Whatever skills the duck knows now, it's stuck with them for awhile.

1. markgritter's work is going to be in crunch time for the rest of the spring and summer. This affects him more than it affects me, of course, but it does affect me (and timprov). What with one thing and another, we are about half a beat behind here. Sometimes a beat and a half. In addition to markgritter's work, we are looking forward to bits of out of town company this summer. (Memorial Day is the start of summer, right?) So if I fall behind corresponding with you, likely it's not you, and if I don't contact you to get together when I otherwise might have, it's probably why. (This is not to say I will be busy if you contact me to get together. Sometimes mental energy doesn't work that way.)

2. I am very close to the zeroth draft of The True Tale of Carter Hall. I am not getting the "run ahead of the rock as it rolls downhill" sensation I've gotten with drafting other books. This is much calmer. Things are falling into place when I look at them. Recurrent motif here, character reflected there. I am noticing how to write this so that even the very few scenes that are much like the original ballad feel mine. This is crucial. I have also gained sort of a tunnel-vision on this: there will not be more short stories until this book is done. There will not be other book bits until this book has its bits. I can feel some of them clamoring in my head, but they will have to wait.

3. I am coming up on a whole bunch more tests and possible stuff related to the stupid vertigo. When I have more I want to tell you about that, I will, but in the meantime it is a more active/unsettled part of my mental processes than it has been in awhile.

4. As a result of all this, I am reading things out of the corner of my eye and mistaking my own very tidy handwriting. The household to-do list includes "restain deck?". I glanced out of the corner of my eye and read, "retrain duck," and instead of thinking, "Oh, that's silly," thought, "Oh, crud, all this and I have to retrain the duck, too?" I do not need to make more work for myself. The duck can go without retraining.

5. It is May, and we are preparing to do a painting project, and I am reminded of May three years ago. Mom was painting markgritter's office and the library and the music room, and I found out that wilfulcait had died. Now it's May again, and Mom will (kindly and generously!) be painting markgritter's and my room, the guest room, and the hallways, and in the way this universe works, wilfulcait is still gone. And I still miss my friend three years on. Not just when I do a five-things post, but in flashes and bits, things she would have wanted to read, things she would have commented on. So it was time for five things, because it's May, and we're painting, and I miss Rise.