So today I climbed a mountain.

Okay, not very much of one. Just a little bit. But it was lovely, and easy enough that I found myself feeling confident that I'm in shape for Kilimanjaro if it ever does shape up that we can go (ashacat and I are currently planning to try to do it for our fortieth birthdays).

Today was a hike on Rainier with medievalist and mac_stone, an absolute highlight of the trip. My first volcano and my first rainforest, all in one. On what may have officially been the most beautiful day of the year. We hiked about eight miles, all told, which means (DUN DUN DUN) that on day 902 of my walk to Mordor, I have passed Rauros Falls and the Breaking of the Fellowship, and furthermore, I have embarked with Merry and Pippin and the orcs on our way to Isengard. Thus making this icon even more appropriate to the day.

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I've been thinking about worldbuilding and crappers. Some of this is from the Seattle Underground tour, which makes no bones about just how much the modern... face... of Seattle has been shaped, as it were, by the demands of sanitation. And some of it is because of the trip that stillsostrange and spouse and I took to NYC earlier this year, which--we were joking--turned into a tour of the Toilets Of Manhattan.

We started off having lunch with Amanda's editor, the charming and talented Dongwon Song, at what he described as a noodle joint for homesick expat Japanese, which had thoroughly amazing restrooms. They were large truncated cones with eight-inch-thick walls, suitable for withstanding zombie attacks. Spotlessly clean inside, they each had a small table with a chair and a reading lamp... and the kind of toilet that comes with pictographs. (I was especially amused by the lonely, dusty, slightly ratty role of peach toilet paper hanging beside the throne--I can only presume, for the convenience of cowardly gaijin).

From there, we wound up at the Slaughtered Lamb in the West Village, which Amanda selected for the werewolf in the window, and which offered the opposite extreme of toilet: cramped, grimy, careworn, and too small to turn around in.

Which led to me thinking about that most basic of mod cons, and what it can tell us about a setting. I've used a lot of different potties in my life, and they all tell you something about the place you find them--from portajohns to marble edifices....

Telling details.

In the meantime, I should go. Miles the Cat wants me to play fetch with him now.

I have been such a productive Bear this morning. I answered a huge pile of lurking email, found, organized, and printed out the chapter head ornaments for All the Windwracked Stars to send to the production manager, paid bills (I love that my bank deducts the credit card payment from my checking account immediately, but waits between 24 and 72 hours to apply it to the credit card balance. Gotta make a few pennies on the float. (Somehow, I am reminded of Richard Pryor in Superman N and his half-pennies.) Although they are kind enough to retroactively credit me for the missing days. So it's just like they're borrowing the days. And the interest.

I feel like I should get a kickback for the short-term loan.

I still need to shower and eat something and read some slush, and then I am curling up with the start of S2 of The Wire and seeing what happens.

And I have a plan re: Chill. The plan is, I get the rest of February off, except for administrative work and research and all that stuff. And yes, I do have to sit down and make myself read Dust again, as much as it hurts my heart to do it. And in March, I am walling myself up in my tower and writing the book. I will come out for exercise and food and occasional internets, and other than that, there will be noveling. And we will see how much of the damned thing I can get done in 31 days. I have four hours of driving to do on Sunday, and four hours of driving to do on Monday, and driving is good thinking/plotting time for me. (We're going out ot Logee's Monday, a field trip I'm really looking forward to.)

I am restless, and would really like to be working again, which is a good sign. (I kind of feel like I am wasting my life when I'm not actually producing fiction. Because really, it's what I'm good for.)

There's an inch of snow on the ground, and it's supposed to be intermittently spitty through the beginning of next week, but nothing serious.

Mort Castle has an excellent post up at Storytellers Unplugged today. One that made me nod, and reassess what I think I'm doing with my art.

In other news, I've been made aware of what looks like a really excellent site on trekking Kilimanjaro, which I note here for your interest, and so I can find it later.

Noted without comment: And according to Michael Eisner, a deal is in the works to end the WGA strike.

And then they sat down to dinner, and were still there four days of writing later.


2,789 words tonight, to finish the current scene in "Overkill." Longest scene ever.

Also, got my arm twisted to write an anothology story by next August, today. In my copious spare time. Still if I can get "Overkill" finished, that's my secrit projekt commitment handled until s2, except the incidental stuff.

Today's adventure in sentence-level writing:

He would not let the rest of the team know his palms were greased with sweat.

His palms were greased with sweat.

Sweat greased his palms.

Yep. That's pretty much how every sentence I write gets written these days. Is it any wonder that the process is a little exhausting?

I'm glad I laid down good words today, because there were none yesterday and I suspect there will be none tomorrow, given how the schedule is shaping up.

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The Precious! It is mine! Yesssssss!

Alas, the reason that the schedule will not be shaping up is not because the mailman brought me the Man From U.N.C.L.E. DVD box set today, though he did.

My preccciioooussssss.

I can only imagine how the fans who have been waiting since 1964 to see some of these episodes again, uncut, must feel.

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In the house of dust, roll yourself in ashes.

A pretty good review of Dust is up here. I'm still not writing the books Paul Di Filippo wishes I was writing (no Nazis in this one either) but at least my ranging shots are getting closer.

Speaking of Dust, it's a real book now. I know it is because the UPS guy brought me a case of copies today, which means that they are lso probably at A Fine Bookstore Near You. Amazon won't ship until the official release date, though, so if you honestly can't wait, hit a brick-and-mortar, or call up your local independent SFF bookstore and see if they have them.

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I come to praise Caesar, not to bury him.


And because cristalia did this, and I love it:

I come to praise gregvaneekhout, because he posts videos of jerboa.

I come to praise panjianlien, for she is richly deserving and is not praised enough.

I come to praise buymeaclue, because she reminds me of the need for persistence. And that learning things is hard.

I come to praise coffeeem, because she makes me snarf tea with snarky comments about Gordon Sumner. And also because she costs me money with her excellent taste in music.

I come to praise yendi, who finds giant cookware sales so I don't have to.

I come to praise truepenny, who sends me emails that make me laugh while I am pecking away at the longest scene ever. And who doesn't let me do things the easy way.

I come to praise jmeadows, who is a good enough Christian to make me wish I had the faith gene.

I come to praise thecoughlin, who works very hard at being good people, and taking care of those who she can.

I come to praise ashacat, who makes me work harder than I would without her.

I do not come to praise the Presumptuous Cat, who for some reason MUST sleep ON my left arm today. This does not improve my typing or my tendinitis.

There might be more later, but that's a good list for today.

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Baby, it's  long way down.

So yesterday I failed to climb everything I tried. This is in part because I have moved up to 5.7s, but the last one I tried was the first wall I ever sent, and I was so tired I couldn't make it, even though I could do the moves. I was just up there flailing and scrabbling and trying to hold on, and it wasn't working at all.

Le sigh. We're going again tomorrow, though, and my belaying class is in January. And then I will be a full-fledged member of the gang--albeit totally the new meat, and lousy with it--safe (we hope) to hold somebody's rope and earn my keep.

Climbing is hard work. So hard, in fact, that I'm not sure I can do it with any kind of effectiveness after two days of rest. Although that is rest punctuated by the usual gym workouts. And there was a yoga class after climbing last night, which was a good yoga class indeed--not very tricky poses, but she took us way deep and we held them forever. Or failed to hold them, some of us, being tired from all that failing to climb. Not me, of course! :-P

The local Wallingford studio is trying to drum up business, it seems. I really liked the instructor who came out (Christine, who as you can see is a climber).

This would be easier if I weighed 130 pounds, you know that? Of course, when I was a middle-distance runner, I weighed in at 155, and that was when I was a freshman in high school. So the odds of me ever having enough bone and organs removed to get under 160 again are pretty slim.

On the other hand, it is sort of making me hope I drop some weight soonish, because not only will every pound I don't have to haul up Kilimanjaro be a pound I, well, don't have to haul up Kilimanjaro, but it's also a pound I don't have to haul up cliffs and walls.

316.3 miles to Lothlorien. Still not King.

It's raining, finally, after the second-dryest August on record and two or three days of absolutely stultifying humidity. I can hear the cars hissing past in the road; in the distance, occasionally, the whistle of trains.

I can only hear the trains here when it's raining.

I don't have to leave the house today, for any reason, and after houseguests and traveling and minimal sleep for a week, I kind of plan to not even answering the phone if it rings. (I did sleep last night, which is a nice change, and probably the first time since last Sunday night that I got a a solid seven hours.)

I haven't been blogging about it, but I got a bunch of work done on various aspects of the secrit projekt over the past couple of days, including ~2500 words of "Knock On Coffins" yesterday, which puts me at 267,332 for the year, which is a better-than-respectable tally, I think. (It's nothing like my heydey, when I was known to write half a million words a year, but woman cannot sustain marathon sprints forever, and these days I have a social life and occasionally do things other than typing grimly away. Like, you know, endlessly hitting refresh on livejournal.)

Tomorrow marks the trrrrriumphant return of ashacat and myself to the gym, after a hiatus of a week or so, what with one thing and another. I am really looking forward to that. I have been walking in the interim, and there was the minihikelet, but considering the fact that I've been living off restauarnt food and not lifting since last Tuesday, I am making warding signs at my (weird electronic gives-weights-in-stone-for-no-known-reason-since-its-nervous-breakdown) scale every time I walk through the bathroom. Project: Less of Me, pursuant to Project: Kilimanjaro, recommences today. Bagels and miso and salad, oh my. (Every pound of fat I don't have to haul up that mountain is a good pound... within reasonable limits, I mean. I'd like to be 180 (which is about forty-seven pounds away) by the time we hit Africa, and 165 would be better, but I'm not sweating that. For reference, 155 was my middle distance runner weight, and I was on the scrawny side; we're never seeing that again.*)

Oh, and I should have the final word on Eunice tonight, and whether the Little Red Truck is going to the great scrapyard in the sky. (I suspect she is; word from the garage is that it's the transmission, and I am not fixing that. So later this week is going to have to be carshopping. La la la. I can has opshun deal nao pls?)

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*I note this because I think it's important to have an idea what real, healthy women with a bone structure and musculature weigh, rather than what magazines tell us we should weigh. There are some pictures behind the cut, which hopefully won't be triggery, but if you suspect they might, you know, don't look. (I've been everywhere from a size 8 to a size 22 in the past ten years. The photos of me where I look like me, you know, are the ones where I'm around a size 12. When I'm down to an eight, people who love me try to get me to eat part of their lunch. I consider that a sign.)

I have this incredibly efficient Slavic metabolism where, if I don't work out *hard*, I gain weight, so when I was pretty much housebound in Nevada I became the incredible expanding Bear. Three days a week is enough to let me maintain; when I'm trying to bring the weight down, it's got to be five or six.

Add that to my weird biochemistry, and the fact that exercise and lots of it helps me regulate my mood swings, and well, I am doomed to athleticism. Even though I am a somewhat stocky not-very-coordinated person.

At least I am strong, and have enough stamina for three or four people.

( the cut with the pictures of variously sized bears )

Seriously unique thing about that blue-shirt photo: I'm wearing a wrist watch. I only did that for about two years, in Vegas, because they don't have any damned clocks out there, have you noticed?

Another thing about pictures of me. Man, my nose makes me laugh every time I see it. The nose I have on my head is so not the nose I have in my head, if you know what I mean.

And now, I am going to go get showered, and brave that scale....

Many things have occurred in the last two days. Phred has had his Windows washed, and everything reinstalled; Ethel is getting the same treatment. I have 200 gigs of free space divided between the various HDs now. Wooo! Man, I remember when a computer with a lot of storage had a tape drive.... cassette tape, that is.

I suspect I will be buying a Honda soon. Possibly one born this millennium, as I am really just waiting on the garage getting around to telling me that Eunice is officially DNR.

I hope I can find one that's not silver or gold. It seems as if nearly all Hondas are silver or gold...

In other news, netcurmudgeon and ashacat and evynrude and I did a very little hiking today, the first, super-easy dry run in Project Kilimanjaro. Species noted include Solomon's seal, asters, shagbark hickory, eastern newt efts, a brown-hooded owlet caterpillar (eating the asters), an eastern cottontail wabbit, and a baby milksnake that ashacat rescued from the cement stairwell of Heublein Tower, where it had somehow gotten stranded.

netcurmudgeon has some  photos of the mountain (pretty), the rest of the gang (charming), and one or two including me (at my least attractive) up over here,

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via willshetterly, !Gorey does "!The Trouble With Tribbles."

A paen in honor of getting older....

NOT work safe.

Man, I seriously overdid it at the gym today and yesterday. I'm waddling.

93.5 miles to Rivendell, though. And the possibility exists that if I keep this up, I might be in shape for Kilimanjaro in a year and a half....