January Sweeps - Day 349

I woke up early again today, which makes three days this week, and sat down to finish my podcast (I was about 98% done with it, just needing to put in the Creative Commons license and paste in some outtakes . . . but then I remembered that I'd lost all my outtakes earlier in the week when every file I had open disappeared without the usual backups being made.  So I just went ahead and saved it and published it with no outtakes--probably the first one in five years), and seeing that it was already a few minutes before lunchtime, allowed myself to close my eyes, just for a minute, you know?

Zzzzzz.

Just like yesterday, that screwed me up for the next couple of hours.  But I HAD been smart enough (this time) to drink a half a Coke before starting on the editing, for just such an occurrence.  Now, it's late afternoon, and I'm able to sit down and see if I can pound out a few words, with two whole hours before the library closes.

School (college) is back in session this week, and the library has been so much busier than I remember it being in the last year or so.  Instead of writing, I dicked around on Wikipedia for a while, looked at emails, and changed a reference in "Only Have Eyes" from a wedding dress to a prom dress.  I also looked around at the people near me.  I've done this a lot since I stopped using the library's computers and started bringing my own.  I've mentioned that I tend to stare a lot harder at people now that they're (mostly) wearing masks, but I don't know if that's true or not.  I think I tended to stare at pretty girls pretty hard in 2019 and earlier.

But the new twist is, you don't see their faces anymore, just their hair and eyes.  And that, my friends, has got my imagination thinking that every woman I see is probably a Russian model under that mask.  I pay so much more attention to eyes now, and wouldn't have guessed a year ago that you can tell if someone is smiling or not just by their eyes.  

Photo of an extraordinarily ugly person (I'm guessing)

Directly across from me on this table is a middle-aged man (he could be anywhere from 45 to 60, it's hard to say), and he keeps taking his mask down and wearing it under his chin.  I can't really blame him, my hint of a headache keeps coming back probably due to me taking a nap in a sitting position today, but still, why can't one of the college girls in the kiosks around me take off their masks?

Dang, I should be writing instead of blogging and staring at studying students like some kind of pervy . . . well, Rish Outfield-type.

Push-ups Today: 60
Push-ups In January: 1267

Now the dude is sleeping.  I shouldn't judge, since I passed out today too.  Still . . . he just put his face (maskless) on the table and is actually snoring rather loudly across from me.  People are glancing over, but ah well, what can you do?

Sit-ups Today: 100
Sit-ups In January: 1764

In yesterday's writing, I introduced a medium character that comes to the bed and breakfast on the request of Meeshelle, one of the clerks.  I had considered it being a priest, a Mormon missionary, or a professor at Boise State University, but I ultimately decided on a heavyset black lady who'd speak with a Caribbean accent, which is dropped once she realizes there are really ghosts to be found there.

Yeah, well.  I worried that priests were overdone, a Mormon missionary would head for the hills as soon as evil spirits were mentioned (they're usually about eleven years old), and a college professor would end up sleeping with both Natalie and Meeshelle.  So, even if you are rolling your eyes at the thought of yet another black lady psychic . . . I get it.

I decided to name her Renatta, after one of the two ghosts that apparently feature at the Haunted Mansion in Florida (but not the one in Anaheim).  Originally, it was going to be Carlotta, who is the twin sister of Madame Renata at Disney World (or whatever the devil they're calling it now--I hate being out of the loop).  According to the internet, the two ghostly sisters sometimes come out and tell park attendees how they died and bicker about whose fault it was . . . and that's just about the most delightful idea outside that urban legend about the college sorority that has to seduce guys with big noses to get into the club.

I was of two minds about the medium/exorcist character.  When she was a he, I was going to have him be an exorcist-type that casts out ghosts and demons every ten years or so.  When I recast her, essentially, as Whoopi Goldberg in a movie in 1990 about a ghost--I forget the title--I was torn as to whether she should be a charlatan or legit.  

So, I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too: usually, she just puts on a show for the paying customers ("I'm sensing a presence . . . starts with an A or a J . . . could be K.  Maybe has an E in it somewhere?"), but when confronted with an actual paranormal encounter, it might test her resolve (and her sanity?).  I don't know how I got to this point--the character didn't even exist a week ago, and now I'm depending on her to solve the main problem of the narrative.  Seems like something a pantser would do (and brag about it).

Bloody pantsers.

Words Today: 1221
Words In January: 10,234