August Sweeps - Day 565

I woke up just after dawn, having had a dream where I was an extra, playing someone in the Holocaust at a concentration camp.  We were in a big line of people, and there was a sort of assembly line of wardrobe and hair and makeup assistants who would make our clothes look dirtier, mess up our hair, and make us look gaunt and/or mistreated.  I was trying to put myself into character, but there was this guy who kept pushing himself up in the queue, taking all the crutches and Stars of David and donuts and souvenirs for himself.  Something tells me that there were people like that, even in the Holocaust.

I was going to do a "concentration camp inmates" image search, but changed my mind last minute.

The sun just came up and is shining redly through the trees, casting an orange glow on the room in front of me (which has gotten quite cold during the night, though I didn't build a fire).  Marshal Latham has been posting, a couple of times a week, photos he's taken of the sunrise when he heads off to work, and there's something inspiring about that, even though I'd rather dream about being in a concentration camp than get up that early.

I did take a picture of it today, just to pretend I'm a go-getter, my whole day ahead of me.  

The sun is right at the perfect place to shine through the window and onto my hands, and it's got to be a metaphor for something, but I really only know the dirty ones, and even then, a couple years after everyone else in the schoolyard learned them.

(I couldn't figure out how to take a picture of both my hands)

Sit-ups Today: 150
Sit-ups In August: 2043

It's a very cool day outside for August--in the forties--and it's cold enough here in the cabin that I put on a long-sleeved shirt, then a second one over that.

In fact, I went into the bedroom for quiet to narrate another public domain story*  and when I came out of the room, I was horrified to discover that it was snowing outside.

It was snowing.  In August.

Not long after the snow stopped, though . . . came the fog.  Fog is immensely cool.  Fog is rare and special.  Fog is endlessly fascinating.  Fog is, basically, everything I am not.

I am rapidly (okay, not rapidly, but inexorably at least) closing in on the end of my book.  I've known, pretty much since since conceiving of it (I wish I had written down the day I thought, "Oh, I've got an idea for "a darker Lara Demming story," as I wrote in my notes) how it probably would end.  But here I am.  Basically, I need to write maybe two bits leading up to the climax of the story, and then--

Well, I just made my decision, and jotted down how the climax would go.  I'm tempted just to write that bit, then work backward, as long as it takes, to get to where I left off.  A really fine writer, someone who tells stories for a living, would be able to set up a question in the audience's mind, that could go one way or the other, and they wouldn't know which way it would go (kind of like the insufferable "Girl has to choose between two worthy boys" cliché that has permeated YA fiction for the last decade and a half).  I don't know if that's me or not, but I'm gonna go for it.

Push-ups Today: 210
Push-ups In August: 2378

Not once this year have I spent a second night at the cabin.  My schedule just doesn't allow it.  But I'm going to TRY to do it next Thursday night.  We'll see.

Today, I left the cabin with plenty of time to get out of there before nightfall (though not necessarily before dark, since it was still pretty grey out there), but as I was loading up my car, I saw a guy in a truck and trailer trying to back down the road from where the tree had fallen the day before.

I decided I would help guide him, but that was harder than it sounded (I've only ever driven a truck with a trailer attached once, when I was bringing my car back from L.A., and I vaguely remember crashing into everything).  Finally, we ended up moving the barriers the rich folks down the hill have blocking the driveway to their cabin and parking lot (the lot is big enough, no exaggeration, for a dozen cars, whereas I'm quite proud of the two parking spaces we have at our cabin, each almost big enough for a compact sedan (or Big's daughter's Mini-Cooper)), where he was able to turn around and head back.

Head back home, he told me.  He had come up all that way (from where I didn't ask), but was unable to get to his cabin, so he was going to go home to get his chainsaw.  You see, there are two roads leading to where his cabin is at: and A SECOND TREE had fallen today, blocking the other road to it.

Talk about the old Parker luck.

This was right at the start of the second road, and a much bigger, fresher tree than the first.

The man, a heavyset older guy, was really grateful that I had helped him out, and I didn't mind at all (though he did scrape his trailer on a property line marker because of me), but it had cost me the daylight.

I drove down through the canyon, just as the sun--a terrifyingly red sun--was setting.  

It started to rain again, and when I reached the little town at the mouth of the canyon (where I always park to check my text messages from my cousin to tell me who had died), I got a flash flood warning for the road I was setting out on.  That, added to the fact that it was darkening, and there are always deer on that road at night (and an elk that one time), made me nervous to drive.

But I did my best.  That is, until a big black Ford F-150 pulled up behind me, and followed.  They were too close, so I pulled to the right, so they'd go around . . . but they didn't.  Every time the road straightened out and the single line became a double line, I would slow down so they would go around . . . but they wouldn't.  Soon, I had slowed from 62 miles an hour (it was a 65) to 58, then to 55, then to 50, and finally, to 45, hoping they would get upset and pass me.

Well, upset they got, but they absolutely would not pass me, just riding my bumper with their lights on bright to the point where I had to adjust both my rear-view and side-view mirror so as not to be blinded.  I passed a couple of deer eating grass on the side of the road, and it occurred to me that if one were to jump out in front of me, that I would hit it, and then the truck would barrel into me from behind, being unable to stop in time.

However, if this hemorrhoid-with-a-driver's-license would just pass me, and HE hit a deer, I'd be able to stop in time, because I wouldn't be driving immediately behind him like a total sociopath.

I started to think about what James Bond would do, going through them from Connery to Brosnan, deciding which ones would run him off the road, which ones would leave him in their dust, and which would simply shoot him ("He's licensed to kill whom he pleases, where he pleases, when he pleases!").  For about a half an hour of my drive, he tailgated me, and ruined any pleasure I would've had from the drive, as I was gripping the steering wheel so tightly that I kept having to wipe my hands on my pants.

Only when we got to the main road out of the canyon did the affectionate driver pass me by (I pulled into the far lane first thing), and I was able to see what kind of vehicle it was (the rest of the time, it was a dark shape and blinding headlights).  I felt closer to Dennis Weaver than I ever had before.

Words Today: 480
Words In August: 12,967

*Remind me to tell you how dumb I felt reading this one in an English accent sometime.