Lazy Day

I had today off. You'd think with a day off I'd get buckets and buckets of stuff done. Hmmm. Not so much. Well, I went to the gym and I went food shopping and I did e-mail (and there's genuinely stuff to be done on the e-mail front)...but I also sort of vegged in front of the TV, flipping between reruns of Law & Order that I'd already seen, and reruns of Animal Precinct that I'd already seen.

I'm telling myself I needed a day like today, where I was a giant turnip most of the day. I've had a lot going on lately, which I've completely loved, but still...

The weird thing about being so busy is that it's apparently making my creativity go mad. I have a mostly unwritten and seriously underdeveloped idea for a historical romance that's like the old guy in Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Every now and again, it lifts up its head and says, "I'm not dead yet." Lately, scenes have been popping into my head. Well, not whole scenes, just pieces, but the kinds of pieces you can write up to and past (which will then give you a whole scene.)

I've been writing down what's coming to me, all of it, just any old way, so I don't lose the idea. That's the key thing, not losing the idea. When the Girls in the Basement start throwing that many ideas up the basement stairs, it's your job to catch 'em and put 'em somewhere safe. (If you don't know who the Girls are, read Stephen King's On Writing. He has Boys in his Basement; I have Girls.)

The Girls are also directing me to read things. Right now, I'm reading Prayer: A History by Philip Zaleski and Carol Zaleski. It's pretty much what it says it is, a history of prayer and besides being beautifully written, it's given me insight into a character in the fantasy that had been baffling me. Now I know what happens in the scene where she's introduced--which is huge--and I'm getting a feel for her internal life, which is even bigger. If you don't know what your characters' internal lives are like, you don't know your characters. (Or at least I don't.)

And now it's nearly bedtime, and I feel like I've accomplished nothing, but really I have managed to get a few things done. So today wasn't a waste.

Grace, courage and honesty

It sometimes amazes me how attached we can grow to people we don't know, just because they're famous. Only I think in this case--which I'll get to--it's not that she's famous, it's that her artistry has meant so much to me over the years.

I'm talking about Michelle Kwan and her decision not to continue on the U.S. Olympic team, honoring a commitment not to compete if she couldn't compete at her best. I'm amazed by that decision, because it's so clear-eyed. It's easy, when you really want something, to lie to yourself. So easy, that I can't blame anyone who does it. Judging by the results, Michelle Kwan didn't spend any meaningful time trying to tell herself that it wasn't as bad as she thought it was, that she'd get better, really, that she'd be fine in time. Instead, she faced the reality that, yes, it really is as bad as it seems, and no, she wasn't going to be all better in time...and that meant she had to make the hard choice and she had to make it right now, to make it right for everyone.

That took courage and strength.

But there's also her extraordinary grace, grace that's moved me to tears on more than one occasion. I want to see her skate again. I want to see where she'll take her art (and, make no mistake, it is art); I want to know what next she'll say on the ice.

Yes, I'm being selfish, but it's hard to think that I'll never see that again. I know it's not my call to make. I can understand wanting to take your life in a new direction, to find out what else you're made of. Michelle Kwan has spent most of her life skating, half of it skating at a world-class level. She might be a little tired of it, a little hungry for the next phase of her life. I can't blame her if she is.

But I'll miss her if she never skates again.

Random Thoughts on a Friday Night

Just some random thoughts on a Friday evening while I wait for a giant storm to attack... (Which sounds like a monster movie, now that I think about it.)

Well, the storm's not hitting until tomorrow, but still... I'm wondering how big it's going to be. They're talking blizzard conditions, snow falling at 3" per hour. That's when you get the soup pot going. Chickenwith veggies and rotini. Yum-o-rama. The nice thing about soup is that it's easy to make and it gets better the longer you have it. It's one of those "better the second day" foods.

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Why is my blog cooperage? Mainly because I think it's a cool word--a cooperage was a place where they made barrels and the guys who made them were called coopers. Which means somewhere in my husband's family tree there is a barrel maker...

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What am I reading? Two things: Anne Stuart's The Devil's Waltz, and From Jesus to Christianity : How Four Generations of Visionaries & Storytellers Created the New Testament and Christian Faith by L. Michael White. Both are excellent. Publishers Weekly dissed the White book as offering nothing new about early Christianity, but, for me, it's clearly written and I am gaining something new. Which just goes to show that reviews are entirely subjective. A reviewer comes at a book with a set of expectations--how can he or she not? And if those aren't met...well,you can tell.

It's not easy reviewing, mind you. Imagine trying to read a book you hate reading. It's torture, bitter, bitter torment. (Can you tell I've done this?)

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The best thing in the whole wide world? Opening a book, hoping it'll be decent and entertaining, nothing more, and realizing, within a page or two, that it's absolutely fabulous and the author has a backlist. It doesn't get any better than that.

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Another awesome thing: a stash of comfort reads, books you turn to when you're all worn down and you just need a break from life, books that reliably take you out of yourself and your situation. Jenny Crusie's The Cinderella Deal was a book like that for me for the longest time--it's less so now, mainly because I've memorized it. Which is the downside of truly beloved comfort reads. On the other hand, there isn't anything she's written that I wouldn't turn to in a pinch...and have, as a matter of fact.

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Only another month until Loretta Chase's Lord Perfect is out. Reading her Lord of Scoundrels was one of those, "This is wonderful...and she has more!" events. That booked gripped me, truly gripped me; I felt like it had my brain in a claw and I couldn't put it down.

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And that's all for a not-yet-snowy Friday night.

In the beginning

Why is it the blank page--or in this case--the blank screen can make my mind just as blank? You start a blog because you think you have something to say... and then when you sit down to say it, you got nothin'.

So I'll just start...

Today's been a roller-coaster. I went to a health fair and got news that my body fat had gone up...but then I remembered what the percentage had actually been last year, and I'm about the same. Just a little lower, in fact.

(I was about to say something idiotic about maintaining my current weight is harder than working my way down to it, but I'm not sure that's true. I don't have the benefit of my crazymad competitiveness any more--it's not much of a contest, trying to stay exactly the same, especially when exactly the same is really where you want to be, not bigger or smaller.)

Then some shoes I'd been having stretched came back, and the stretching worked. What does this mean? It means I can wear them. Are they comfortable? Not quite yet--they need to stretch just a smidge more. But since I couldn't bear to have them on my feet before I had them stretched, this is a great improvement. (I swear they didn't squeeze that badly when I was tyring them on to buy them. I don't know what it is with me and shoes...or what it is with my feet.)

Finally, a very dear friend (who is one of the most amazing people I know, though I don't think she knows how special she is) got bad news today. I'm still processing it--I can't imagine what she's going through. I'm praying for her. Mainly I'm praying for grace, for strength and that whatever she has to go through in the next few weeks and months is as easy as it can be.