Friday, Part I
I cannot believe how early I got up on Friday morning. Like at 7:05 (6:05 my time), which was just Too Damned Early, especially with having gotten up at 5 the previous day. However, I managed to both shave my legs and get to the van in time to be brought to Karen's house, where Julie made scrambled eggs with peppers that made me burp pepper tastes all day, but which were otherwise very good. :)
Liz Wolfe and I went to the airport to pick Sarah, whose plane was running late, up, and then there was a sort of comedy of errors because 1. we didn't know what flight she was on, and 2. she was waiting for us outside while I was waiting for her inside, so -- well, it took a while. But eventually we connected, and we went to ... a bookstore, the name of which is escaping me, which is next to Arts West, where we held part of our afternoon. There was a book signing/reception thing going on there, and I was carrying around the small critter-cat which Sarah had given me (he's very cute!) and discussing the possibility of running a contest to name him. Several people stopped to admire him, including Larry Dixon, who may have given him the name Monkcat, as he looks like a monkey or a cat, depending on your personal take on the matter, so I named him Monk for short, and met Larry. :)
We trundled over to Arts West after the luncheon/reception thingy, and milled around for a while, while they finished setting up the downstairs for us.
Johann Sorensen, who has written a thriller called Diamond Lies, gave a presentation on infusing your writing with conflict, and read a great transitional scene from his book, in which the protagonists were driving too fast on a canyon road and of course another vehicle came along. He stopped reading before we found out what happened, and there was a sort of horrified pause/gasp while we all went, "AUGH! He STOPPED READING!" but then we all said to each other, "This passage was only halfway through the book, so probably they survived." :) So that was pretty interesting, really. He had a couple of nice examples from his own writing, and then read some first lines that were good hooks, then had people write their own first lines as hooks. Julie had a very fine first line--something along the lines of, "Blood in my mouth always reminds me of the taste of a new copper penny," and I fail to remember anyone else's.
Liz Wolfe gave a short seminar on how to write a query letter/pitch, and provided a template handout to make it easier for people to hang the important plot points on it. I'm keeping mine, because it looks like a useful tool.
Kathi Troyer, who works for the Arizona, uh. State crime lab. Gave a really *cool* seminar about how crime labs really work (as opposed to how CSI shows them), and sort of dreadfully, everybody at the con went to that instead of to the poetry reading that was going on. Oops.
Then, because the rooms were stuffy and the chairs uncomfortable, we all picked up and went back to the Junker residence.
Now I take a break from writing, because I'm v. sleepy.
Thursday. For real this time. :)
So I finished my book while I was waiting for the limo, and then Kathy and Kristie and their husbands Jim and Ron arrived and we all piled into the v. comfy limo that Karen had sent to pick them up (I lucked out, or something like that, because my plane was late) and we went to the Junker's house.
By the time we arrived, we'd *already* missed the Pasties Incident, and this was only Thursday night, so this should suggest to you what kind of weekend it was going to be.
Russell Davis of Five Star and Anna Genoese of Tor Books were already there, along with Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon and about twenty zillion other people, including Julie of the Pasties Incident, Terey, Whose Fault It Was, Cyn, Whose Room I Got, Dave Who Is BangBang, Margie Whom I Met At RMFW Last Year, and many, many others.
Let us get the Pasties Incident out of the way here at the beginning, although heaven knows why we should, as it followed us, or at least Julie, through the whole weekend, and I wasn't even there for it!
Apparently someone (it may have been Julie but it also might've been Terey, Whose Fault It Was) put Julie's name tag directly over her breast (over her shirt, mind you). This prompted an observation that she was lopsided, so they put another name tag over her other breast. Then that didn't seem like enough, so they appropriated some of the tiny pinwheels that were being handed out for, and ... you can see where this is going.
Julie, thus bedecked, walked out into the back yard, where Russell Davis took one look at her, stood up, offered his hand, and said, "I'm Russell Davis, and I don't care *what* you write."
Julie, later bemoaning that the Pasties Incident was the end of her writing career, had Russell say, "Oh no, it was the *beginning* of your writing career." *beam* (It is, of course, going to follow her for the rest of her life, in part thanks to people like me, who will cheerfully re-tell the tale, but hey! Them's the breaks!)
Before I heard about the Pasties Incident, I met Karen, who is a wonderful woman, and who said, "There's someone you know here!" And indeed, Margie from the RMFW who had also finaled in last year's RMFW contest, was there, so we caught up, and that was great!
I met a nice guy named Dave Gross who works for Paizo Publishing, and we talked for a while, and then I overheard Russell and Julie and some others talking about Laurell Hamilton, so I went over and barged into that conversation, which turned out to actually be about how it's good for authors to break out and write more than one series because it keeps their writing fresher. It eventually devolved into this discussion about how we were quite sure there was probably just one single little old man sitting in a room somewhere, controlling the entire publishing industry, and the little old man came back to haunt us several times during the weekend, as well. :)
I popped over to the hotel at some point during the evening to check in. They gave me a key, I went up to the room, and the key didn't work. I went back to the office and said, "This key doesn't work!" So they re-keyed it. I went back to the room, opened the door -- and there was stuff in it already! I went, "Ack!" and went BACK to the office (meanwhile, the poor limo driver was waiting for me) and discovered that while I was booked for Thursday night, I wasn't booked for Friday or Saturday night. So after that all got straightened out, I got a new key for a new room and went and got my stuff and stuck it in the new room and went back to the Junker's and stayed until, hm. 10ish, I think. It got dark. Very weird.
July 26, 2003
Oh my goodness. It's way too early out. And it's been to early for day sand days and days.
Orlando Bloom dipped in chocolate. That's what was just said. It's ... well. 7:10 my time. 8:10 their time. And we've already got Orlando Bloom dipped in chocolate. Go Writer's Weekend. :)
Okay, so. Thursday.
Thursday I got up at 5 bloody A.M. and got to the airport, where they charged me $100 instead of $50 to upgrade my ticket to first class. Wel, whatever. I went and asked at the ticket counter why that was, and they said it was because the flight was more than 1250 miles. Bah. Anyway, I paid it because I wanted a bloody first class seat.
Then they cancelled the flight. Siiiiigh. I called Mom and she got me and I went home and had some french toast for breakfast and then went back to the airport and hung out -- which is to say, read -- for ... hours and hours. I read five books on Thursday (yay!) (Brokedown Palace and Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grill by Brust, The Wind Singer by somebody, New Orleans Beat by Julie Smith and... The Glasswrights' Test by Mindy Klasky. Let's hear it for airplanes: it's the only thing I really like about travel, is the getting to read a lot), and I--
(Sunday afternoon interlude:
It's now 3:10pm on Sunday afternoon. The above was written in The Big Tent at Karen's, yesterday morning; today, I'm listening to Steve Brust play poker with some Clarion students up at the Big Tent while I've snuck down to the Lower Tent for some quality time with my keyboard. It's really fricking hot out. And now I return you to your regular Thursday afternoon update.)
--and I have no idea what I was going to say about reading on airplanes, but that's okay. I got a lot read, and that's that.
Got to Seattle at 4--
(Sunday afternoon interlude:
Shoulder massage from Cyn. I love Cyn.)
30 instead of 12:10, and sat around reading for an hour while I waited for 1. the limo and 2. the people who were supposed to ride in the limo. I fi--
(This is as much as I got written over the actual weekend. More details will be added behind cut tags as the day progresses. :) )
I'm hooooooome!
There will be writeups later today and tomorrow. Suffice it to say, that was one hell of a lot of fun!
I'm as organized as I'm going to get, I think. I have No Idea if I'll be able to post over the weekend, so there may not be another update here until Monday. Have a good week/end!
Completely unprepared for Writer's Weekend. That's okay. Going to lunch now, will deal with it later. O.O
I'd never seen a purple bear!
I'd never hoped to see one!
But I can tell you anywhere:
I'd rather see than be one!
Ted and I have been dented. My teeth are all slippery and clean. The doctor gave me an A+ for healthy teeth. The hygenist told me to floss more. The doctor, who is garrulous, kept Ted much longer than it took to do his exam, because he likes to talk. That's about it. :)
Go China. :)
We got a new toilet seat. The one in our bathroom was a squishy one, and it developed cracks in it, so we went and bought a wooden one (the only porcelain/plastic ones they had didn't come in the right color). Now, because the wooden seat has no squish to it, and therefore is, I don't know, a 1/2 inch or 3/4ths inch lower than the previous seat, if I am not actively paying attention when I sit down (which, y'know, generally I am not), I have this moment of ACK! where I think I'm falling into the toilet. It's the whole 3am the-boy-left-the-toilet-seat-up-and-I'm-about-to-drop-my-butt-into-icy-water* syndrome. Toilet trauma. I have toilet trauma.
In other news, Chrisber and Christy eloped yesterday! Congratulations to them!
I wish all the small planes would stop flying over our house. It would help, of course, if we didn't live spitting distance from the floatplane and small plane airports, but still. I wish, how I wish. They're very, very loud.
I went to bed last night and after a bit Ted came to bed, and the door swung open so he got up to close it again. Then there were a lot of strange clicking and lip-smacking sorts of noises, and after a couple of minutes I sat up and discovered there was a Chantico curled up by my side of the bed. Aww. She just wanted to be near her people! But we chased her out anyway, and commented that it was no wonder we hadn't slept well during the weeks we'd let her sleep in the room. Noisy dog.
*in the 6 years we've been married, I believe Ted's only left the toilet seat up twice, so this is in no fashion intended to malign him. :)
I managed to weigh in at 195.5 this morning. I'm not quite sure how that happened, but I shall try to continue the downward trend!
Yesterday it was 23532498 degrees out, and we went out shopping and errand-running and I overheated and had to come home and lie down like a sick lump in the bedroom for an hour, but then I got better, which was good 'cause Mom came over and we had bbq ribs and macaroni salad and corn on the cob for dinner. And very excellent, if I do say so myself, strawberry-rhubarb pie. Yum!
Got up this morning and I'm trying a cinnamon-raisin bread recipe, and otherwise I haven't done diddly. Any second now I'm going to go work on the lawn. Honest.
Any second now.
I did diddly squat yesterday. I wrote 1600 words Thursday; that was something, anyway.
Today I've made bread and a strawberry rhubarb pie and walked the dog. Now I'm going to go do more stuff.
ytd wordcount: 156,850
miles to Rivendell: 144.25
Well, fnrt. I got email from Karen (the lady who's running Writer's Weekend) last night saying that one of my entries for the WW writing contest hadn't arrived until yesterday. Since I sent it on about the 20th of June, and sent it priority, and the bloody contest closed July 1st, that's a little annoying. That was the entry that had Angles and Urban Shaman in it. Feh. Oh well. She says she'll see if she can get the editors to read them even if it's much too late for the contest, at least, but, well, we'll see.
In other news, I sent out 6 HEART OF STONE S&3s/queries to paranormal romance publishers yesterday, then sat around with Ted and Shaun and hashed out what I think will develop into a pretty decent plot for my X3 screenplay. I'm going to write a beatsheet today. :)
Okay, I'd better update my webpage before my husband starts complaining that I never tell him what's going on with my life anymore. :)
Yesterday, I tried to go to lunch with my Mom and an old friend, Sam Perera, who was an exchange student from Sri Lanka at KCHS and whom I re-met in college. Mom came to get me, and we drove to where the directions said to drive.
And the road ended.
So we thought, "Um, well, maybe it's the other direction." So we drove the other way and looked around and couldn't find the street, and eventually we went back to Mom's so she could call Sam (who didn't answer the phone, what with presumably being outside waiting for us to pick him up) and we got directions from Mom's house instead of my house, and we drove to where the directions said to drive.
And the road ended.
At that point Mom brought me home 'cause I had a meeting, and I had a pb&j instead of lunch with Sam. :) It turns out Mom did eventually manage to hook up with Sam, and he sent me a pair of silver and blue teardrop earrings! Which I left in Mom's car last night after Dad and I went berry picking. Oops. :)
Dad and I got almost a gallon of strawberries last night! Yay! I had the Magic Strawberry Fingers, and found lots of big berries. Yay! And there are a lot of green ones, so I'm thinking maybe I'll get Ted to drop me off out there Saturday morning and I'll pick some more, since Dad'll be in Seattle.
I also got about 1200 words written yesterday, and walked a mile. I meant to go biking, but by the time we were back from berry picking and had eaten, I'd lost my enthusiasm for biking. I did, though, get HoS ready to send out to Luna Books.
ytd wordcount: 155,250
miles to Rivendell: 143
I bought Sophocles instead, after reading a review of Final Draft that said the user liked Sophocles better. I went and tried it out, and I liked it better too. Plus, it was half the cost of FD, so that's a big plus. :)
Biked 15.7 miles tonight. Veerrrry beautiful out. Also walked a mile with the dog, which was much too hot indeed. *pantpantpant* And wrote 2550 words. Go me!
ytd wordcount: 154,050
miles to Mordor: 537.3
miles to Rivendell: 142
I loooooove these hot sunny weekends. This is fantastic!
Saturday afternoon I finished my shelves, for the value of 'finished' which means 'they are now all sanded and need to be stained, laquered and mounted', went to see Holes, which was really quite charming, read a bunch of a book, walked 3 biked 10 miles, and... that was mostly it.
I finished the book -- Fly By Night, by Jenny Jones -- on Sunday morning, between making bread and a cake. It's a book I bought in England 10 years ago and I really loved it then, and I wanted to re-read it to see if it stood up to the test of time.
Eh.
I'd forgotten (or hadn't noticed) how entirely unsympathetic the main character is. Writing that I suspect I thought was elegant and clever prose ten years ago now annoys me;there is a character in the book whom I shall call Amaryllis, just on the amazingly off-hand chance that someone reading this should want to not be spoiled by the book. Amaryllis dies. When her death is referred to, it is often as "the death of Amaryllis", rather than "Amaryllis' death", as if the writer wasn't sure what to do about that apostrophe at the end there. A lot of that kind of thing, and also a lot of passive voice that I hadn't noticed/hadn't been bothered by before. I finished the book and I'll finish re-reading the trilogy, to see... well, to see if it improves, I suppose, but so far it's not standing up to the test of time all that well. Too bad, too.
Later Sunday morning Dad and I went up and tromped around Eklutna Lake for a bit, discovered they rent kayaks for $30/4 hours, and determined we'd have to come back up there with Mom and Ted and some money, and rent kayaks. :)
Came home, made frosting and put the cake together, then walked the dog. SWELTERING HOT. Spent most of the rest of the day in a stupor.
Well, no, that's not true. I did a little laundry and tried to write (300 words), but it was just too damned hot out to think. And Ted made an *amazingly* good grilled salmon dinner, with steak-and-mushroom shishkabobs, and fresh brocolli and (not fresh) rice, and Mom and Dad came over and we all ate this REALLY GOOD meal and sat around saying, "And just think, he's going to go to culinary school and learn how to cook!" Wow, it was really good. Then cake for dessert, and we sat around talking for a while, and after Mom and Dad went home we watched A Knight's Tale, because it was too hot to do anything else. :)
Went to bed, my brain started percolating on an X3 idea (Ted's fault, he said he'd like to see the chick who played the female lead in Knight's Tale play Psylocke), got up, wrote 3 pages of notes, went back to bed, and slept like a very sleepy thing until this morning. Now I'm going to go buy Final Draft, because if I'm going to try to write an X3 script it seems like I ought to line up the karma a bit by at least purchasing the screenwriting software. :)
miles to Rivendell: 141
miles to Mordor: 521.4
ytd wordcount: 151,500
Hot hot hot! It is eleventy thousand degrees out. Dad and I went berry picking this morning, but some meanie had been through and picked all our berries, so we only got about a pint between us. Snif! I came home and walked the dog and cleaned up the backyard and am watering it, and now I'm going to go find some food and then maybe go biking. It's *SO* nice out! Yay!
I had a dream this morning that I was at a very small convention sort of like the Writer's Weekend, except there were some comic book people there too, like Terry Moore, and I was supposed to do a panel on being /un/published and what the whole state of the industry looked like from that side, and there was some chick there who was trying to pitch a B&W comic to Terry, and he was being polite but was bored, and Anna Genoese was there, as well as PNH, and ... it was very weird.
Reporting this made Trip say, "I wonder if publication features prominently in Kit's thoughts or something. :)"
Ya think? :)
Wretched mood. Wretched work. Tired, grumpy, frustrated, bored. Know I should bike, walk, yoga, *something*, but right now I feel emotionally scarred and crabby and I both want to just get this damned stuff done and to never look at it again.
I will walk, or bike, or something, in another hour, by which time if my coworkers have any sense they will have gone home/quit working. :P
We went to see Pirates of the Carribean last night, and it just totally rocked. Johnny Depp was hysterical. Orlando Bloom was adorable. Geoffrey Rusch chewed the scenery. The chick, whose name I have forgotten -- Kiera something -- kicked ass. Every single scene in the ride was re-created in the film, which delighted me. I will go see it again, even at full price. I *entirely* enjoyed the film.
I also went on a 13 mile bike ride last night. Yay! I broke 500 miles! Yay!
miles to Mordor: 511.2
Nooooooo berry picking tonight. Instead I'm getting myself together to go biking, which I'm not very enthusiastic about at the moment, but I know I'll feel better later if I go now.
Stupid endorphins. :)
EIGHTY FOUR DEGREES. That's what it was yesterday. That's a record. And today is unbelievably gorgeous as well. I already brought the dog for a walk before it got too hot, but I *so* want to call in with the Blue Sky Flu and go biking. It's just *so* nice out. Maybe tonight. After berry picking. And Pirating. And, uhm, writing. I'm going to have to get some writing done at some point before the berry picking and the movie, because I'd rather bike tonight than write.
I did, though, get 500 words written last night, which isn't a lot, but it puts me over 150K for the year. Oh, and over 12K on TB. *waves a little flag*
miles to Rivendell: 136
ytd wordcount: 150,200
Well, I'll be darned. Sarah and I both made it into the Viable Paradise writer's workshop at Martha's Vineyard at the end of September!
In other news, Dad and I picked 10 cups of strawberries. :)
My oh my what a wonderful day--
It's absolutely beautiful day out. I meant to get up and take the dog for a walk, but Ted, to my surprise, got up as well and I wanted to talk to him before he went to work, so I didn't walk. Yet. I may pop out for a break in a few minutes and go, because it's just too damned beautiful out right now to waste it entirely inside. If I go for a short walk, I can be back within a Sensible Break Time and can maybe go again this afternoon. We walked yesterday afternoon and it was Sweltering Hot. Sweltering, I Tell You.
I made another strawberry-rhubarb pie yesterday, for Ted's Mom, whose birthday it was, and it turned out at least as well, possibly better, than the one I made on Sunday. We went to dinner at Lone Star with her, and with some friends of hers, and then they came over for dessert, and then I ACTUALLY WROTE! Only 700 words, but that's better than I've done in weeks, and I re-read the first few chapters of Thunderbird Falls and it doesn't suck. I'm glad. :) So now I can go charging merrily on. Charge! Chaaaaaarge!
I read some woman somewhere (maybe in my Shape magazine) who said she'd been writing down what exercise she'd done on what days on her wall calendar, and so I started doing that, and she's right: it's cool to see the little squares filling up as the days go by. I've walked every day for a week! Yay!
miles to Rivendell: 134.25
ytd wordcount: 149,700
current music: 3-Finger Charlie, Urban Family Dog
V. busy weekend!
Thursday, I:
was effective at work, read Harry Potter, went to T3 (two thumbs up!)
Friday, I:
got up at 8:30 and walked the dog, made 2 loaves of bread, made macaroni salad, made pancakes, went to Sinbad (two thumbs up!), finished reading Harry Potter, made bbq sauce, had ribs & corn on the cob & macaroni salad for dinner, made cookies, went to Mom & Dad's with cookies, hung out, said goodbye to Deirdre and Gavin and Breic, hung out some more, eventually came home and collapsed into bed in a wheezy allergic fit.
Saturday, I:
didn't get out of bed until noon, had french toast (made of the homemade cinnamon-raisin bread!), did some shopping, came home, talked about how one might go about starting an independent press comic company, read a book, collected Ted's dad from the airport, hung out for a couple of hours, had steak dinners (v. good, compliments of Ted!), saw Ted & Gary off to Seward, went to Finding Nemo (two thumbs up!), walked the dog, finished reading my book and fell into bed.
Sunday, I:
got up at 9 or so, walked the dog, filled in the holes the dog had dug in the back yard last winter, killed some weeds, watered the lawn, went biking, worked on my shelves, made a strawberry-rhubarb pie, cleaned the kitchen, read two books, made a circuit in the house break (I have no idea; the garage door won't open anymore and half a dozen outlets spread through the house aren't working. I'll have to call an electrician.), and dropped into bed before Ted returned from Seward with two halibut, two silver salmon and a bunch of rockfish, which are a type of sea bass.
The weather has been stunning and my left shoulder is very slightly sunburned. The animals are all downstairs sharing a sunbeam instead of trying to chew on each other, and poor Ted's stupid, stupid server has gone down again. And that, gentle readers, is the state of the world today.
Books read this weekend: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, The Sourdough Wars, Other People's Skeletons, and Jenna Starborn
miles to Rivendell: 133
miles to Mordor: 498
music: The Big Fear, Common Rotation
Two people called me on the "I'm working from home today"; one called me a smartass and the other one wanted to know where I worked from *yesterday*. :)
It has been a very long couple of days at work. However, I've managed to reduce everything to detail work, I think, and I have another 16 hours of HTML time (probably 24, if I need it) to work out the details, so ... yeah. That's something, anyway.
Chanti and I went for a little walk this afternoon when my brain turned to too much purile goo to do anything with it. That was a good idea. She certainly thought so. :)
Now I'm tired and stressed and want to bake something. Maybe I'll make a loaf of bread, or something, since we haven't finished the last batch of cookies I made.
miles to Rivendell: 129.5
current music: The Big Fear, Common Rotation
My entire tech group has emailed in today to say they're working from home.
I also emailed in to say I was working from home.
Let's see if they get it. :)
So I went to the Howard Dean meetup tonight, and -- well, let me put it this way: I don't think I've ever been in a room with that many people I wasn't related to whose politics were so similar to mine. :)
There were 16 or 18 of us -- and that, for Alaska in the summertime, is a genuinely remarkable number. Everyone expressed the same frustrations with the state of the nation, with our terrifying so-called leader, with -- well. You guys know the drill.
There was, of course, a lot of talk about Dean's politics and our general hopes and the state of the art determination to do *something*, because we just cannot let Bush get back into the White House. Somebody said, "If he gets a second term," and a full half of the people said, "I'm leaving the country."
I've registered alaskansfordean.org, and I'm planning on putting an MT blog on it and encouraging people to use it as a repository for information that's going on locally (state-wide) about the Dean campaign, and hopefully to start an online community around here. That ought to be up and running sometime next week.
So yah. I'm glad I went. I'll be going to more of those.
One cool idea that came up: since 9/11, every time I've seen a flag blatantly pinned on somebody's car, I've gone, "Mutter rassle right-wing bastard..." Well, somebody said, y'know, the right's hijacked the flag and the left should hijack it back. Go ahead and put a flag on your car. Right next to a Howard Dean bumper sticker.
I really like that idea. A lot. I might actually *do* it, and three hours ago I'd have said you'd never get me to put a flag on my car. I think it's a really great idea, though!
Marith has just suggested a fundraiser in which everybody is supposed to show up in denim -- "Jeans for Dean!" I think that's a really good idea, too!
Chanti and I went for a walk (in non-political news) this evening, and I'm glad. Like Jai, I should remember that I feel better after walking.
miles to Rivendell: 128.5
God damn it. There is a css border type which allows you to border things with little dashes: - - - - - - - We have a site which has borders on some things made up of little (graphical) dots: ........
I am trying to design a page which will be platform-wide (ie, all of our sites will use it). It therefore needs to be adjustable so all the sites /can/ use it without mucking around much. I wish to use the - - - - - borders because there *is* no ..... border in CSS.
EVERYBODY but the goddamned design guy thinks that's fine. I so very much think that only design people are going to care about the difference. I so very much thinks that Joe Average isn't even going to *notice* it. I swear to god it's really not that big a difference. And there are no other .... modules on the page with the - - - -'s to play up the difference anyway.
Very, *very* frustrated.
I talked to Deirdre last night. They'd borrowed the Nissan to go for a road trip down to Valdez. The Nissan, which is 17 years old, didn't make it. Or rather, it did, but apparently it started going about 20mph up hills, and when they got to Valdez they brought it to a mechanic who said that there was something wrong with the valves and he wouldn't bother putting so much money as an oil change into it, and would just drive it into the ground. So they took the ferry back (with the Nissan) and I suppose now we'll bring it to a scrapyard, or something.
My back hurts, and I am crabby.
An online conversation today went like this:
Image says "Why do they call Howard Dean's candidacy 'insurgent'? What is he rebelling against?"
Image says "Ah. "one who acts contrary to the policies and decisions of one's own political party"."
Trip says "And the policy and decision of the Democratic party is to hide under the covers until Bush goes away?"
I thought that was a wonderful description of the Democratic party policy recently.
Goals: year to date. Parenthetical statements indicate # achieved in June.
Words written
anticipated: 199,100
achieved: 149,000 (8,500)
Miles biked
anticipated: 750
achieved: 484.8 (201.2)
Miles swum
anticipated: 56
achieved: 19.3 (0)
Drawings drawn
anticipated: 50
achieved: 13.5 (0)
Books read
anticipated: 52
achieved: 36 (3)
Pounds lost
anticipated: 15
achieved: 7.5 (changing goal, see below)
Regarding the weight loss goal... I gained 5 pounds over the first 3.5 months of the year and have lost 7 pounds since mid-April. Because I wanted to lose 30 pounds it seemed like I should start with the weight that I started at at the beginning of the year, but I decided that I was just going to count pounds lost no matter what my starting weight was, because I'm still managing to accomplish something, anyway. So I'm counting myself down 7.5 pounds.
Other than that, though, June clearly hasn't been a great month for accomplishing goals.