9-28

9-28

Still more green than orange.

When I first entered the canyon yesterday, I was shocked by how many of the trees have changed color, just in the week since I was here last.  Now, it's gray post-dawn out the window, and only two of the trees I see are still green--everything else is orange and yellow.  The way that some people react to pumpkin spice, and others react to the return of Mariah Carey's only good song, is how I react to the changing of the leaves.  I SHOULD embrace fall, because Halloween is right in the middle of it, but I don't.  Both I and my mother always associate autumn with oncoming winter, and we associate winter with oncoming death.

Because I went to sleep so early, I got up way early, which can be nice.  I got another half a chapter edited (I find that the few action-oriented chapters are the easiest for me to do, and require the fewest edits*), and then, frighteningly, I considered going back to bed.  It is only sixty degrees in here, so that might have something to do with it.  I made a fire in the stove, but it promptly went out.  Now the sun is coming up over the trees--that oughtta fix things.

Big Anklevich just put out his first short story collection, "Christmas Creatures" (either that or he's about to--the point is, he finished it), and like I guessed, it made me want to put out my own holiday collection.  But I'm just a little too busy right now--my deadline for Abbie is just over two weeks away.

For the first time this whole year, the family that owns the cabin next door brought their kids over while I've been here, and they have been out and about, shouting and calling each other racial slurs (though I suppose one could be called Mick, and the other . . .  Mike-with-a-K?).  Their grandfather rigged a zipline from the second-floor deck down onto the ground, and they were (loudly) bugging him to set it up for them . . . and then it started to rain.  It was just a drizzle, then it stopped, then it started again harder, then it slowed down, and those kids were so disappointed that . . . well, how terrible a person am I that I enjoyed the drama playing itself out while I watched in my blanket and pajama bottoms, farting and eating scrambled eggs?

Wait, don't answer that.  I know what kind of person would be like that.  I went to junior high with them.

Way more yellow than green.

I edited the best chapter of the book (I may ask Abbie to sit down with me and talk about it, depends on how harried and unhappy I am by the time I finish), and it took more than two hours . . . plus there were a couple of paragraphs ruined by the short in the microphone cable**.  I drank an energy drink (I've never really been a fan of those, being more of a soda guy, but I stole one off the set of the Christmas movie nobody cares to hear about, and I liked it so much, I bought a couple for days like today when I wake up early and are worried I'm going to crash), but it had so much caffeine, I can feel it giving me a headache.

I opened the next chapter, but maybe I should go upstairs and get a little exercise.

I did, in fact.  I went four miles on the bike, which is longer than I've ever gone before (guess that energy drink was good for something), and instead of being cold, I came down again with sweat all over my shirt, even dripping down my arms.  That can't be bad, can it?

I brought a number of DVDs to the cabin with me this week, including the original TRON, JEREMIAH JOHNSON, and the new PLANET OF THE APES Trilogy . . . but I didn't end up watching any of them.  Time just ran out, or I was much more dedicated to editing than before.  Ah well, there's next week, I imagine.

Exercise: Yes (24)

*Oh, don't get me wrong, I still have mistakes and mouth sounds even in those, but I guess I'm more confident doing action, because I do fewer takes and screw up a little bit less.  I am often reminded of the times Renee Chambliss told me that she edits out her errors as she records (I am simply incapable of doing that), so that when she reaches the end, she's done.  And when I asked her, "What about the mistakes you're not aware that you've made?" she told me she didn't worry about those.  I guess it's a different style (like those actors who simply switch on their acting versus the ones who stay in character even between set-ups), except Renee makes her living with audiobooks (putting out a dozen or more a year) and I don't (I'm lucky if I get two).

**I DID order and receive a new one, and this one was six feet long instead of six inches.