One advantage of being in a drought: you don’t have to mow the lawn. At all. I mowed it once back in March or April to get rid of the shaggy look it had acquired over the course of the winter. I don’t think the blades of grass have grown more than a fraction of a centimeter since then. Those that haven’t turned brown and withered, that is.
It’s been 10 years since Douglas Adams died. Some people call it towel day. I often wondered how hard he had to be work at being as ridiculously funny as his books are. Here’s my answer: a ninety minute lecture he gave at UC Santa Barbara in conjunction with the release of his excellent non-fiction book Last Chance to See. It’s almost the hitchhikers guide to stand up comedy, with a strong message about preservation and conservation. Wonder what he would have had to say about the world the way it is now. Not much has changed: At the point where we are best able to appreciate the mysteries of the world we live in, we are also destroying at a rate never before seen.
I solved the mystery of my novella this morning. After I finished working on it, that is. I was doing my morning calisthenics before heading for the shower and all of a sudden I came up with a “what if” scenario. The novella is something of an expansion of an older story, which had a full arc and an ending and everything. Not a bad ending, a nice twist, but all of a sudden I see a better one. The funny thing is that I changed the story’s title a few days ago and I realized this morning that the new title is actually a dark bit of foreshadowing about what the story is all about. Except it wasn’t about that at the time I came up with the new ending. Strange that. It all fell into place, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I crossed over the 10,000 word mark this morning. My original target was 15,000 but it might actually go longer now because I have a little more story to tell. We’ll see. Has to be done and postmarked by Monday.
Entering the TV doldrums between normal season and summer season. I know some shows start up in June and July but I haven’t paid much attention to exactly when. The Closer, Rizzoli and Isles, Covert Affairs, presumably Burn Notice. Breaking Bad? I’m going to try to be strong and resist the temptation to watch Big Brother. Unless it’s the only thing on. Might be a sparse summer. A few more weeks of The Killing and LOCI. The rest of Doctor Who. No Dexter or Mad Men or Son of Anarchy.
