vituperation

December 29, 2002

Many thanks to reader Tammie for her $3 contribution to the Huntsville Animal Shelter; it is greatly appreciated.

Though I would recommend volunteer work for anyone, these days I’d recommend it with a caveat: be careful. It is fast becoming my experience that a volunteer organization can (will?) expand like a supernova to burn up every bit of your free time if you let it.

Learn to say no sometimes; they can’t take away your birthday and it’ll save you from an ulcer.

Life has been supremely unwritable-about these days. Most things would be incredibly boring to read about - though they were fun to experience - and the things that wouldn’t bore you to tears are things I don’t want to share with the world. It kind of sucks, actually, because I have a hankering to write, only nothing to write about.

Except maybe a little story idea bouncing around in my head,but even that doesn’t have a strong ending right now.

Let me summarize the last week, quickly:

Robyn’s parents, sister, and nephew were here from last Sunday evening until yesterday morning. Feel for me, for I am like Rain Man when my routines are disrupted. Judge Wapner at one o’clock and all that.

The spud jammed her finger, causing the nail to turn black and bringing about a late-night emergency room visit for Robyn, her sister, and the spud. The nail will most likely fall off in the next few days.

Christmas happened. (And I hope you all had a merry one; I did)

We saw both sets of my parents Christmas Eve.

Many presents were exchanged.

I changed my weight routine, and my new lower body workout has kept my hamstrings sore since Wednesday. I’m wondering if I’ll be able to do it again tomorrow.

I worked.

I went hiking with my father-in-law and nephew on Rainbow Mountain on Christmas day, both to get out of the house and to demonstrate geocaching. We took the difficult route from cache to cache, off the trail, and it rocked because it was cold as hell and the climbing warmed us up pretty quickly. On the way back to the Jeep after the last cache we found a trail, which we followed until we lost it. This is one of the downsides of winter hiking, because sometimes you see trails where there are no trails and wander off down them for many steps before they peter out.

At least you do if you’re a big tenderfoot, like me.

Losing the trail was no big deal; Rainbow Mountain is far too small and far too in the middle of yuppieville for any real fears of getting lost, so we just decided to trailblaze in the direction of the Jeep. At one point on the way up to the top we stumbled onto a large table of flat rock that gave the most incredible view of the valley I think I’ve ever seen.

And I didn’t have a camera.

On the cool side, we found a roll of used film in a film container, so I think we’ll drop it off for developing to see what we found. If I’m lucky, it’s porn.

Hmmmm.

Another story idea is forming, and if I developed this one (pun definitely intended) I could fulfill the wishes of one of my stalkers readers who sent me some particularly gruesome photographs and a request to implement them in a story.

That’s pretty much it. Like I said, unwritable-about. As a matter of fact, I have no writable plans in the near future, so I may very well be scarce around here (I say this knowing full well that every time I say it, things start happening to provide writing fodder) for a while. Though the site has been a routine for me with entries on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and one on the weekend, I’m tired of the days where I have to dig for something to say just because it’s "an update day" so my new plan is to only update when I actually have something to say. Quality is better than quantity any day, you know.

I’ll still be answering emails, updating the blog, and reading / responding on the forums (which are noticeably dead these days), so don’t think I’m going anywhere. I’m not.

On that note, have a great week.