Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Rewriting the Novel: This is What Happens When you Finish a Draft of a Novel

I am giving the novel a rest until Christmas. Still, I woke up this morning hashing out a scene in my mind: a scene in which our heroine scrabbles though some nuclear waste in a mine that is on the outskirts of her depression-era oil boom town.

My thoughts in order:

• I need to revise that scene so there is more "show" and less "tell."
• Is that scene before or after the scene where she's sick?
• Is she sick from radiation poisoning while she's rappelling down the side of the church?
• It's so weird that I don't remember what section that scene is in.
• Did I delete that scene in some early revision? I need to check my synopsis.
• Why is there nuclear waste in 1931? That's an anachronism. I might need to take that scene out entirely.

That was followed a full five minutes later by, "Why am I convinced there's a nuclear radiation scene in my book?" And then I fully woke up.

I think it took so long because my imagined description of the wooden bins in the mine where the radioactive waste is stored was so compelling. I could see them, I could see her scrabbling away. 

I blame the two obvious catalysts: 1) I have gone several full days without thinking, "I should be working on the book," and 2) clearly Kiss Me Deadly and its incongruous radiation made a great impression on me. 

Covid too Close to Home

For duration of the pandemic, my social circle hasn't been too touched by the Covid. One co-worker had an asymptotic case, and one co-worker I technically never met died, as did one good friend's close relation.

That was last year. Two weeks ago, two close friends got Covid from two different sources. Thankfully, they were both fully vaccinated, and both got monoclonal antibodies so they made it through. One person had left her bubble and her mask behind, but still kept six feet away from others. The other stayed in her bubble, but one outside visitor took down the entire bubble.

I know there's an uptick in cases, but two friends in one week? In response to the uptick, the authorities say everyone needs boosters. It seems so wrong, though, to have the US already getting boosters when entire countries haven't gotten over 10% vaccinated at all. And there are only 50% vaccinated world wide. 

This is not even close to being over, especially with the new variant, and on top of that it's getting closer to home. 

Rewriting the Novel: Draft One is Done

It was nice to have Thanksgiving week to devote to finishing up the empty spots in the book and the hard spots. The hard spots were ultimately not that hard, because I allowed myself to do a crappy job, to be fixed later.

Then again, I refer you to every painting I've done for the last three years, and as you know I don't go back and fix the bad spots.

Gary immediately said "I want to read it," and I shut that down. It goes against my theory that if you want to do something, you have to do it really badly first. 

What is remarkable is how much free time I have now. I am taking off for a few weeks. I might go in and fix quotation marks. (There are many quotation marks finished up with apostrophes. Or more often, less than signs, for some reason.)

My inner child and I had a cocktail of vodka, Chambord, and grape Kool-aid to celebrate.

Icebreaker

In the past, icebreakers at work were easy. "Say your name, your department, and one interesting thing about you --" and boom, born with an extra thumb, on to the next person. 

Ice breakers are harder now, because we have zoom meetings every day, and the extra thumb has very little impact after the first time, so we have fifteen minute debate topics.

Cake or pie? (Pie won by a slim margin.)

Thanksgiving: Buy or bake? (Fifty-fifty.)

Nina or Pirate? (There was no debate, we were all Ninjas.)

Given that the daily meetings are only 30 minutes long, I thought it was odd they devoted half the given time to Would You Rather Fly a Dragon or Be A Dragon (fly), and I was initially impatient.

After six months, it dawned on me that it was actually beneficial to begin the day arguing. If I start the day telling Joe he's a fool for preferring cake, it's much easier to say "I think you are also wrong about the placement of the copyright on that PDF" at the end of the day. 

Are they doing this on purpose? I don't know. I suspect they are. Perhaps we could debate that when we are all back from Thanksgiving break.

Thanksgiving

Gary spent the week claiming that he was unable to chew because of his recently extracted tooth. "DO NOT MAKE ANY FOOD FOR ME FOR THANKSGIVING I CANT EAT ANYTHING NOT EVEN YAMS.'

Unfortunately I had already stocked up early on the Turkey Day supplies, and when I say supplies I mean items fully prepared by the grocery store. Pint of dressing. Pint of cranberry relish. The only cooking I intended to do was the turkey and reconstituting a packet of powdered gravy. I cooked everything from scratch last year and set off the smoke alarm -- not worth it.

I suppose I could freeze everything for twelve weeks from now when Gary's mouth is healed. I anticipate I will spend Thanksgiving day, Black Friday, and the weekend nibbling on Thanksgiving, while Gary spoons mashed potatoes on his tongue and swallows without chewing, poor guy. 

 

Weekly Paint Progress: Thanksgiving!

This week the Ball pitcher went from this:

... to this:

 

 

Review: That Hamilton Woman

I had a dim memory that I enjoyed watching Vivien Leigh in That Hamilton Woman, so I recommended to Gary that we watch it.

IMDB claims this was Stalin's favorite movie. (He gave it 5 hammers and sickles.) It was also Winston Churchill's favorite movie. (5 victory signs up.) I don't know why it was their favorite, unless they felt Lord Nelson was the star of the show. Laurence Olivier keeps being pecked apart by munitions until he dies, totally unconcerned with what will happen to his courtesan. 

(I had to check up in that, and it seems he actually plead with the English government that they would establish a fund for her upkeep in her later years. And of course, that's demented. I mean, "I know my wife won't give my lover any money after I die, so I want the government to take care of that.")

At any rate, Gary has nothing in common with Stalin or Churchill, and he kept up a running commentary that was so negative that I left the room just after Lady Hamilton meets Nelson's wife.

So, it was disappointing the second time around. However, I feel Stalin and Churchill's accounts might bear more significance than mine.

First and Second Kisses with Gary

The first time I kissed Gary, there was nothing. No sparks. No chemistry. Then I went home and went to bed and resigned myself to a cold loveless marriage, because I did really like him. 

I don't know what happened, but when we kissed after our second date -- wow. Lots of chemistry. Big beakers of chemistry. There was no alcohol swirled in the chemistry either time, so it wasn't that. Big catalyst that second time though, whew.

What would have happened if I'd written him off after that first date? That's the lesson kids: always go for a second make-out session. 

Fancy Stationery

I remember twenty years ago Mom bought herself some embossed monogrammed stationery, and did the same for me as a birthday gift. She made no comment on what it cost. 

I hoarded the last piece for twenty years, until the other day I used it for a thank-you note.  I tried to buy some more, and GOOD GOD is embossed stationery expensive. 

And it is strange, because there is no longer such a call for nice stationery -- and frankly, though mine was lovely, I am sure there is special elite stationery that has even higher status. I'm sure my Old Guard New England stationery would be superseded by QEII royal warrant stationery. 

[minutes later after researching even better brands]

Jesus and all the heavenly host, seven hundred and fifteen dollars for a box of 50 notecards? And it isn't even royal warrant stationery; it's from Gwyneth Paltrow Goop endorsed paper maker Sugar. 

Lord. That put me off. Made me realize that wanting the best is a fool's game. I will stick with the non-customized Amazon thank you cards I have in the drawer. 

Wattle Watch 2021

Thirteen years ago I began tracking the progress of my wattle.

Over a month I graphed it, starting with this drawing on my laundry room wall. (The laundry room wall is the best expression of the variety of winter light - I should paint the contents of the laundry room, like the iron, instead of the birdbath and the sundial. It changes colors dramatically.)

Here it is when I started.

Here it is in March of 2008.

Here it is in April of 2008.

Then Mom died, and I lost track of my wattle. 

I think it's time for a Wattle Watch 2021: Return of the Wattle. I look at my fully-grown wattle every day in Zoom. It drapes over my collar.

Here it is today:

Could be worse.

Will it be worse? Have I reached Maximum Wattle?

Review: Kiss Me Deadly [SPOILERS]

I know Kiss Me Deadly is a 1955 classic. And yet, weird. I suppose I should say "innovative." But no, some of it is just weird. Weird beyond the suspension of disbelief. These weird things kept pulling me out of the snappy dialogue and interesting characters and gorgeous sets.

Weird Opening Credits. They roll the wrong way, scrolling from the top to the bottom. Think the intro to Star Wars only with credits.

Weird Chloris Leachman: In her first film role, Chloris Leachman rocks the short hair. I've only ever seen her in long hair roles: Phyllis Lindstrom, Frau Blucher. It's hard to identify her.

Weird Reactions to Mike Hammer's lack of sex appeal. So the filmmakers have this anti-hero, Mike Hammer, who is an ass, and you can tell the filmmakers are men because at least two women are introduced to Mike and immediately kiss him. (Not counting sympathetic whore/assistant Velda.)

Weird plot twist that was not in the book:  Introducing a Light Bulb in its first role as The Threat of Nuclear War. I spent the conclusion saying, "I don't think that's how radiation works."

Weird Ending. So [BIG SPOILER], the evil woman opens the box that contains the light bulb, and the radiation is released, and in the restored ending Mike Hammer and Velda stagger away to the beach, suggesting they survive. Which of course they don't, given that Mike had a radiation burn a few hours before, and Velda's going to die of cancer in a month, at best, if she everyone in LA isn't dead already. THE END.

Beloved

Gary recently saw this post on Facebook. The headline is:

Three 'beloved' snow leopards died of Covid complications at Nebraska zoo.

"So they weren't really beloved?" I asked Gary. "Are those, like, air quotes?'

"People use quotation marks to set things off now."

"I've seen that, but it's wrong."

"They do it online, because you can't use an underline on the web, because people will try to click it."

People, what do you think? I think those people need to learn about italics. Is this acceptable now?

 

 

Weekly Paint Progress: 11/18

This week the Ball pitcher went from this:

... to this:

 

Toothache

I got a toothache back in October. Felt wobbly, like it was coming out. It shifted enough to mess up my bite.

Gary went to the dentist around that same time, came home  and announced: "THEY HAVE A NEW MACHINE THAT SHOWS YOU WHAT TEETH ARE DEAD I HAVE TWO DEAD TEETH YOU HAVE TO GO TO THE DENTIST."

I preferred to paint my tooth with Ora-jel, and in a few days it was fine. However, two weeks after that it was wiggly and painful again. And it was odd, I had that stiff neck and I thought maybe it was inflamed and that inflammation spread to my jaw and then my tooth, on the way to its ultimate destination: my brain. 

"YOU HAVE TO GO TO THE DENTIST YOUR TEETH ARE DYING YOU NEED ANTIBIOTICS AND A ROOT CANAL AND ANTIBIOTICS LIKE ME."

So I went yesterday. The dentist used the tooth-diagnosing machine (as we call it in our house, THE DEATH MACHINE) and diagnosed me with A DEAD TOOTH. Not as dead as Gary's, but on its way, and her said I need a root canal and antibiotics. 

I even let my skepticism show to the dentist. "Really? Gary and I both have the exact same problem?" He said it wasn't unheard of. 

So, my first root canal. I don't know how this resurrects the teeth, but it ... it can't hurt. Right?

TENS

Someone at work was extolling the virtues of her TENS unit for the relief of pain. I was doing floor exercises to work on my neck pain, and they worked intermittent and temporarily, so why not use electrical shocks to get the same effect?

Besides, ten years ago they'd used it to some success when I went to the physical therapist for my frozen shoulder, and I often extend my arm over my head just to revel in my recovery.

So I bought this fancy little home TENS thing for about $36.

Gary saw it and said, "Why did you buy that? We have one of those already. I got it for my back pain."

And he actually found his Secret Naughty TENS unit tucked in a bookshelf.

"Then why don't you ever use it?" I asked. He claims it came with acupuncture attachments and the needles stabbed him when he had the device lying exposed in a drawer. (More likely, he read the directions that people with epilepsy should not use it.)

So now I could get totally amped up with eight electrodes all at the same time. Not that I would -- I used it and it was an effective distraction, but even at the lowest setting it was almost too much for me. But then again, I hear you build up a tolerance. I didn't jump like a frog the second time I used it, but I put everything on differently. Clearly I need to do more research. 

All things said, I don't turn up my nose at the placebo effect.

My Ancestry.com Commercial

Here's a warning for those who are considering enrolling at Ancestry.com. Even if you ditch the service (after your interest wanes in the strangers we call relatives), Ancestry never ever stops emailing you.

I mean, I liked having the DNA track all the relatives, but I did not click any leaves that made me swell with pride like the people in the commercials. If I made an Ancestry.com commercial, it would be me saying breathlessly:

"It was the little things that were the most interesting. Like, I always thought everyone was lying about my maternal grandfather, but he really was a hard-core alcoholic! And then I was so was proud to see my paternal great-grandfather was a pillar of the community, even though I know he was tied to a tree to help him get over his opium addiction. It really opened my eyes how my family is inclined to substance abuse!"

 

The Never-Painted Bathroom

Gary's bathroom is the neglected bathroom. The hall bathroom ("my" bathroom) is the glorious medical themed bathroom. Gary's bathroom is the sterile virgin bathroom. It has never been decorated in any way. It is a 1980's bathroom preserved in amber, with the initial original paint job applied by scab painters. (We'd already signed the contract before the picket signs appeared.)

Paint color: Scab sad

The scab paint job has been all this bathroom has ever known. Thirty four years on the whitish walls have now faded into the original Sheetrock tint. It contrasts with the white fixtures and white towels. (There were never any color towels except for a disastrous foray into fancy ones that lost their color on contact with Noxzema.)

I'm just now thinking of painting it. It wouldn't take me even four hours to do it. I could even paint it white (but of course I won't). The problem is, of course, the sibling bathroom has a glorious theme, and this bathroom has to live up to it. 

Gary's been reading a lot about astrophysics, maybe a mural with an astrophysics theme. Then again, I hear one selling point for a house is if very little has been done to it - bad paint jobs, bad cabinet renewals, and so on.

I once considered making having Gary's bathroom into a museum of foreign toilet papers. I need to research that.

 

This Week in Stupidity

I have said or done a number of particularly dumb things this past week or two, but this was Gary's favorite. 

Gary and I were watching some crime heist movie involving a very labor-intensive caper.

I said, "That seems like a lot of trouble to steal 300 million dollars. Especially since after taxes, it's probably only 150 million dollars."

Rewriting the Novel: the Last Stretch of the First Draft

When last seen I had only 17% more to go on draft 1 of the book, and it was fun. Now there's just 8% to go and it is not fun. I think my problem now is that 1) I realize that finishing means I am going to go over my word goal, so all these percentages mean nothing, and 2) what's left is hard.

I haven't been writing in chronological order, so I am writing the post-middle. These things still need to happen:

She needs to hit bottom. She needs to be Scarlett after her mother's dead and her father's deranged, but still before she declares she'll never be hungry again. Circumstances have put my heroine at the bottom, but she hasn't faced it. Because I haven't written it. Because I don't wanna. Even if I give myself  permission to write a really crappy version, I still avoid it.

She needs to cover a lot of time. The beginning covers three months, the next section covers days, this part I'm writing now covers ten weeks, and the last section tears along over a weekend. In this last ten week bit either I have to detail what she does every day, yawn, because she does very little except try not to starve, or I have to summarize it all and I think that makes things too easy on her. I suppose I need to find a balance.

She needs to get out of a hole. My girl is on the street and I have to get her fed  by bartering off a pair of  shoes, two dresses, soap, two spoons, a fork, and a knife. Oh, and damnit, a deed to a farm. That means she could sell the farm and get out of her jam, which would be an early end to the book. Now I need to go back and put the deed in the husband's pocket again.

(Moments later) Done. The bastard takes the deed when he leaves. That wasn't so hard. 

Anyway, I realize now that I can still fill in the shift away from the dark night of the soul, when things take a turn for the better. But after that 3% there will be no escape.

As God is my witness, this thing will be finished Thanksgiving week. 

Weekly Paint Progress: 11/11

This week the peony pitcher:

got started.

Photoshop makes it clear that flower is too tall and that vase is too wide. I'll be keeping the flower as is but shrinking the vase.

Fluid Memory

The other day I consumed something new: a sip of a chocolate Premiere Protein shake.

Immediately I was transported back to the 1970s. The drink tasted exactly like my favorite childhood treat:

SPAAACE.

FOOOOOD.

STICKS.

It was what the astronauts ate. My brother and  I were wild for them. 

I'm so sad I missed their brief resurgence in the 2010's. Until then Premiere Protein Shake will have to do.

Russian

It's time to shift hobbies. Hello Russian, goodbye guitar, at least until I finish all the drafts of the book. Russian takes only five minutes a day, whereas I have plateaued on the guitar.

I've only been on Duolingo for five days but I can identify who owns that bicycle (это мой велосипед). I could probably identify the same in Spanish or French, but Russian sounds like it would involve more neural pathways. 

And boy, they really know how to train out there at Duolingo. Any run of failure is countered by revisiting three of your previous successes.

I tried spelling my name in Russian. Arty backward 3, cartoon legs, cartoon legs, arty backward 3, and surprise, a capital H for the N. I just assumed it would be a backwards N, but no, backwards N is the letter I.

I'm going to be obedient for three months and then see where I am. If nothing else I can say my typos are because the Russian alphabet has confused me.

Up the Nose

So TeddyJ is considering how to protect everyone against the virus. They have mentioned requiring vaccination proof or a weekly nasal test. I don't know if this is because of Biden's new OSHA requirements or if it's independent. Recently a judge put the OSHA requirements on hold so this all may be moot.

If not, I hope this works. I also hope they consider all the immune-compromised people walking around fully vaccinated who could still spread the virus to each other, like me, and more important, like this woman going through chemo who had to fight off a bear who was rooting around in her freezer.

What if the bear-wrestler woman and I encounter each other somehow? What if I meet with a TeddyJ employee who is going through chemo?  I might have gotten all my doses but still have scant antibodies and therefore vulnerable and infectious.

I kind of hope TeddyJ will start thinking about this in detail in the next few months. Or do I?The immunocompromised are only 3 percent of the population. So that means 2 of every hundred people I meet at the office could be a threat. Is that enough to worry about? I have no idea. The virus didn't infect over 5% even at its worst. What's five percent of 3? 0.15? So not even twenty percent of one person? 

Maybe it's not a problem until I am walking on the road and meet this bear-fighting woman and one of the 50% unvaccinated in my county. What are my odds then? Seriously, I never thought my inability to calculate a percentage would be hazardous to my health.

Fortune Favors the Brave

Twice last week I heard the phrase "Fortune favors the brave."

The first time was at work, when it was quoted by my great-grand boss to encourage us to ask questions. I responded by asking a very ill-advised question. Fortune did not favor me. (The grand-boss replied "What?" as if I were insane.)

The second time I heard it was for this commercial for cryptocurrency. Matt Damon thinks you should be 'brave' and invest in derivative money. 

I have mentioned before (yet somehow people still don't know) that the phrase was coined by Pliny the Elder, who said "Fortune favors the brave" as as a reason to go save people from a volcanic eruption, which promptly killed him. Pliny the Younger recounted this later, thus able to record his father's famous last words and then say, "Wow, we need a word for that, maybe something like 'ironic'."

Not a good reason to buy crypto currency or speak frankly to your great-grand-boss in either case.

Owl

Somehow in the years and years of filming the backyard we've never caught an owl before.

No idea what he was eating there in the bottom left corner. 

Swirly

Twice in the last week I've heard a new term at work. 

"Swirly."

It means the swirl of chaos. "Everything was fine until the boss came in and then the meeting got all swirly." Additionally, "I don't know if it was the finger-pointing or the swirl, but that situation fell apart." 

Is this just a TeddyJ term? Where does it come from?

Weekly Paint Progress: 11/4

What to paint next? I was looking for prospects in my Photos. I considered taking another stab at the bologna peonies, using glazes this time  ...

... but then I came across this.

Not only peonies but the difficult Ball pitcher AND reflections in glass. Very tricky.

Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Songs of All Time

The latest issue of Rolling Stone arrived. It keeps coming, though I don't remember having paid for it, and think I'm the only one here with the vision to read the tiny print. 

I was intrigued when the cover promised a list of  "THE GREATEST SONGS OF ALL TIME." Certainly Rolling Stone would have compiled this list before, then just linked to it after that. However, it appears the list varies with time, and turmoil, and tastes.

I expected that there would be a number of songs I didn't know, given that I ignored all music during the eighties and nineties and then became spectrum-level-laser-focused on Barenaked Ladies. Turns out, not only were there numerous  songs I didn't have on my playlist, there are songs I should know but I have never heard. What really astonished me was I have never heard A Change is Gonna Come (Sam Cooke) or A Case of You (Joni Mitchell).

I have added both of them to my Favorites playlist, not because they are favorites (how can it be a favorite after one try), but I feel my never-ending subscription to Rolling Stone should be used for something. 

Memories of the Old Romances

For our first date, I asked Gary out with the patented line, "We've been talking for hours, why don't we continue this conversation over dinner?"

The other day I was thinking about boyfriends other than Gary, and I realized I couldn't remember how any of those guys asked me out. I remember every detail of the flirtations, then I remember the dating ... but how we got from one side to the other? I have no idea how any of the guys got off the dime.

There were one-off dates (George - all wrong for me, can't remember why I ended up with him, much less how) to multi-month liaisons (Joey - I vaguely recall it was prefaced by an high school emissary who delivered the intel that Joey 'liked' me).

You say -- I can hear you when it's quiet -- that perhaps I don't remember the guy's Big Asks because I wasn't the one putting myself out there. That may be true, you may be right. It's a shame though, I wish I remembered. Perhaps that will be one of those things that come back to me in full detail when I'm 90.

Scary Covid Halloween

Halloween made me wistful this year. I had to avoid the germy kiddies with the porch lights off, plus no front room lights, so essentially I hid in the dark in the back bedroom.

I look at graphs and see how close we are to getting out of all this nonsense.

Here's the graph for the whole US - you can see Delta show up at the end of May

Then I look at just my area for last week and think, "I would have to drive 20 minutes and knock on just the right door to get infected."

Of course, that's just the reported cases. All those empty grey patches are filled with people sniffing in and coughing out the virus with no ill effects, either because they're vaccinated or because they're in denial. 

I thanked the host of our work Zoom party for giving me a chance to acknowledge Halloween -- even though I hate Halloween (strangers plus children plus greed, as you know), so I don't know why I feel so wistful. I worry that I am neglecting almost all of my friendships, and when retirement hits I'll have very few avenues for making new relationships, so if I continue on this path things will be bleak. Then again, I am given to understand that if we can avoid any other variants we might be out of it in the spring. Good lord, wouldn't that be wonderful?

I think the faux Halloween "fear" just didn't sit right when I pile it on top of real fear.