look ma, no outline ~

it's not even two o'clock and i am having a perfect day.

temperature dropped from 108 last week to a gorgeous 54 today. woke up with dog noses in my face (you could swear they understood the all summer long promises that "as soon as the weather turns, we'll go the park").

so off we went and i read "Ambuscade" (in The Unvanquished) while the doggies frolicked most happily (they are now crashed out on my bed, well worn out from their endeavors).

came home to a house that smelled like the fried pork i had for breakfast. put on a pot of hot water for pear white tea and grilled a cheese sandwich.

this is heaven.

~ * ~

from the vat of endless thoughts on faulkner:

don't really like his style, which i find meddling. just tell the story, bill, stop stalling already.

and then he zings you with a line that makes the previous insufferable three pages worth the torture.

so i'm sort of mixed because as a lazy reader, if the story loses my interest, the writing will never keep me (thank you, Charles Frasier of the beautifully turned phrase ~ you're a great writer and a boring storyteller).

and i guess i'm not convinced yet that faulkner is a great enough storyteller to put up with his eccentricities yet. he's a great "situationalist" ~ his premises are always fascinating. but there is a wandering sort of tendency in his work that (for me) diffuses the power because it's all smogged like a damp, unfocused lens.

i'm willing to persevere through this book though ~ so we shall see how it turns out.

~ * ~

i printed some notes for that outline i'm supposed to be writing. that's about as far as i've gotten with that. but i'm writing in my head and that's important. i'm forming a strategy even if i'm committing nothing to paper at the moment.

~ * ~

threatening to rain ~ even some dribbling out there going on.

man, it's a beautiful day. i could just sit by this window and drink my tea and do nothing else ~ and it would be time well spent.

: D

my perfect day and how it went south ~

it's been a wee bit frustrating this evening.

no one returns my phone calls, my emails, and a crit forum i belong to (which shall remain nameless) is sucking (which always gets my goat). i've written 31 well-considered crits in the last three weeks and have received about 5 useful ones in reply. why am i torturing myself with this?

and then Paxton decides to be a dalmatian after having let him run around at the park all morning, and he repays me by escaping out the back fence (the dog pulled a stake out of the ground to do this, folks. dalmatians are evil).

so i run around to fetch him back (and he's not even wearing his collar because it was chaffing! grrrrr). and then i have to fix the stake in the fence and then fix a hole he dug by the side of the house where he unearthed a 10¢ Pepsi bottle (a real antique), which he then broke and scattered the glass.

so i pick that up and then trip over the dog gate and, since i've got glass in my hands, fall hard.

ow.

not happy.

the good news is i didn't cut myself. but my wrists and knees are going to be bruised black tomorrow.

and now the dog has been punished by having to go to bed early and he's being bratty by hiding his nose in my pillow.

hate punishing the dog. feel like a bad mother. dalmatians are so manipulative.



bad paxton. bad dog.