So, as promised, here is my oral report on the book signing I went to over at the Barnes & Noble Brandon Sanderson Living Tribute Bookstore. There will be some profanity, of course.
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Today is Sunday, and the library is closed. But it's a sunny day outside, and I think I might go for a drive and write in the car again.
I really ought to write more on that Ben Parks story (it's been over a week), because people actually seem to like those, but they are hard. Anyway, I will try. It's about Ben's first "mission" after the death of the Lean Rider, and features the deputy that doesn't like him. It's only a year and a half overdue. In writing it, I couldn't remember the deputy's name, or whether Pony (Ben's horse) was a boy or a girl.
So, heeding my own advice, I went for a drive, then headed up the canyon, which I had wanted to do the last few weeks. It was warm (for February), and I thought it might be perfect to check out the waterfall at the base of the mountain. A ton of other people must've had the same idea as me, because there wasn't much room to park (the cars were just lined up alongside the road), and people were out bicycling, walking, skateboarding and . . . whatever you call that one-wheeled electric ballboard thing I saw one guy riding.*
It struck me, once I'd hiked the quarter mile or so up the trail to the 80% frozen waterfall, that this place has been just right up the road from me all these years, and I almost never go to it, and how lucky and/or douchey that makes me. I thought about my pal Gino down in New Zealand and the sights he probably takes for granted, so I decided to get out my phone and record just a bit of it.
It was intended for him, but I ended up shooting about five minutes of footage, and I thought I would upload it to YouTube so strangers could see it, if they wanted to.
I slipped on ice once, but caught myself, and later saw some damned kids crossing the frozen stream to get closer to the waterfall. My first instinct was to tell them to get off my lawn, same as the doggone skateboarders, but after a minute, I told myself, if they can do it, I can do it too. So I stepped out on the ice, hoping it would have the decency to make a cracking sound if it was going to break under my feet, and crossed the frozen stream and then, warily, climbed up the icy path to the base of the waterfall.
My phone takes truly terrible selfies, but the video footage should look better, and after a moment, the kids got yelled at by their parents and had to go back, leaving me the only person on that side of the river. Once again, I sort of wished a Jenny from FORREST GUMP had been with me, but hey, I always do.
After that, I did go sit down--outdoors--and cracked open my laptop to write. I sat down on a park bench, with the shadow of a tree falling just right so I could see the screen. I chose to work on the Ben Parks story, but only managed about five hundred words. There were just so many people there, including a couple of dudes with a drone that they sent so high up in the air that I could no longer see it, then they just sat in their car "driving" it around. Boy, voyeur me would love to get me one of those.
Again, sorry to repeat myself, but it's the 23rd of February, and I don't know what I'll be doing (or feeling) a month from now. My goal was to write (and blog about it) every day this month, and then in March, I'm thinking I'll publish a story a week. But honestly, I exercise every day (that has maybe only ever happened once in my life, back in 2002), and I write every day, and I try to stay positive and be productive every day. I wake up before my alarm goes off (this morning, it was still semi-dark when I woke up, and I read until I went back to sleep), and somehow still have energy to get to my one am push-up regimen.
Every day my love handles are a little smaller. I don't know where they went, since I've only lost nine pounds this year, but hey, I ain't looking a gift . . . headless horseman in the mouth.**
But we're not here to talk about that (are we?), we're here to put down how many words I wrote today. And . . . well, it's not a lot. This is definitely a day when Big A. has written more words than me. And that's only right and good.
Words Today: 884
Words Total: 35,602
*Somebody I think very highly of rides a skateboard, but mid-life crisis or no (and as as much as I'd like to have something in common with her), I'm never going to learn how to skateboard. In fact, it's still hard for me to shrug off my decades-old loathing of skateboarders and how they used to shout "Skate or die!" in the parking lot of the high school when I was a lad. Even so, I'd like to try rollerblading one day, or barring the courage for that, at least go ice skating again. Nearly three decades back, I used to go ice skating with my buddies Rhett and Dennis, and though I never got good at it, I got to the point where I could skate around without constantly falling down, and I'm sure it's great calf exercise. And I don't hate it like I do running, so there's that.
**That reminds me: since Big has been dieting/fasting/inducing vomiting, he's been losing weight like crazy, and has even gone as far as to take one of those pictures of himself shirtless in the mirror to put up against one where he's lost all the weight. Every once in a while, I'll see pictures women have uploaded on Instagram like that (not so much on Christian Singles.com, though, hmmm), usually after having a baby, but I have never dared do one of those. Except, I did take one a couple of weeks ago, seeing that I was noticeably less flabby than I had been just in November or December. We'll see at what point I take another one to put next to it . . . or if I'd ever post something like that. Sure, I can sing Whitney Houston at a storage unit, but some things are a bridge too far.
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Here's a little something for you.
One day, that'll be me again.
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