieval maps from France and the Netherlands. Cool stuff.

We got home in time to watch Lost with D–. It was awesome. And then it was bedtime.

Yesterday T– had to go work in Tulsa and I had to stay late at work, so we had a competition to see who could get home latest. I won. Or lost. Whatever. We had leftovers for dinner, watched some Thursday-night TV, and then I headed to the office to spend my writing time working on a programming project. It was fun.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: April 28, 2009

Yesterday, I finished Ghost Targets: Expectation! Let there be fanfare and a parade in the streets. Or whatever.

And then, to be perfectly honest, I finished it again today. There were a couple scenes earlier in the book that became necessary by the end of the book, so I still have to go back and fill those in. But yesterday I finished chapter fifteen and got to write “The End.” So that’s what matters.

T– picked up some Mazzio’s for dinner, after going grocery shopping, and D– came over to watch Heroes and Chuck with us. Honestly, that’s the whole night. I finished a Hard difficulty Tournament in Demigod using an Assassin character for the first time, so that was fun.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: April 9, 2009

Friday
Friday night I got home from work and spent 40 minutes on the elliptical machine. Then I showered and had a quick dinner with T– in which she lamented the trial of potty training. After supper we were supposed to go over to my sister’s place to help set up for a party Saturday night, but I suggested T– go ahead and head over, and I would spend some time working with AB.

We went to the bathroom and I just made her sit on her potty until she did something. It was extremely unfun, for both of us. In the end, it took over an hour and a half, but she finally did it and I think that helped her (a little bit) get over the terror of doing something new.

Anyway, I’d spent the whole time telling her that as soon as she was done she could go see her cousins (something she was really excited about). As her bedtime rolled closer and closer I was ready to give up on it all and just put her in bed in a diaper, but it was right at 8:30 when she sealed the deal, and I could hardly back out of a promise after she’d done what I asked, so I packed her up and we drove out to my sister’s place.

I got a sneak peek at some of the party prep (and they put a lot of work into it), and AB spent half an hour or so playing with the girls, then we all headed back home. AB got to bed, and I went to my office to do a little writing.

Saturday
Saturday morning I did my workout — forty minutes on the machine — and then as soon as I was cleaned up we headed out to meet Mom and Dad and my sister’s family at IHOP for brunch, 11-ish, and we all crowded into a booth meant for maybe six people. Service was slow (as it usually is at IHOP), so even though the food was delicious it was hard to enjoy it because T– and I ended up having to rush out of there for a 12:30 commitment.

That was babysitting. K– and N– brought little Jason over, and we got to spend a couple hours watching Word World with AB while we passed a sleeping Jason back and forth. I think T– changed one diaper, but other than that there wasn’t much work to it. AB was a bigger handful.

K– and N– came to pick him up around two, and they hung around to talk for a bit. That was fun.

Then they left, and a little bit after that (around four) T– headed over to my sister’s place to help finish getting ready for the party at six. I watched AB for about an hour, then got her in her dragon costume and tried on my Warlock costume, which was mix-and-match of a pirate costume and a wizard costume from Halloweens past, plus a very WoW-styled set of shoulder armor that we’d built out of papier mache.

The party was for my brother-in-law’s thirtieth birthday, and he’s probably the most dedicated WoW player out of our group of pretty dedicated WoW players, so my sister decided to throw a costume party (and somehow convinced a bunch of people to go along). There’s a detailed description of the party at my sister’s blog, in case you want to know more, but my parents were there, as were K– and N–, and Toby and Gwyn, and Jeff’s brother, Greg.

Instead of party games we had quests. Mom and Dad got really into the costume portion, which was hilarious. My favorite bit was the food, though, which was set out in a buffet and each part of it labeled after an in-game food item. I laughed out loud when I saw the cheese tray bearing the tooltip text for Alterac Swiss.

Sunday
Sunday morning I got up early enough to do my workout, but halfway through it I heard a crash and rushed out of the office to find AB bleeding in the bathroom, with T– trying to tend to her. We had been using a glass jar for her candy rewards, but I guess she’d gotten a little greedy and tried to reward herself, and let the jar crash to the floor. She cut her middle finger — just a little slice, but it was bleeding like crazy, and she was freaking out.

It took us a good twenty minutes of fighting with her to get it cleaned up and get a bandaid on (then, of course, she immediately calmed down). T– took her to get dressed, and I went back to the office to resume my workout. Just as I finished, though, T– poked her head in the door to tell me they were leaving for church.

I’d lost track of the time spent taking care of AB, and my workout ran over. Worse, we’d left one of our cars at my sister’s place on Saturday night, so I couldn’t just show up late. Mom and Dad were supposed to be bringing it to church with them, though, so T– suggested I call them and ask them to drop it off at the house on their way. Then she and AB left for church while I jumped in the shower.

Unfortunately, my phone was in the car that T– took to church, so that little plan didn’t work out. I ended up spending that hour or so playing Too Human, until Dad knocked on the door after service to let me know Mom was waiting in the car to take me up to Ole for lunch. It was another big family lunch (and this time D– joined us). Afterward we said our goodbyes to Mom and Dad, then headed home for a quiet Sunday afternoon. D– came over to hang out, after a busy weekend with a visiting college buddy, and we watched some TV while AB napped.

Then T– took AB to Small Groups at the church. I asked D– what sounded good for dinner, and he suggested going to a movie. We ended up seeing I Love You, Man — and no, the humor of the two of us going to see a movie about bromance and man-dates was not in the least lost on us. The movie itself was awesome, though. I highly recommend it.

I got home around nine-thirty, and instead of writing I watched some TV with T–.

Monday
Monday morning I got to work and spent my time reviewing for the Graduate Records Exam. I’d signed up for it last week sometime, and was scheduled to take the test at 12:30. I spent maybe an hour and a half reviewing, and that was just about enough time to get me really freaked out.

I grabbed some lunch on the way to the testing center, then showed up a little bit early and ate in the parking lot. When I got in, they gave me a clipboard to verify some of my registration information, then showed me in right away to get started. I was probably answering questions by noon, even though my appointment wasn’t until 12:30.

The test is listed as a four-hour process, but I did it in two. It consists of a written portion — two essays, which I would swear are just stoner traps — and then a multiple-choice Verbal (or English) portion and a multiple-choice Quantitative (or Math) portion. I did 700 in Verbal and 670 in Quantitative. The max. possible is 800, but apparently the Verbal portion is a lot harder than the Quantitative, because even with my scores so close together they come out to 96th percentile and 76th percentile respectively.

I’m doing all of this to get into the Masters of Professional Writing program at OU, though, and their only requirement is a 500 in Verbal, so I nailed that. They’re also interested in my writing score, which I won’t have back for another two weeks, but I feel like I did pretty well.

I’d already taken the whole afternoon off work, so I went ahead and headed home. I spent some time discussing the test with T–, then headed to the office and did my forty minutes while she took AB to do the grocery shopping. She picked up Mazzio’s on the way home, and we had a quiet evening watching TV. At nine I headed to the office, and got a little writing done.

Oh! After our tortuous experiences with AB Friday, Saturday, and then Sunday morning, we gave up on the whole making her sit on the potty thing. She spent most of the rest of Sunday in a diaper, actually. Then on Monday, all on her own, she kept rushing to the bathroom whenever she needed to go. She only had one accident all day, and I think five or six successful trips.

Tuesday
Tuesday AB realized that she could use her bathroom trips as a mechanism to get free candy, and started trying to figure out how to game the system. So that’s a little frustrating, but overall she has made remarkable progress, which has continued to present. I’ll resume my moratorium on discussing her potty training now.

Tuesday night wasn’t a super exciting one. I came home from work, worket out, had dinner (T– made some of her famous chicken crescent squares, which were delicious), then we watched a little TV. Instead of trying to write, I just went to bed early, but that didn’t gain me much. I was still late waking on Wednesday.

Wednesday
Wednesday after work I rushed home to try to get my workout in before dinner, which we’d decided to have at home. Halfway through I paused to place the order, then finished up, grabbed a quick shower, and rushed up to P F Chang’s to pick up our food.

Fantastic dinner, and not too ridiculously expensive. AB really does love the hot and sour soup, which weirds me out.

After that T– took AB to church, and D– read through his newsfeed while I played Too Human. We were all just waiting for 8:30, though, to catch this week’s Lost. It was a great one. I spent most of the show thinking, “I can’t wait to read about this on Lostpedia.” Think that sad if you will, I just consider it a recognition of the depth of their mythology. I enjoy learning about what’s included, but unaccessible on a casual viewing.

Anyway, after that D– went home, and one again I went to bed without writing. Since last Thursday, I’ve gotten about 2,000 words done, which is basically one third of my minimum writing goal (1,000 words a day). I’ve done enough to finish chapter 8, but I haven’t been terribly productive.

I’m not really beating myself up about it, though, because while that’s flagging I am busy doing a tremendous job on my workouts. I’ve now done a serious workout every day since I got the elliptical machine. I worked up to my 40-minute target in four days, and I’ve stayed at that ever since, without missing a day. This weekend could be a problem because we’re spending three days in Little Rock, but I’m going to try to get in my workout before we leave tomorrow morning and then do one as soon as we get home Sunday night, so I’ll only miss one day. Maybe I’ll even make myself go for a walk on Saturday. We’ll see.

Anyway, things roll ever onward. For the moment, the outlook is nice.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: April 1, 2009

Yesterday at work I got started on my application to OU. I wrote several of my old professors requesting letters of reference (and already got two positive responses, which is enough for the actual requirements). I signed up to take the GRE next Monday, and prepared a 50-consecutive-page writing sample (I just went with the first four chapters of Gods Tomorrow), and updated my resume. All I’ve got left to do is prepare a letter of intent — a 3-page essay describing my career goals and why I think OU should admit me to their program. I can handle that.

After work I had a pretty short evening. I got home while T– and AB were out shopping, so I went straight to the office for a quick workout. I did 25 minutes on the elliptical, and probably could have done 35 but I was still sore from Monday and didn’t want to overdo it.

After that I grabbed a quick shower, and then we headed up to Schlotzky’s to meet my little sister and her family for dinner. AB was incredibly excited to go play with Sophie and Lola — and, yes, I misspelled Sophie there somehow (according to her mother), but I can’t remember how she says it’s supposed to go, so that’ll have to do.

Anyway. I played the evil father and made AB sit in her chair until we were all done eating, then she got down and the three girls ran wild in the mostly-empty restaurant while we talked. We eventually got a little tired of that, so T– invited them to come over to our place, and we let the girls run wild in AB’s room while we talked.

They eventually headed out around 8, and then I did some chores in the kitchen while T– gave AB a bath. After that, AB went to bed and T– and I watched an episode of How I Met Your Mother. It was okay.

Then I headed to the office, and spent most of my writing time chatting with D–. I did put in some time on prewriting for a new novel I’ve been working on since Sunday morning. (I got the idea for it on the drive to church.) I threw together a Project Report over on my other page, in case you’re curious. Should be fun to write, but it’s appended to the end of a very long To Do list as far as my novels go, so don’t hold your breath for an opportunity to read it.

I went to bed around 11, and woke up early feeling miserable. Remember how I didn’t want to overdo it? Well I did. I still think I’m going to go workout when I get home this evening, but I’m sore all over. That’s the penalty for going so long without doing anything at all, though. Ugh.

I did get some more writing done on my GT book over lunch, today. Chapter 6 is done, at 24,000 words. It turned out more dramatic than I’d expected, so that’s cool.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.