Karaoke

Okay, I broke down and sang one song with Felicia. "Crazy," of course, by Patsy Cline. It was hard to sing with someone else when I'm used to hearing just myself. I couldn't judge if we were in tune or not. We ate pizza courtesy of Felicia.

Today I spent most of the day packing for California. It's in the 60's at Inverness so I'm trying to force myself to bring warm clothes even though it's 100 here. William has been working all day on a website for a freelance client. So much for his easy Sunday off, which he had contemplated all week.
I spoke to Mom and Dad, Aunt Linda and Uncle Carl, who are all at Inverness together. Carl brought his guitar--it's too bad we'll miss his playing. The Lawrences and Aunt Leslie and Uncle Carter are going to be around this coming week and we'll miss all that too. However, it is our official honeymoon, so I guess we'll get along all right.

Wren and Lige and I went to see Wall-e on Friday. I wasn't terribly excited when I first heard about the film but it was very good. Wall-e the character was charming. His sidekick might go toward lessening my fear of such creatures. You have to see the movie to find out who the sidekick is. (Or read a review.)

William and I are going to a karaoke pizza place tonight with Jerry and Felicia. I don't plan on singing.

I find myself reluctant to start incorporating the journal chapters. I'm afraid it won't work. I suppose I shouldn't let that stop me. It's a big job and if it doesn't work I'll have a massive change to make back again.

Collation

I have decided to combine a lot of chapters by incorporating the journal entries into other chapters rather than having them all stand alone. Right now, before doing that, I have fifty-seven chapters and I haven't even reached the end yet. Too many chapters! And too short. So if I can combine things I think it will be better. The problem is I had all these scenes from Reven's POV and I had to turn them into journal entries for them to survive. So once you get to a certain part of the manuscript when she comes in more, about every other chapter is a diary entry. I don't know what else I can do. I can't turn them all into Connor scenes because it doesn't work. She has some conversations with people unique to her and I can't substitute him. I'll see how this works. I hope I don't have to change it all back again.

Mom and Dad are away now. William and I had beanie weenies last night with a salad. I told William it was his favorite and he guessed all these things it wasn't. So maybe it isn't his favorite. He got a notification yesterday he had jury duty. On a day in the middle of our trip. We both panicked for a second but then I thought, "There's no way they'd make him stay when we already have the tickets." Would they? William called them today and thank goodness they changed his date to August 11th.

William's going to have a bunch of work done on his teeth. The combination of a tongue piercing and his wisdom teeth coming in ruined a lot of his back teeth. So he's going to have the bad ones out and have implants put in. It will be such a relief when he doesn't have to deal with infections and head pain anymore. The periodontist said it will take eight months to complete the whole process. But it will be completely worth it. I'm just sorry he's had to put up with the pain this long.

I saw Dr. Alam yesterday and she took me down on my meds again. Over the next six weeks I'll go down two more levels. It's exciting. Last night going to sleep I thought I felt better having a lower dose. I still have to deal with some anxiety. Dr. Alam recommended acupuncture for help in coping with that. She has another patient who doesn't react well to medicine who uses an acupuncturist. I may give it a try if we can fit it in the budget. Although in the back of my mind I wonder if some of the medicine I take doesn't aggravate the situation and when I go down it will be less. That would be great, of course. I just looked up anxiety as a side effect of one of the medicines I'm taking. About 4% of patients have that reaction. The odds are low but it's still possible. In combination with the other med it could be higher. I don't have the prescribing information for that one. I never had anxiety before I started on this round of medicine so I'm thinking it's possible.

Trips

Mom and Dad are leaving tomorrow for California and their cruise to Alaska. Before they get on the ship they're going to spend a week at Inverness with Uncle Carl and Aunt Linda. We'll get to Inverness on July 5th, the same day they leave to go to stay with Reid before embarking, so we won't see them. I changed William's ticket yesterday so he comes back home on the 19th. I decided to stay until our original flight leaves on August 1st. William has to come back for work. Our plan to stay the month together didn't work out. I'll be leaving again on August 28th to go to Vermont Studio Center. So I'll be away from William for six weeks in all. :(

At least I will get to see Diana. I will stay with her for a couple days on each end of the trip to Vermont. I can't wait to see little Brett, Lauren, and Charlie. Plus it will be great to chat with Diana at her new wicker table on the enclosed porch. If we get a chance to chat with three kids running around!

I see Dr. Alam tomorrow so I'll probably be going down some more on medication. Kristen unfiltered.

Company Picnic

Just got back from William's company party, held out at a place called Shady Springs off 183 near the airport. They had a pool, volleyball court on grass, kickball field, lawnmower train for kids, and ponies. It was nice. Got to talk to some people I met at John and Carolyn's guild party a while ago. World of Warcraft geeks: good people. :) One couple's five-year-old son was telling William all about World of Warcraft. It gets them so young! The woman, Michelle, is a nurse for an Ob/Gyn and was telling us about calls from nervous mothers-to-be. Can I exercise? Will throwing up hurt the baby? My baby is not moving enough. Now he's moving too much. But she likes it better than the floor of a hospital when she worked in ICU. Those stories were scary, about motorcycle accidents and the like. She prefers the doctor's office.

I've been taking the Nexium my doctor prescribed in case I have acid reflux. And I could swear my throat is getting better already. I'm noticing a marked difference so I'm hoping it's that. That's kind of minor in my book. I'm thinking it has to be because if it were otherwise it wouldn't feel any better, would it? The doctor said if it's reflux I can take the Nexium for three months or so and then it's usually healed. If it goes away completely before I have to go to the GI I'll just cancel the appointment.

I'm feeling really good. I wonder if I was over-medicated. In fact I think I can say without much doubt that I was over-medicated, with all the side effects I had, like being unable to write by hand and feeling dazed a lot of the time. And now that I'm off the sleep med and am sleeping better it seems I didn't need that either. So will it turn out I don't need the two meds I'm still on? I'm taking a very small amount of one of those, anyway. I really wonder how I'll feel when I'm medication free. It will be quite an adventure since it's been over eight years since I had that experience.

Reunion

Brett and Nathan left yesterday. It was sad. I felt bummed most of the day.

My high school reunion was last night. They are trying to do it yearly now apparently, to have get-togethers. We went to the Renaissance Hotel, the same place our prom was. That was kind of cool. I met a couple of people I didn't know, Tom Pfeffercorn and Dennis and Leah Murphy. William and I sat and talked with them for most of it. Dennis works in the ER and Tom is a police officer up near Arlington. Tom told us stories from police work. It sounds like it alternates between boring and hard core. He almost had to shoot someone a little while ago, a guy who had a knife. I don't think I'd want that kind of responsibility! I considered the FBI after I graduated from college but I don't think it would have been a good match. The mystery-lover in me was attracted to the idea of investigation. I think the reality might have made me cynical about the world.

Lori Williamson, Lisa Vigil, Courtney Callahan, and Kyle Cassady (nee Whitehouse) were there. It was like a roll call of the popular set. Jackson wasn't there, Kyle's husband, and the one I knew the best of that bunch (though not well). He was maybe home watching the kids? He was our president and a great person. Funny and modest despite all his talents. Of course most people weren't there, we had a class of over five hundred, and just a handful came to this one. I think there was better attendance last year, but it was kind of expensive so I didn't go.

Today is William's company picnic. Better get ready.

Swim Party

Daniel and Brooke came over yesterday to swim and have dinner. They brought their two little boys, Ezra and Evan. Those two played with Nate very nicely. They were using a set of little men that were toys of Brett's when he was young. The ones they were playing with were part of a construction set. Nate built a laser tag place and Ezra built a fireworks factory. The grown-ups laughed over stories and ate homemade pizza and sundaes.

I went to the doctor about my throat. She's sending me to a GI specialist. Until I see the next doctor--not until August 14th!--I'm to take Nexium in case it's acid reflux. I hope that's what it is because the other possibilities don't seem so fun. She mentioned having an MRI and a procedure where they knock you out and put a camera down your throat. I hope I don't have to have either of those. I've had some trouble with acid reflux in the past, because of a medication I was taking, so it's very possible that's what it is.

I've been taking a break from the story. It feels pretty good. I'm reading Anne of the Island, one of the sequels to Anne of Green Gables. The copy I'm reading is one given to my grandmother in 1929. It's a hardback with the original dustcover. It says From Eunice to Jane on the inside cover. I treat it very carefully.

An Exciting Visit

So Brett and Nathan are coming for a visit today and are going to stay six days. They're flying in from Vienna, Virgina today on Delta. I haven't seen them since the wedding and I can't wait. We're going to swim and hang out and have fun. I've been watching The Mole on Monday nights. It's such an interesting game. It creates paranoia among the players because one player is quietly subverting all the attempts of the others to put money in the group pot. I wish I had a clue who the mole is. William thinks it's Nicole after watching maybe ten minutes of the whole show. He's often right about weird things like that so we'll see. One of the people I thought might be the mole got thrown off the show last night. So cross him off the list.

William advised I take a break of a few days from the manuscript. Maybe I'll do that. Brett will be here so it's a good time to stop for a little while anyway. I've been trying to get the whole ms. in shape to give to Writing Group for a summer read-through and the pressure might be getting to me. Plus David, my first cousin once-removed, wants to read it. And I don't even have all the chapters correctly labeled after all my juggling around. I'm trying to combine some chapters so the second half of the book doesn't have too many short chapters. So far I've been able to combine several so that's good. It's just a matter of reading through carefully and moving stuff around to get the story right. It's not so easy as that sounds, though. Everything affects everything else. Before I move something I have to remember why it was in that spot to begin with. Usually it has a good reason for being there because it advances the story at that particular moment. So if I take something out to move it, or delete it, I have to be sure I can either get the gist across in a newly-written replacement or the story can survive without it. Sometimes it seems like every sentence is necessary. I know that's not true. Now I'm in the moving-around-the-furniture stage and it's just a little scary. That's an analogy someone used in a writers' workshop. You have to move the furniture in a revision, not vacuum around it. But I'm the only one doing the heavy lifting and I'm a little worn out!

Mutiny

I am trying to revise as usual and I find myself sick of my manuscript. I don't know what there is about it that is maddening me right now.

Scottish Festival

Had writing group today. They had some advice for me regarding a day too many in a chapter (an extra day that wasn't described) and how I had Connor driving a car at fourteen (an accident, since I've changed the current age of the character). Everything is helpful.

I went to the Scottish Festival with Wren, Robin, and Elijah last weekend. I had never been. It was full of music and kilts and men throwing tree trunks. The day was hot, needless to say, and we spent a lot of time sweating. I ate four frozen strawberries dipped in chocolate to cool down. So what if I got strawberry juice on my white shirt. We saw a great singer and storyteller, Ed Miller, a Scot who lives in the US. His fiddler was excellent--I think his name was John Taylor--another Scot with poufy white hair that stood up in a mane. At the end of the day, around 9:30, they had an event called Fiddle Faddle in which all the fiddlers got together and jammed. It was quite amazing. I don't know if they all know the same songs or they just hear what is going and join in somehow. I don't think I ever jammed on the string bass.

I continue to sleep well. I've had one restless night but in all things have been very good. I don't know if under the sleep med I was sleeping well only at the beginning of the night and then waking when it wore off or what. I also wonder if the sleep med made me sleepy during the day. I still want to take a nap on many days but I don't think so much as formerly.

I'm reading Their Hearts Were Young and Gay, the true story of two American girls who go abroad in the '20's. It's wonderfully funny.

Manuscript

I've had a sore throat for a long time and I've decided to go to an ENT for it finally. I'm going back to the same one I saw for the septoplasty. Dr. Slaughter. Ha.

I'm almost finished with Wives and Daughters. It's been great to read it again. It's very much a tale of two sisters, or two step-sisters, and their lives and woes. Molly is a delightful character. It's nearly as good as reading Jane Austen.

I've been moving along with the manuscript. Sometimes it's almost painful to read it, I don't know why. There are parts I want to skip to just move on to the next section. But I can't because I have to review it all. It's going along fairly well. I have twice as many chapters now that I've added all the journal entries. I don't know if that's a good thing. I may have too many short chapters. Not that the length of a chapter matters that much in the abstract, but I think too many short ones will seem almost nonsensical. So I'll have to combine some.