Blog 6/6 to 6/9

6/6

I'm going to try to get some writing done on "Balms & Sears," the first I've managed since the Star Wars Celebration.  Tonight, Marshal and I are finally going to sit down to record an episode or two about our trip (my cough is pretty much gone, but I still had to stop and catch my breath when I went running last night).

Writing or Exercise:  Writing

6/7

We watched the latest episode of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds," and again, an excellent episode.  I don't know how they managed it--except for the Original Series, no "Trek" has had this great a first season, and so consistent.  It's not really fair to watch "Obi-Wan Kenobi" afterward, since that show is so thoroughly average.

Writing or Exercise: Writing

6/8

Here I am, back at the cabin already.  You'd think I'd have everything figured out by now.

I've seen so many deer today, probably because there aren't so many people around as there were Saturday.  At one point, I was watching the family of deer next door when I saw movement low to the ground.  I thought it was another rock chuck, but it was bigger and flatter.  It was a badger.  And as I watched it moving, a second, smaller badger came up to meet it.  Well, I wasn't sure what to do, but my brother's rifle sits on the cupboard, and I got it down, went outside . . . and they were gone.  The deer continued to sit around there, dumbly uninterested, but the badgers had either heard me, smelled me, or sensed me, and went to ground.  I waited for them to return, but they never did.  Could I have shot one, and actually killed it, from that distance?  We will never know.

I picked up the DVD of 1954's OKLAHOMA!, and watched it here, instead of doing something productive.  I just didn't want to reach my deathbed and have my last words be "I wish I'd watched more Rodgers & Hammerstein."  Like so many elderly folks reportedly say.

There were parts of the film that were totally magical, and some fun songs, but man, the dancing.  There was an extended dance sequence where the main two characters were replaced by stunt dancers that made me long for the sweet embrace of the grave. 

Writing or Exercise: Exercise

6/9

I really ought to write, but man, I just can't bring myself to do it.  Imagine a Bizarro Universe where going jogging or jumping rope is more appealing to me than writing.  But that's where we are.*

I did do one productive thing this morni--shoot, it's afternoon now, how did that happen?--ng: I selected a five minute sample from the audiobook of "Hatchling" to send to Audible, which means the recording is completely finished (though I may have to re-do the closing credits, if I said 2021 instead of '22 on there [has it been that long I've been working on it?], and then I'll be done).  Of course, I realized that the voice of Rick is completely different at the start of the audiobook from where it is at the end, and that tempts me to sit down and re-do all those lines so they match, but eff it, that could go on forever (I mentioned recently listening to the audio of "Newfound Fame" and thinking I could add a new scene and redo one section, where there's a digitally-inserted Brown Depths Monster and Alonzo Moss shoots first and misses at point blank range, but I didn't do it).

I interrupted my time-wasting when I heard a sound in the other room, and came out to find . . . the front door was wide open.  My guess is a gust of wind blew it open, but still, the imagination revs up.  Imagine if that happened in the middle of the night.

Even though I watched it a full 24 hours ago, that "The Farmer & the Cowman Should Be Friends" keeps echoing in my head, over and over again.  Yesterday, I was thinking I'd check out more Oscars & Hammerstein movies from the library . . . but now I sort of wish I'd never watched it at all.

I went for a pretty good hike at the cabin in the afternoon because I was tired of sitting around inside, and I hadn't been hiking much this year.  I walked down the hill in search of the frogsong you can hear as the shadows lengthen each day.  It's only Thursday, so there were no other people around (I heard somebody working construction in the distance, but didn't see anyone), and I walked through people's yards trying to find a path down to a trio of ponds that are surrounded by brush, where I could hear the frogs singing.  Of course, when I got there, I couldn't see them, and they'd shut up if I got very close.  I saw one frog hopping through the bushes, but when I put down my backpack to try and catch it, it was gone.

Hiking back up the hill was slower going than going down, and it struck me as oddly lonely for some reason.  Eventually, I got back to the cabin and worked on audio editing until I was no longer hot.

Even though I had hiked during the day, I still chose to go on a run around ten at night.  I was hungry, and thought I could reward myself with some orange chicken, but ONLY if I exercised, so I did the whole darn run, and found myself abnormally sweaty when I made it back. 

I did eventually sit down and write the first few paragraphs of a story I'd come up with about a dozen years ago, where a man and woman are forced to raise an alien child as their own (I even drew a couple of sketches of what the creature was going to look like), but I threw those plans away when I saw MAN OF STEEL.  But here we are, all these years later, and I thought I'd give it a try, since I'd been thinking about the opening since Lindsay Lohan was considered talented.  Maybe I can make something of it.***

Writing or Exercise: Both

*I promised Marshal I would write a story with a positive portrayal of a step-parent relationship this year, and I keep kicking around an idea of a stepdad taking his son out to look at a college, or to give him the talk about sexual intercourse and how Wang Chung is the most underrated band of the Eighties, or maybe to give him his first driving lesson . . . and then something happens, but I can't think of what that something would be, and I'd rather listen to the audio commentary of OKLAHOMA! than to figure that out (or worse, put in the second disc and listen to the SECOND commentary, having finished the first one).

**That movie was lousy enough I should've thrown all my plans away afterward, but it was some plotpoint or some line of dialogue that Zod had that made me think, "Damn, that was what my story was going to be about.  Why didn't I write it when I had the chance?"

***Spoiler: Nope, I won't.