Tag: books

Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: Stormrelief

Friday morning, November 22, 2024, and my first thought comes: it’s quiet.

Different around 11:30 last night. Sounded like B-52 formations taking off on full throttle out of Guam over our house as relentless wind bore down on us. Rain shattered the night with a Buddy Rich drum solo for a while afterward. Flash memories of being with Dad when tornadoes were roaring around us came up. Then came recall of being in typhoons with my wife in Japan.

Morning recon showed only the water barrell out of place. Glances up and down the street were given; trees and utility poles are intact and upright. Telephone and utility lines looped as expected. Cars remain parked, and roofs still grace houses. Looks like disaster was dodged. I hope other places are faring well but suspect tales of power outages, injuries, and death will come. Typically do when a bomb cyclone drops.

With the storm came warm temps. 49 F now, gray clouds and blue sky approach and retreat. Sunshine gives an uneven performance. We expect a 52 F high today.

This weather experience cajoled The Neurons into thinking of weather songs. “Oh, stormy, bring back the sunny days.” And, “It’s flooding down in Texas. All of the telephone lines are down.” And, “Here I am. Rock me like a hurricane.” Or, “Dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the wind.”

The Neurons eschew all that. The Pixies instead enter the morning mental music stream (Trademark buffeted) with “Stormy Weather”.

Having decided that my foot and ankle swelling was due in major part to my edema issues, I went on a green smoothie fast yesterday. Sodium intolerance and veinous insufficiency seem to be the bad actors behind my edema so I wanted to knock the sodium down a bit. I’m also wearing open-toe compression socks on both legs. Overall, the one-day treatment seems helpful. I was swollen by the day’s end but it didn’t seem like it was as bad as previous days. Slept with my legs up. The swelling dissipated, as it always does. It’s fluid moving from one place to another for me. Back on my normal diet today, although I’ll eat less and minimize my sodium intake. Sodium is everywhere, though, and difficult to escape.

As far as the actual surgery location and affected tendons, they seem to be doing well. Tenderness and sensitivity around the suture site is reduced. I hope to put a shoe on within a few more days.

Hope all of you out there are doing well. Coffee is being swallowed, working its magic through my cells. Here is the music. Cheers

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Reading

I was on my back for two weeks, foot in the air, recovering from surgery. Access to the net was limited to my phone, television, and iPad mini. It’s a laugh, isn’t it? A real first world blues statement to say how much I was limited and then share how much access I actually enjoyed. It’s a position of privilege.

What I meant and I should have written, I wasn’t able to sit down at will and jump on the ol’ laptop and do my usual surfing and posting and reading. I’m very much an organic, stream of consciousness, writer, though.

Anyway, modern television is an abomination to me. Just my tastes. I’d turn on and surf channels. We don’t have cable or satellite (again, my privilege talking), but have a smart TV with net access and an over-the-air digital antenna. I was amazed by the number of shows like “People’s Court” and “Judge Judy” are out there. We’re a copycat society. Startling number of shows about pawn shops and towing businesses, too. The standard American AM talk shows still exist, spouting vapid enthusiasm about cultural trends, getting serious for a minute of weather and five minutes of news before going back to the giggles about “Wicked” or Billy Bob Thornton.

So I read and slept and binge-streamed old favorites, along with one new one, “Band of Brothers”. Two of books were older novels I’d purchased at used-book stores on whim. These were “Down River” by John Hart and “Utopia” by Lincoln Child. Both are page turners, with the former firmly entrenched as a well-written potboiler to my mind. Love that expression, ‘potboiler’. The other was a new Jackson Brody novel by Kate Atkinson. I’m a JB fan, and a KA fan, as is my wife, so she went on the waiting list, got it for us, and let me read it first.

I enjoy how Atkinson has aged Brody. He used to see himself or get discussed as a protector of women. Now he found himself being judged by a court of women. He’s less driven, more reflecting.

What’ve you guys been reading? Probably more recent stuff, right? Amazing number of excellent books out there, waiting to be devoured.

Cheers

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The Writing Moment

A cat came knocking on the bedroom’s slider.

Papi the ginger blade was demanding entry back into the house.

I let him in and returned to bed. The time was 4 AM. I told myself to go back to sleep. My brain wouldn’t cooperate. Instead, I thought about going into surgery on Wednesday. I felt I was close to finishing the novel in progress. It could be done before the surgery if I have three good writing days. I wanted that. Then I ended up staying awake, writing the story in my head.

When I sat down at the coffee shop, I put those words down into the document and realized, the end.

I was inspired by the book, “Gravity’s Rainbow”. I’d read the book in the past and was just browsing, and came across some reference to it. Then I had an idea, and “Gravity’s Emotions” was begun.

Word can tell you some things about a doc. Tells me that this one was started July 19, 2024. 432 pages, 117,480 words. 9218 minutes of editing. Anyone who knows that a day has 1440 minutes knows that’s not a huge amount of time. Just 6.4 days if you do the math. 6.4 days if I’d worked 24/7.

As always, it feels a little weird to be finished. Bit sad. “Like a death in the family” a writer of fame once said.

I worry about it. Don’t know if the plot makes sense or if people will buy into the character. I fret over the ending is too pat.

I told myself when I began writing this thing, just get out of your own way and stay out of the way.

Now, with it ‘done’, at least in this phase of novel writing, I need to remind myself again: just get out of your own way.

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