Tuesday, December 16, 2003

Well, I’m back.

I had an amusing weekend. On Saturday morning I swapped my truck for my parents’ SUV and drove about five and a half hours to Saalon‘s, where we spent the weekend hanging out. Lumix joined us to watch some anime (Interstella 5555 and Whisper of the Heart). I had a great time, as usual, just chatting with Saalon about everything from film to our current projects to the nature of the Gundam franchise.

We woke up Sunday morning to four inches of snow and a heavy snow fall blanketing the hills to the horizon. I e-mailed work, warning them that I may not be back on Monday. Saalon and I kept an eye on the weather reports, and I waited until the snow fall had tailed off, then headed home. By then it was 5:00 p.m. I was making good time, until I came to a halt on the highway, and spend an hour and a half creeping forward one foot at a time. Some major accident had completely closed the road.

The road cleared out and I pushed through, pulling to a stop in front of my apartment at 1:00 a.m. Ugh. I crashed into bed and didn’t wake up until almost noon on Monday. I decided to stay home, finishing up the chores that I normally do on weekends. I did make it out to Monday Group, where four of us had a good time talking about the nature of power in relationships.

In other news, I’m maintaining my commitment to write 200 words a day. I’ve written 200 words a day every day for the past week, except for Sunday. I’m actually finding that 200 words a day isn’t quite enough. It’s an awkward amount of writing; only enough to fill maybe a third or a quarter of a scene. I’m now aiming for 250 words a day, increasing it until I’m writing a significant but not overwhelming amount every day.

Regarding the current writing challenge: I’ll delay it a few more days, so I can return it to its schedule.

And I agree with Brennen that this is an excellent NY Times article about, roughly speaking, fundamentalist Christian separatism. It’s an impressively balanced article.