Current events (June)

 
Okay, eleven days of this and that.

I visited the Russian lady again. Still pleasant, still possibilities, still nothing really solid yet. In other words, still pending.

(In the meantime, I’d been leaving voice mail messages with the lady I met in the library. She did eventually call back to say, regretfully, that she just wasn’t interested. Okay, I tried.)

During the drive home, I got a call from my brother on my cell phone, asking what the situation was like where I’m living; he might have to move out with no advance warning, and — because his soon-to-be-ex-wife is as financially incompetent as she is irrational — he can’t afford separate quarters until some of their debts get straightened out. I got to bed late, spent the following morning moving things (most of it stuff I’d brought out of storage) to make room for him if he needed it.

That evening I drove to the center of the state, then rode with my ex-wife to pick up our daughter from the airport for her nine-day visit. Two days later, my son got back from a mission project with his church group. All of us together as a (semi-)family unit, for the first time in I-don’t-know-when. Meanwhile, my daughter and I had gone to work on a Habitat For Humanity project (which got rained out), so I had the benefit of being willing to do good deeds without actually having to perform the labor. Best of both worlds.

I’ve been trying to motivate my son to turn out something in the fanfic arena, so that he’ll be with me at WriterCon as a participant instead of just an observer. (The situation is aggravated by the fact that, in the past week, sroni has presented me with almost 7,000 words on “Queen’s Gambit”, and the story promises very soon to be ready for her to hand over to me.) Unfortunately, my son can’t find any inspiration. I’ve seen things he’s done for school, so I know he has the ability, but nothing feels right to him. He had one extremely good idea, but that would be a sizeable project that he’s unlikely to complete in the next month. I advised a collection of drabbles as a compromise measure … but none of those felt right to him, either.

So, I took one of the ideas and used it to write a series of four linked drabbles, which I’ll post tomorrow. Inspiration isn’t a problem for me.

My daughter leaves again tomorrow. I’ll go to drill on the 24th. Get back in touch with the Russian lady. Watch the first two seasons of Smallville on DVD (loan from my son), then look to rent the following two seasons. Start work on losing weight and getting back in shape. And — if she finishes soon enough — begin my own contribution to “Queen’s Gambit”, which I eventually intend to post on my LJ and fanfic site as a collaborative work.

And, of course, make preparations for attendance at WriterCon. Just one more month, now.