On All My Motions

 
Because of my training schedule, it took me longer than I would have preferred to get started on composition for my submission to this year’s RemixRedux. The good news was, my assigned author had more than enough stories to allow me to browse and choose the best possible target for remix. The not-so-good news, I had plenty of ideas, but none of them really grabbed me. I picked one, started on it, ran out two pages … and it just stopped dead. I could have kept on going, but the thing was dead, and I feared that further effort would just produce more and more of a story that remained dead.

Then my unit went on a four-day pass before we start finalizing things for deployment. I waited too long to buy a plane ticket (it took HQ much too long to give us solid dates on when the pass days would be), and ultimately it would have cost me much more than I would have been willing to pay. So, I elected to stay on base and save my money, to have extra to spend when my wife meets me in Europe for my mid-tour leave. I stayed in the same barracks room, slept when I felt like it, relaxed and skipped breakfast four days in a row because I didn’t feel like getting up that early … and I junked my earlier idea, started on another, and ran out most of my eventual remix during that time.

Then, the day after pass ended, I finished it. And I spent today on the major revisions. And, sometime in the next few days, I’ll be posting it at remixredux09.

I feel good.

 
There’s a lot I could be saying about my training here at Fort Dix, but we’ve been warned several times about making such posts. The main idea is that even unclassified information can be used to build up a knowledge base that might be used against us. I don’t know where to draw the lines, so I tend to err far on the side of caution. Thus, not saying much.

Items from my life:

My son returned from China yesterday. Apparently he had a fine time.

A promotion board is being held today, and I’m one of the candidates. I honestly have no idea what my chances are.

sroni gave me her edits and suggestions for my update of “Queen’s Gambit”, and I worked them into the manuscript, so I suppose there’s nothing to prevent me from going on and posting it. I’m not entirely satisfied yet, though. Would anyone would be interested in doing a beta of the story? Be warned, it’s longer than my usual fare, over 53,000 words. I’m decently satisfied with spelling and grammar and punctuation (though I would, of course, welcome notification of any errors that remain); primarily I’m interested in matters of theme, characterization, pertinence of various passages and descriptions.

In further fanfic news, I’ve signed up for this year’s RemixRedux (now operating out of the remixers_lounge). According to their original announcement, I should get my assignment within a week, and then have a month to do the assignment. (That would have me posting right around the time I ship out, but there’s nothing to prevent my finishing and turning in my submission early.)

 
Okay, I see from the posts of others that Issue #2 of Buffy, Season 8 is now out. And they’re very thoughtfully posting spoiler warnings and putting the material inside cuts. I appreciate that.

Frustration, though, because it’ll probably be another week before I can put in an order for #2. And longer before it reaches me. And I learned from the last time out that reading spoilers beforehand really does, well, spoil it for me.

I hate to wait. I want to know. But I’m going to wait.

 
And once again with the good-news/bad-news thing.

Good: a day further along in the process. This one is moving pretty well; when my unit mobilized through Fort Bragg for the invasion of Iraq, it took them a month to get us done and out of there. This one looks to take a week. My demob from Afghanistan is so recent, a lot of the information they need is still considered current from my previous records. That helps.

Bad: while I was talking on the phone with my son, I got a call-waiting notice that someone else was trying to reach me. I answered it …

Does anyone remember, a couple of months back, I was severely annoyed by a driver losing control on snow-slick streets, sliding up into my driveway, cracking my rear bumper, and then fleeing the scene? Well, it turns out I got off lucky that time. This time, someone did a full-length sideswipe of my car … and, again, split without taking responsibility. That’s two hit-and-run on the same vehicle in two months’ time.

If they’re caught, I hope they get prison time. I’m serious. They steal my money when they damage my car (through their own stupidity and carelessness, if not outright drunkenness) and then leave me to foot the bill. And, of course, hit-and-run is a criminal act. I was never particularly liberal in my social outlook, and this is making me less so.

(Okay, a little more calm from me now. I just got a follow-up call from the police officer making the accident report, and he believes that my insurance ― while not helping me against an uninsured driver ― should cover a blatant hit-and-run. Still not my ideal for a going-away present, but a definite improvement.)

***

Re the mobilization itself: as always on these things, we play it a day at a time. We go in, we jump through the hoops that are held up in front of us, and eventually we come out the other end and get down to the actual work. No reason to expect this one to be any different.

Unless something comes up without warning, we should be done for the day. I’ll look to see if I can do any work for remix_redux.

And then there’s tomorrow.