Hazards of being the Mris

Usually I have more patience than timprov for those days when my friendslist has contentless squeeing about something I don't care about. But I am currently scoring Grumpy Mushroom right along with him. Quote whatever you like -- Shakespeare, Joss Whedon, whatever -- but remember that I didn't friend your livejournal for their words but for yours. Say something of your own along with it. Please.

harumphharumphharumph

I've said before and will say again: my non-sequential method of writing novels has some drawbacks. Yesterday's was: "'[character] said nothing'? Of course he said nothing! He's been dead for ten chapters now!" Sigh. This is why I am the only one who reads my first drafts, people.

Tired. Going to read, maybe work on Sampo, maybe doze on the couch with the dog. This is, after all, why I have a dog: to make me sit down for awhile.

Abandoning defaults

CJ was a hero of the revolution today: chopped things for dinner and wore the Ista-girl out in the backyard with the tennis ball. Much appreciated.

I know that I added more to the "to do" list today than I took off it. I suspect tomorrow will be the same, between taking timprov in for his CPAP fitting in the morning and going to get my back fixed in the afternoon. I will likely be done with energy at that point, and any leftovers I have will be used to walk the beastlet. Bleh.

The next month is starting to look pretty overwhelming. markgritter will be traveling for the two weeks before World Fantasy, and then I'll be gone for World Fantasy. By myself. Well, okay, not by myself, but I'll be making the drive alone as far as I've heard to this point. If I'm not doing any better by then, it'll be a challenge, and I'll probably stop off at the moose in Black River Falls to have a cup of coffee and sit and read. On the other hand, I haven't done a lot of travel by myself in the last, oh, say, six years or so, and that part will be interesting.

When I first declared my hermitage, the term of it was "until the end of September or until I feel better." Here it is the end of September. I don't feel better. I'm not willing to become a permanent hermit if I can at all help it, though, so the question will be how to find a new balance for as long as I need one. How to find ways to say yes to some things without saying yes to everything. The default no is easy. It does not discriminate. It doesn't risk that one person will feel that it's personally about them. I can't live with a default no, though, and I don't think anyone could manage a default yes for the number of interesting projects and people there are available to me. So no default. Difficult. Imperfect. Human.

I hope you all can live with that, because it's what I've got.