Today's schedule is all messed up. There's no more reason for me to get up early on Tuesdays, so I abandoned the positive change in my life like it was a New Year's Resolution, but my mom is going to get her COVID vaccination shot this afternoon, so I need to be watching my sister's kids at the time I'd usually be at the library. So, I snuck over to the library as soon as my work was (close to) done, and that's where I am now, for the next seventy minutes.
I must write, and yet, there's so much more I'd rather do.*
Sit-ups Today: 100
Sit-ups In February: 1643
So, I took a few minutes to knock the few words remaining on my story "Heads Up" so it would be a thousand words (but that includes the title and byline, hmm). After that, I thought I'd look over "Waffle Iron Man" again, because it didn't seem complete, even when I was narrating it the other day. Turns out, there were three files I sent to myself as I was writing it (surely from the library, those daily sessions I'd do at a borrowed computer, until the day that they crashed and I lost everything I'd worked on--it happened to me three or four times in 2020, which probably translates to a full story I would've written in that wasted time), but they were all different (usually the most recent one contains the work from the times before it).
So, grabbing all the bits (some of which were redundant, having been written over when I noticed them), and pasting them into the master document brings "Waffle Iron Man" up to around 9000 words.
Because I had to watch the kids, I also did my run much earlier than I usually do (during the daylight hours), and it was nice not to have to constantly watch where I was stepping--although because of all the rain, there were tons of puddles and back-up drains, so I still had to be careful, and ended up with shoes and socks soaked all the way through when I made it back. Oh, the things we do for . . . wait, why am I doing this again?
Push-ups Today: 136
Push-ups In February: 1580
Big Anklevich is in the middle of a cold storm attack disaster down in Texas (I should've just said "the opposite of a heat wave"), and had himself a bit of an adventure this week. On Sunday, he decided to go into work the day before his shift, along with clothes, food, sleeping bag, and a genital cuff, so he wouldn't have to drive to work the next day during the snowstorm, which was likely to make the roads super dangerous. So, he and a few other employees of the TV news were having a sleepover at the station, and would be required to work twelve hour shifts on Monday and Tuesday, as the news of the cold weather disaster arrived.
I talked to him a couple of times, and he said it was colder than Houston had been since 1987, and many people were unprepared for it. For the most part, they stayed off the roads, but so many people turning on their heaters and snow stopping wind and solar power plants (as well as some that had not been needed, and were already off) caused a huge electricity shortage where he lives. And houses that lost power panicked, trying to find alternate ways of staying warm, which included space heaters--which caused fires, turning on their car heaters--which causes carbon monoxide poisoning, and bringing barbecue grills into the house--which also poisoned people.
Big works in a big "If it bleeds, it leads" industry, and that can be very depressing, and I wonder how he manages to stay sane among all that negativity and human suffering. Indeed, how can any of us? But he continues to get up early and stay up late every single night, doing what he can to keep his head above water (and snow), and in that, I suppose he is a role model.
Just not to his kids.
Words Today: 781
Words In February: 11,591
*It's so stupid, because the whole reason I came here was to sit down and write with absolutely no distractions (or temptations to surf the net or sleep). And the first thing I think to do when I get here is blog and surf the net. I guess I deserve my misery.
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