Gravity, Grit and Good Times

The word of the week is yearning.

Feb 8 – Improvement

I'm feeling better this week, less anxious.

Maybe it's the St John's Wort helping to sort things out, or the fact that it's actually getting brighter out earlier every day and staying light longer; both could be true.

It could also be the talks that I've had with others, as well as myself, about the various things that have been bothering me of late - again which surprised me, as I thought things were going great here in these first few weeks of 2016.

Just goes to show what I think I know about my life...

I'm still having some difficulty being in bright, crowded places; they make me anxious. Work is becoming less problematic in terms of anxiety attacks, as my thoughts are less circular-logic-loop traps thanks to the efforts I made to think things through and talk them over with others.

Checking off things on this list has also helped a good deal.

One of the things I'm doing is to cut back drastically on my caffeine intake, more so than I have been previously. This week I'm down to a small( 350ml ) cup of tea in the morning and one when I get home from work; that's a far cry from the 4-5 cups( or more )I was consuming on a daily basis six months ago.

I really need to continue compartmentalizing my priorities, ensuring that what I need to work on soon gets done and not worrying about whether I have time to get to all the unread books / unwatched movies that I have in my possession. Those things are for regular downtime and occasional inspiration only, for now. Those will still be there once I have checked off the more important things on my list for 2016.

My anxiety is transitory, and my life is waiting for me to pick it up again soon.

Feb 9 – Old Times, Good Times

It's like 1992 all over again, but in a good way.

Back then, Windows 3.1 had just been released, one of the first graphical operating systems for computers that were still based on MS-DOS. For those of you that remember, this was a big step up from having to type in commands letter by letter in complex ways. With Windows 3.1, all you had to do was click on an icon and that was it.

Of course, I'd been doing that for a few years with my Amiga, but that's beside the point; Windows was the de facto OS of the 1990's, bar none.

A slew of software was released for Win3.1, including hundreds of games, many of which I recall fondly if somewhat fuzzily. I do remember SimEarth, which was released by Maxis in 1990 and worked perfectly on Win3.1 - I even used it as part of a class project in my last year of high school.

This week, over 1000 Win3.1 games were released to the web by The Internet Archive, along with hundreds of other pieces of software from that era - all free, and all legal to play in your favorite web browser... which back then, were still as primitive and slow as DOS itself, in many ways.

Just like it was 1992 all over again. Enjoy.

Feb 10 – Sisters

Once again, it's my sister's birthday today.

Unlike me, she has made it a point for many years now to take the day off, very similar to my writing idol, Michael J Straczynski, who takes his birthday, New Year's day and Christmas day off every year from writing.

Good idea, that. By having your birthday off, you can do whatever you like.

I'm grateful to no end that my sister and I get along so well; I shudder to think how we'd both have struggled to make things work while sharing space if there is any sort of animosity between us, as is quite common with siblings.

As she's my younger sister, there's always been a protective older brother element to our lives, one that I still feel and probably always will.

She definitely past the point where I'll give her most kinds of advice, however - she's good there, though I think I still have the edge when it comes to financial acumen, as laughable as it sounds given my current and past situation.

There's not much more to say about today, save that I'm happy that she could give herself such a great Me Day living here in Victoria. I am again grateful that she decided to move here a few years ago from Alberta to make our family whole again by living in the same city once more.

Here's to you, sis: Happy Birthday!

Feb 11 – Gravity!!!!

What an astounding day for science!

Albert Einstein's century-old theory about gravity waves was proven true today by scientists, using the LIGO( Laser Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory )after less than six months of experimentation using a new, upgraded array.

This is a science game-changer, folks.

Until now, gravity has been one of the least-well understood aspects of our physical universe. We know it's there, and we can theorize about how it interacts with our universe, but we don't actually know how it works.

With today's results released to the world, scientists now know how to 'listen' for gravity waves: the LIGO detectors actually produce the sound of gravity waves when they detect them, which sounds like this:

While where many years away from practical applications for today's discovery, the implications are staggering. Like many new discoveries, it will take time to propagate throughout the scientific community and we'll discover new things in related fields that we might never have imagined before today's news.

It's a great time to be alive!

Feb 12 – Pedal Plan!

Part of my plans for 2016 arrived today.

Well, I had to go pick it up, but that's beside the point: I now have an exercise bike in my apartment that I can use daily and which folds up out of the way when it's not needed.

The plan is to start slowly, with a 15 minute daily ride at one of the lower tension settings and work my way up from there to longer, more strenuous workouts over the next few months. Here's my setup:

As you can see, there's plenty of videos out there on YouTube to simulate cycling around various cities. I'm actually looking forward to touring places I've never been on my stationary bike while slowly working my way back into better shape.

Considering I used to cycle 30 minutes every day to work and back in all kinds of weather and racked up an average of 400 km cycling distance per month, I've a ways to go this spring.

Getting back into a middling sort of shape will also, I hope, assist me in dealing with my anxiety and irregular lack of energy some days.

Round and round it goes...

Feb 13 – Ready Player One

Why did I wait 5 years to read this book????

I picked up a copy of Ernest Cline's Ready Player One on super-sale last week, and sat down before bed to read it last night at my usual time, between 9 and 10 PM.

I couldn't put it down.

My eyes were practically squeezed shut by the time I put it down well after midnight; I didn't want to, but I needed the sleep.

It's been a long time since I've devoured a book so eagerly, and couldn't wait to read it some more! Being a child of the 80s, Ready Player One is a tailor-made nostalgia trip that tweaked all the right switches in my brain. Reading it today, I had a Best of the 80's playlist going on Google Play the entire time.

It was heavenly.

Finishing the book this evening, I almost began to read it again, but stopped myself. I had a good think about why I enjoy this book so much, and the timing of it especially. Is it a coincidence that I waited five years since the book's release to read it, until a low point in my recent life to encounter such a perfect codicil of the 1980's, so beloved to my inner child and so formative to my g33k personality?

Timing is everything, as they say. All I know is that after reading Ready Player One, I am far more in tune with the things that drive me creatively. I think this was the perfect time in my life for me to have discovered it, to put in perspective some of the things that bring a smile to my face whenever I think of them.

Thank you, Mr. Cline; I only hope my first novel can be as successful as yours, personally and critically!

Feb 14 –Two Chairs

I spent Valentine's Day alone.

Yet, not really; my girlfriend is away on a trip with her family and returning this coming week. I've already given her a wonderful card that I'm sure she'll love, one that took me some time to find but I instantly knew said was exactly what was in my heart. Sometimes the words are there, waiting to be found.

Love is funny that way.

You have to leave room for love, no matter how long it might take you to find it. I consider myself lucky that, having waited more than half my life to find someone, that I chanced to encounter my lady, who is more fantastic than any dream I have ever had about finding that Special Someone.

I liken my years alone to sitting in a chair, one of two.

The other chair, of course, is for that Special Someone, and was empty for far too long. But I kept the chair there, regardless of all the other craziness in my life, certain that as long as I ensured it was present, then it would be filled somehow, sometime in my life with the right person.

It wasn't easy keeping it that empty chair there, but I persevered.

Some people don't; they fill that chair with other things in the hope that such will become the Other that they haven't yet found. Friends, family, work, hobbies; all of these things can fill up your time, but they'll never really take the place of the person that chair was meant for. Getting on with your life, being the best person you can be on your own means that when the time is right, someone will see the magnitude of your worth and that chair will be filled in good time.

You can only wait, and hope, like I did.

February got off to a rough start, coming out of January, but I think I'm on track again. Thanks again to those of you who does it here on a regular basis to check in on me; knowing that you're there keeps me blogging.

Ducks, Dialogue and Deliberation

The word of the week is fulminate.

Feb 1 – Anxiety

This was a bad week; in fact, a bad two weeks.

Nothing bad happened, mind you, but rather my internals, my personal balance, is all out of whack.

In a word: I'm anxious - badly so.

Last week was just a preview for this one, unfortunately. The almost-panic attack then has blossomed into an ugly, week-long( so far )full-blown I-Am-Unsure-About-Everything state, which is a first for me. With all that I've gone through over the years, I've never felt like this, and I don't know how to deal with it.

Which is why I've sought help, and kept up a continuous dialogue with myself about all the MANY positives in my life. I'm fairly certain it's not depression, but rather that clever, sneaking beast called Doubt, whose cousin Anxiety has taken up a firm roost in my body, to where I feel shaky, weak and tired all the time.

I'm eating properly, as far as I can tell, though the lack of exercise as a contributing factor is a concern - I'm doing stairs( lightly )at home to build up slowly to where I was 2 years ago, cycling 400km/ month.

It's harder with the mental state. My subconscious seems to have latched onto the idea that 2016 is going to Break me financially, rather than Make me, and that - I think - is the source of my mental fog and Anxiety.

I've always faced my problems, and in that sense, this is no different, except my body's responding to my massive uncertainty with a form of 'Fight or Flight' which isn't helping. It's bad enough that I'm taking St. John's Wort every day, in the hope that it will work as it did in the past to steady me until I can see my doctor next week to discuss further options - if needed.

Not a great start to 2016; I have a lot to do... but I can't DO if I'm a mess.

Feb 2 – Groundhog Day

This year, watching my favorite film was especially poignant.

My girlfriend asked to watch it with me.

By now, I would hope that most of you are familiar with Groundhog Day, the movie, starring Bill Murray. If not, make a point of watching it soon, preferably with people you care about and in a receptive frame of mind about a positive future. That's how I've always seen it.

There's been much written about the film over the years since it was released, by people from all walks of life and all philosophies. I have read quite a few of them myself, and most are quite positive about the messages that the film presents in its themes. It's a rare review that I read where something surprises me.

So that's why I liked this review, as it posits some interesting thoughts about the movie and life in general - it's worth a read, but only if you've seen the film.

Watching the film with my girlfriend was wonderful. In all my previous blog post about Groundhog Day, I speak about the film's message of self-improvement, of finding the truths about yourself and not shying from change for the better. I've always felt that this theme, along with others the film embodies, speaks directly to my own progression as a person in the face of adversity in my life.

Which is why watching it with someone so close to my heart is so special tonight.

Feb 3 – Comment Spam

Let's make things a little lighter here, and talk about spam.

Not the delicious meat-like substance often referenced by Monty Python, but that other disgusting thing that nobody ever wants to deal with: electronic spam.

It's not as bad as it used to be, that's for sure. According to recent estimates, while the number of spam e-mails sent out daily has increased exponentially into the billions, only a few of those ever get through modern e-mail filters to end up in a person' Inbox. As I'm one of the most careful people want it comes to giving out my e-mail address, I hardly get anything anymore that doesn't automatically get popped into my spam folder, which is a far cry from the dozens I used to get per day even 10 years ago.

However, the rise of social media has also meant the rise of another fiendish spam-related trend: Comment Spam.

I'm sure you've seen it on social media, such as FBook: the more popular pages such as IFLScience or Marvel usually have hundreds of comments on every post, and such are ripe territory for spam commenters, like this one:

It's frustrating, though not the end of the world, to be scrolling through the comments and constantly see the same thing over and over again - spam. Unfortunately, the accounts spamming in the comments are almost always fake and disappear within a few hours, their spammy task complete.

I actually spent some time tonight trying to determine how many comments were actually spam by going back to some of the most popular page posts soon after a new post appeared and seeing how many comments had been deleted in total. On some pages, 50 comments had initially appeared and when I returned 5-10 minutes later, there were only a few dozen comments; the rest, being spam, had been deleted by the administrators. That's a lot of spam.

Unfortunately, there's not a lot that can be done about it currently, save to block the spamming accounts and hope for the best; FBook has no spam filters, most likely because that would allow users to block advertising and since that's how FBook makes their money, it won't be feasible.

So it seems that spam will be with us for a while longer; better get used to the taste.

Feb 4 – Bad Call

Today was a trigger day for me, it seems.

Everything at work was going smoothly. As always, my coworkers are wonderful: good at their jobs, great people and extremely supportive in getting the job done and often defer to me or ask my opinion on decisive matters. My bosses' boss makes it a point to tell me I'm amazing at least once a day( and she means it )while my team lead takes pains to ensure that he discusses everything relevant to how the team is doing with me on a regular basis, to show how important I am to keeping things running smoothly.

It's a magnificent place to work, the best I've ever had or could hope for.

Which is why I wasn't prepared for a phone call I received this afternoon, one that was so out of the blue extraordinary that it floored me internally.

I can't discuss the details, but it wasn't anything personal to do with me: rather it was emotion-packed to the point where my empathetic subconscious self was stunned in a short time and I think didn't recover.

Long story short: it triggered more anxiety later on today, and the following day as well. I can think about it logically all I like, but inside me is a quivering emotional child who's not been able to deal with it on top of everything else of late. To say that this call came at a bad time is selfish, in a way, but it certainly had an impact on me that I couldn't control, given how I've been feeling of late.

Fortunately( yes, I can still use that word here ) it meant that I could speak to the anxiety I've been feeling, as well as having a talking point to express my difficulty to my boss. To show how great a place it is that I work, I was asked the next day into a debriefing about the call, expressly to discuss how I handle the situation and my recommendations on such. It was made clear to me that they thought it most fortunate that I had received the call, as nobody else in the office would have been able to handle it as well as I did - at least, initially, that is.

In any case, it also put my problems in perspective. While I do it knowledge that I've been having some severe anxiety issues this week, they pale in comparison to what's going on in other people's lives and I think that perspective is important for me to remember. Not to downgrade my own problems, but to assist in putting my own anxieties in perspective about what my future may hold and what I can do about it.

Feb 5 – Poetry

This was my second Friday in a row that I spent listening to poetry - nice!

My lady and I went out to the long-running Planet Earth Poetry series, which meets at Hillside Coffee on a weekly basis for a few hours every Friday. I didn't know that Planet Earth Poetry is highly regarded in poetry circles across Canada and internationally, or that some of the poets who read tonight travel great distances to be here for a few hours.

The poetry tonight was wonderful, with an open-mic session for the first 45 minutes that saw a collection of new and new-ish poets strut their stuff verbally for the crowd of several dozen poets and appreciators. I quickly realized that my own poetry, as naturally as it comes to my mind, is an area where much work is needed in order to ascend to the level of some of these folk, whose work was splendid.

Then the featured poets took the stage, and their words were magic.

I especially liked Missie Peters, a Victoria-based spoken-word poet. Her selections were splendidly simple, focusing on how we use our modern-day language. One piece in particular tickled my fancy when she mentioned laserdiscs, in terms of obselesence; what a wondrous thing to hear in context to my own recent explorations!

Definitely a good night, that lifted me above myself for a while: poetic, in every sense.

Feb 6 – Secret Of Kells

How could I not know this film existed???

Many years ago, my mother told me about the Book of Kells, a richly illuminated medieval manuscript that is Ireland's greatest cultural treasure. Its pages contain art that is the pinnacle of the illuminators craft, beautiful enough to take one's breath away with its colors, shapes and rich hand-wrought detail.

The same can be said about the 2009 film The Secret Of Kells, whose visual tapestry is rich enough to bring tears to one's eye as you watch it. I had to pause numerous times, just to savor some of the individual frames that appeared on the screen, like this one:

Click for the HD version!

This is a film that begs to be enjoyed on multiple levels, to be savored for its story, its characters and its visuals all at once - then again separately, and again, and again. A person could, perhaps, watch it once or twice a year and see how long you can make it through the film before you have to pause it to admire a particular visual frame.

I think I'll be adding this one to my movie collection sooner rather than later and definitely in high definition BuRay - it would be a crime to watch it any other way. It was a soothing and uplifting experience, one I will probably repeat again next week, and perhaps the week after that - I enjoyed it that much.

Have a listen to the music, and enjoy:

Feb 7 – Dialogue

Talking helps. So does walking.

I went for a walk today after lunch, in the cool winter afternoon with the sun hiding like a dim light behind the clouds - it did peak out now and then, which I thought was nice.

I haven't been for a walk to Beacon Hill Park for a while, not since the fall season, I think. The grass is still green, though there's quite a lot of muddy bits and squishy parts underfoot if you don't keep to the more solid pathways and walks.

There were quite a lot of ducks, more than I thought there would be this time of year:

While there wasn't a profusion of flowers, there were many rows of hardy blooms shining under the occasional drift of sunlight to add some color to the dull brown of the earthen beds they were rooted in. As well, a new art installation had just been completed, which was stunning; called the Mossy Lady, she sleeps softly:

Later in the evening, after a restless afternoon of anxious thought, I made a phone call to my parents and the conversation ended up including talk of my anxiety and what can be done about it. To my surprise( and it shouldn't have been, really; my parents are wonderful people )we came up with several solutions and helped alleviate my somewhat off-base assumptions of what could be done for me personally and financially both. Having been the person in the family who always had to take care of things for the longest time when no one else could, it hadn't occurred to me that this wasn't one of those situations based on how the last year or two have gone for us all.

Long Story Short: a good number of my worries have been laid to rest tonight. It may take some time for my subconscious to process things, but I'll just keep repeating the simple truths until it has no other choice but to acknowledge the fact that there's now much less to be anxious about them when I woke up this morning.

Not everything is a certainty, certainly, but I'll sleep far better tonight, I know now.

This is been an exhausting week for me, emotionally and mentally, one of the worst in many years in some ways. Writing the blog tonight after speaking to my parents, I feel as though the dark tunnel of my immediate future has become far more transparent and brighter. Though it will still be a tedious journey, I don't feel now as though something is chasing me along the tunnel and I'm not moving fast enough to escape it, but rather that something good is waiting for me at its end, which is nearer than I had hoped since 2016 began.

Simplification, Sociability and Silliness

The word of the week is ignorance.

Jan 25 – Focus

It really has come down to just work and writing for 2016.

Work's been solid, and almost everything I could want in a job: no complaints there. The main parts of decent pay, regular hours and a lack of general stress means that though I may go home tired, I don't crawl home in a funk to try and recover for the rest the evening.

That's critical if I want to get any writing done that night.

Writing: while I've considered getting up early in the morning( I usually wake up around 6 AM and don't have to leave for work until around 8 AM )that's not a habit I want to get into, at least not yet: it's not quite enough of a window to write at the lengths I'm used to. When I was creating the first draft of Book One, I took about an hour to write a scene and so the chapter was about three hours all together to create.

That's a little much to do before work every day, and the likely see me going to bed earlier each night, to the tune of 9PM or so - too early, in my opinion.

Jan 26 – Drone Racing!

Pod Racing was one of the coolest things about Star Wars: Episode 1. Jar Jar Binks, not so much...

Now it looks like we'll be getting a real-life version of it, on ESPN, no less!

The Drone Racing League is starting up in Florida this year, aiming to capture the growing interest in drones( a misnomer, but the name's stuck now )in general.

The remote-controlled aerial vehicles will zoom around closed-door indoor spaces, their human racing in tiered competitions for money and fame. This reminds me of the fun TV shows from the 90's like Robot Wars, where remote-controlled warriors would battle in front of live audiences, with surprise results.

I'm curious to see if this new sport takes off( sorry )and grows to join other e-sports in popularity. Given the cost of professional drones, it may be a few years before you see it locally, but I think the national coverage will only help speed things along.

Jan 27 – The Friendship Equation

Twenty-something years ago, I read something fascinating about friendship.

It was an article in the Toronto Start about how many friends a person would have in their lifetime, and it actually put numbers to paper based on recent( at the time )research that was being done.

I then promptly forgot about the article, because I hadn't saved it - meaning at the time I hadn't cut it out and filed it( along with the many I still have )for reference. In the years since, I've wondered exactly how I could find it again.

Lo and behold, today it found me, appropriately enough, on FBook.

Called the Dunbar Number, the theory posits that you have a group of about 150 people you regularly interact with, aside from family - call these Casual Friends. Going down from that, you have about 50 Close Friends you'd hang out with for dinner, and then 5 Best Friends you're able to use as support. Going upwards, you have about 500 people you know from work or other networks of friends, to a top limit of about 1500 people whose names or faces you can recall, with effort.

Neat stuff, and in this age of social media / networks, quite changable. I love reading about research like this, as it's directly applicable to my own life and can help shape the way I think about my own social interactions / foibles / hangups.

Plus, it just sounds cool: The Dunbar Number...

Jan 28 –Bye DropBox, Hi Google Drive

I don't need much space, it seems.

Six months ago, I signed up for the 1tb( 1,000 gigabyte )DropBox Pro, as I was using about 50gb of space, well over the 12gb the Free version maxed out at. Cosing about $14/month, I thought I'd be able to use the space for videos, photos and other storage to access it all on the go.

Nope.

Turns out I have neither the time nor the bandwidth to take advantage of 1,000 gigs of space. Time-wise, I need a few months to organize my video collection, including reformating / converting movies to optimize them for video playback as streaming video - that takes a while, and to be honest, I don't have time to watch them. A

As well, I'd have to upload them to DropBox, and according to my calculations it would take 13 YEARS to upload at 2.75 Mbps, which is my current maximum upload speed cap with JUCE Internet( my download's over 10x that, thankfully ).

Not going to happen.

Instead, I've switched over to Google Drive, which integrates nicely into my mobile phone, laptop and desktop. For a mere $1.99 / month for 100gb of space( I'm using 80gb )it's a perfect fit. At least until I get my streaming media server up and running... which at this point looks like it will happen sometime in 2017.

Lots to do until then.

Jan 29 – Underground

Lately, when thinking about the future, housing comes to mind. I've asked myself: If I don't end up living in a tiny house, where else would I want to live?

Underground springs to mind, oddly enough.

The homes in particular that seem most appealing are in Australia, of all places. I first heard of them when I saw the film Mad Max 3 in theatres back in the 80's: it had a scene which featured some of these unique homes, from a town called Coober Pedy - great name!

The homes are dug out the sandstone rock that underlays all of Coober Pedy. Sandstone is relatively easy to shape by hand using simple mining tools, and the town had its origins when miners discovered opals in the area. As each small mine was played out, miners would turn the excavations into dwellings, to escape the heat of the day in the area which could easily rise to well past 120F - whew!

Carving out one's home by hand from rock isn't easy work, but it's cheap and allows for some unique dwelling possibilities. As well, the homes in Coober Pedy tend to be much drier than homes built underground in damper climates, and that's one aspect of underground living that I've always found unappealling.

You could say I really dig those kinds of homes...

Jan 30 – Flat Earthers? Really?

Can people be that stupid?

I know, I know, it's a silly question... but come on: you have to be a special kind of Dumb in the Information Age to ignore fact in favour of your own distorted opinions.

Or do you?

What's got me shaking my head like a rabbit with an ear itch are so-called 'Flat Earthers' who, as the name implies, don't believe the world is globular. Seriously. They've come up with all sorts of strung-out rationalizations to explain why the masses of evidence we have today showing the world is wrong are wrong, and why they( the few enlightened souls )are correct in the face of overwhelming info to the contrary. Here's an excerpt of somone trying to baffle-gab their way into 'proving' their point that people 'assume' the world is round, when it's 'not' ...

Here's an example of someone trying to convince others that he's 'right' about his theory:

Notice how he avoids talking about the planet itself?

Myself, I think it boils down to their need to be 'special' via their 'unique knowledge' that contradicts the rest of 'the brainwashed masses' as well as a certain need for them to ignore anything they don't see with their own eyes.

Which means a trip high into the upper stratosphere should cure most of them, fast.

However, I am also of the strong opinion that when we see a Stupid outbreak such as this, it needs to be quickly and firmly addressed, as it only takes a little doubt to make people wonder about all sorts of things they take for granted. Not that a little doubt is a bad thing: we should always be ready to question things in our daily lives, so as not to take things for granted.

However, questioning if the earth is round, that's... dumb. Unbelievably so, in fact it makes me wonder if global access  to information makes people more willing to disbelieve everything, to form their own weird worldview by picking and choosing what they want in their version of reality... the sheer number of sites and videos 'proving' the earth is flat will attest to those words.

Scary stuff, folks, when the internet can make people more ignorant.

Jan 31 – Rewards

I came up with a great idea today to help with my writing.

Coincidentally, I was out and about and ended up stopping at a local shop, Curious Comics, where I made a pleasant discovery: there's a new Groo The Wanderer series! In fact, it came out LAST YEAR in January 2015, so I'm remiss and so happy I found it today, in a random encounter...

Groo, as some of you may know, is one of my all-time favorite comic books. Coming from a guy who doesn't really collect comics, that's saying a lot. If you haven't checked out Groo before now, I highly recommend it, for the art work and the humor and the writing in general; it's a treat.

Back to my writing idea, which is this: for every two chapters I finish, I get to read one of the new Groo , books as a reward. Pretty simple, and it all depends on one thing...

Willpower.

Well, two things, if you count discipline. I trust myself enough to ensure that I'll complete two chapters before I tear open a page of the new Groo comics; to do otherwise would be to cheat myself and I've never done that, especially regarding my writing.

So I have incentive now more than ever to dig into my writing and Get It Done. 2016 is already a month gone and essentially I've only organize my notes for the revision of my first books fourth draft.

Tomorrow the new month begins, as does my revision of Book One.

It’s been a quiet week, though a busy one at work, enough so that I’ve not felt energized but rather the opposite at the end of the day. I really need to get out and get more exercise, as I’ve said already. Walking’s been really solid this week, but I’ve been lucky in that I could get out more as it hasn’t been raining much; that won’t last. Time for Plan B…