I saw a pair of rollerblades for sale the other day (in my size), and got it in my head that I would buy them. It was that or buy a hideously overpriced Skeletor figure from the Masters of the Universe Classics series (that I used to have ten of, long before they quadrupled in price).
Sit-ups Today: 100
Sit-ups In February: 2740
My story "Hatchling" was deliberately set in the same Arizona town (Trueno) as my first novel "Into the Furnace" was, and though it doesn't really matter to the story, I liked that idea quite a bit, even having a street named after Will Ford, the sheriff in that book. Like I said, it doesn't affect the story either way, but I just realized in writing the Ben Parks scene that Trueno, Arizona is the town where the Sidekick stories take place, not "Into the Furnace." ITF takes place in Bendo's Furnace, New Mexico, which, if my geographical memory is correct, is a whole other state.
Now, having not yet published "Hatchling," it's an easy mistake to fix. But do I change the location from central Arizona to central New Mexico, just so the two or three references make sense? Or do I somehow retcon "Into the Furnace" so that it takes place in the same town as the Ben Parks stories do? After all, wouldn't Arizona have been known as New Mexico Territory in the nineteenth century?
I looked it up--INSTEAD OF WRITING--and it looks like Arizona was part of New Mexico Territory between 1848 and 1863, then it became its own territory (which it remained until--wow, 1912--when it became the State of Arizona. Still, that sort of boneheaded mistake really bugs me because, well, I was the one who made up Trueno (which means Thunderclap) and Bendo's Furnace (which means . . . well, nothing. Just a private joke).**
I guess I have to decide what to do, but it does bum me out.
I didn't feel like writing, but I always hit the library, and grabbed one of my notebooks so I could type up a story from it (that's like writing, isn't it?). The story I chose was never titled, but referred to as "Ice Cream Droid," and took place on Outpost 3, where the ship in "Ten Thousand Coffins" is headed to. I wrote it in 2018, immediately after "A Mark on the Sky,"*--which ends on the same page it begins.
It's a particularly nasty story (I'm pretty sure this would've been February 2017, since Fisher in "A Mark on the Sky" was named after Carrie Fisher, who died in December of '16), and the pandemic story I'm writing now makes an offhand reference to it.
Push-ups Today: 141
Push-ups In February: 2540
I came home from the library, the night having fallen, and remembered the rollerblades I had picked up, and was bummed I hadn't tried them a second day in a row. I had it in my head that I could go to a shuttered business parking lot, or a church lot, or maybe to the park where the stairs are and try skating on the jogging track there.
But I was nervous about it. I'd called Big Anklevich to tell him I'd bought them, and to ask if rollerblading was easier or harder than ice skating (which I've done but am not good at). I mentioned my worry that I will fall on my face or butt or knees (which seems inevitable), and he asked me what I would do if I broke my wrist. "You're getting older," he said, "sooner or later you're going to have to go to the hospital." He also said I could buy a helmet and kneepads, and I thought, Well, why not just rent one of those plastic hamster ball bubbles while I'm at it?
But he's right. I am constantly surprised that, despite doing thousands of push-ups a month, I am weaker today than I was five years ago. Boxes that I used to be able to lift over my head with little strain now seem heavier than they should be, and despite (or perhaps because of) running every single night, I sometimes find going down stairs a little more difficult than it used to be. And that, my friends, is terrifying. Is my life on the way out already, despite not having ever lived?
With this in mind, and the chagrin of buying rollerblades when I shouldn't be wasting my money, I vowed to put them on and make an attempt. As soon as I got home, though, I thought I'd try to at least go up and down the street on them, to get a feel for how using them would work. I sat on the curb, took off my shoes, put on the rollerblades, and then asked my nine year old nephew to help me stand up. I rolled approximately one foot before I realized I had no idea what I was doing, and without any railing or anything, was totally screwed.
I asked the boy to help me back to the sidewalk, where I plopped myself down again and took them off, having "rollerbladed" for less time than it took me to put the shoes on.
Sigh.
Words Today: 525
Words In February: 18,432
*Oh no, it's 2/18, but not February 2018, but February 18th. In looking closer, this was written between the seventeenth and twenty-first of February of 2017.
**There is a Plaza del Trueno in Catalina Foothills, Arizona, which, ironically enough, has a statue of a changeling from my "Calling" stories in it. Okay, that's a lie, but what if it wasn't?
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