Writing Weekend

Some poppies sprouted up in the back yard.  Mark's a little mystified as to how they got there.  We weren't quite sure what they were at first.  The flowers started blooming last Tuesday or Wednesday, and they must have done their thing because both blooms have dropped their petals.  More blooms seem it be in the works.  The flowers are a pretty lavender shade, and we're hoping for more volunteer plants next year.


Gym Report:  Skipped Friday and went to the gym Saturday.  I dialed back the weights to my original values, but youch, I've definitely pulled a latissimi dorsi on my left side -- possibly when I lifted Smokey in a cat carrier on the way to the vet -- which doing any kind of press quickly revealed.  I'm managed to do everything, and the exercises seemed to help loosen up where I was tight.

The universe it trying to tell me something, I think, on three separate occasions the last few days, someone has told me a variation of "Getting old means putting on a sock and pulling a muscle."


On the writing front:  Mark and The Child went with some friends to the coast, so I managed to get some work done.  Some of it was actual re-casting exposition into action.... and I'm finding it helpful to think of a recently critiqued manuscript as a detailed outline.  Or something.   Looking at the word count... not stellar progress (not quite 1000 words).   But... there was some back-story filling going on, and also some research (space beer and aereospace composite materials).  So, not a total loss.

In related news, I Did All The Laundry, made crustless quiche, diagnosed a solar LED string, created three glass tiles, watched "Age of Ultron," and administered cat meds to a cat that hates cat meds.

I got a contest rejection Friday night, which I suspected was going to happen because the market usually contacts folks about a week before the winners' announcement date, and I hadn't been contacted.


Dreams have been kind of weirder than usual, lately, with long, complicated plots.  Unfortunately, I haven't been motivated enough to arise and write them down as I wake, so I only remember the odder bits.

Last night I dreamt someone was trying to silence witnesses by driving pencils up their noses in order to make them lose the power of speech.  In a typical dream-logic hole, I don't know why this wouldn't prevent them from writing down messages.   In another dream, I was looking through a camera that made all the microbes in one's mouth light up... it was sort of a cross between a macro-lens and a microscope, and I was looking into a celebrity's mouth. . .