The Journal of Michael Merriam

Another full and busy weekend planned, with theatre tonight, running the ongoing role-playing game tomorrow, and then cooking out and playing Arkham Horror on Sunday. Somewhere in there I need to set the patio back up, run the vacuum, wash a load of towels, and change the cat box, so don't expect me to be online much until Monday or Tuesday. And then Monday I have an interview and several call-backs to make.

Talked to my oldest son today, he is enrolled at OKCU, majoring in Nursing with an eye toward getting his Nurse Practitioners license.

In all of this, I have managed to get some writing in:

Dark Water Blues


All I can say about were I am with the novel at the moment is: Mwahahahahahahaha!!!

Today is careswen's birthday! Happy birthday to my lovely and talented wife.

We had her party last night, with a full group of folks (I'm not going to mention you all by LJ name or otherwise, since there was about 20 of you!) out at Lebanon Hills Regional Park. There was bratwurst, hotdogs, s'mores, a lot of pie, donuts, three or four different cold salads, fruit, chips, way too much in the way of beverages, and an incredible amount of pleasant company with a side of good music tossed in. I will be raiding people's websites for photos, since I know there were at least three people taking pictures, all of whom are gifted photographers, each in their own right.

Thank you all for coming out last night. We had so much fun and it was good to be with our friends. We were the last to leave the park (getting in the car just as the rain hit), and at one point, as we sat by the dying fire before putting it out and hauling the last load up the hill to the car, careswen sighed happily and said how perfect the day had been for her. It was exactly what she needed after all the stress of work and grad school, so thank you all for making it a wonderful day for her.

Today--on her actual birthday--we are staying in, relaxing, and eating leftover pie.

mmm. pie. mmm.

Dark Water Blues

It was a good weekend filled with fun, friends, enjoyable outings, and lots of board games.

I'll post about it more fully later, after I've run errands, unless other interested parties post first, in which case I'll be lazy and link to their LJ's.

No word meter today because there were no words. Not to fear: careswen has class tomorrow night, so I can make up time.

I did other writerly things today, and I made some movement on finding a new part-time job, including one that might be fairly mindless, as in putting things in boxes and shipping them, something I've done for years and years.

Also paid bills and taxes, walked to the post office, grocery store, and bank, and then back home.

I was virtuous tonight and had a baked potato and salad for dinner, with watermelon for dessert. I plan to counter-balance this with meatball subs later this week.

Played Tsuro and Boomtown with careswen and greykev after dinner, listened to Lojo Russo streamed live from a show in a studio at the University of Northern Iowa, and sent the others off to Walgreens to fill scrips for migraine meds.

They are back now, so I'm going to go.

It's been a good day. There has been french toast and snow and squirrels being silly and hanging out with people I care about and watching a movie and getting some writing in and hummus and iced tea and writing and chatting and petting of the cat and sunshine after the snow and leftover pizza. Really, what else can one ask for? These are the true riches of life.

We signed the papers to send our taxes electrically, today. We owe, but not much. We nearly broke even with the IRS. It was the State of Minnesota who got us this year, and that none too badly.

On the way to accountants office, careswen and I talked about some of the things that, as a writer, have been bothering me. I still don't have any answers, and I'm still a little---whatever it is I am, but at least she got me thinking about solutions instead of being a little mouse in a jar running around in circle.

I know that a big part of my problem is, somewhere along the way my confidence in my abilities as a writer got shaken. That, coupled with coming off the year-long writing disaster that was working for the puppets in 2007, has left me---wobbly, I guess.

I bought a new personal journal today at Borders. I didn't like the old one I was using, which was a journalist style notebook. I'm hoping this new notebook, which is very basic and plain, will feel more comfortable. Yes, I keep a private personal paper journal. I also keep a private writing journal.

I spoke to my sister yesterday. Mom is out of the hospital, though they don't seem to know what happened to her. She got disoriented and confused and upset, but the hospital never figured out why, just said, "We think it's her electrolyte levels. She should drink less water so she doesn't flush them out," and sent her home once she seemed lucid. Yes, because we surely want her to get dehydrated, that will be helpful. I told sister that the next time mom gets like this they might take her to a real hospital instead of the thing that passes for one in Grady County.

I also talked to Oldest Son. He seems to be doing well. He has the kids up this weekend, and he and his Ex are still friends with each other, so that's all to the good. He's talking about starting the courses to become an LPN this fall.

And yes, I wrote more today.

Rija's Tale

I have proven that I am indeed handy about the house by repairing the freezer, stopping it from making a noise like horny crickets on a sugar high. Granted, all I did was take the coverings apart, clean things, and then reseat all the screws properly, but still, I fixed it!

I am rewarding myself with a Hershey's 5th Avenue bar. And if the freezer starts making terrible noises in a few minutes, I will have consoled myself with that same candy bar.

Also, if you get an invitation to come to my home tomorrow and eat all my food, well, you know what happened.

I have an interview tomorrow at Retail Employees Credit Union. They have a call center here in Hopkins and a branch office in St. Louis Park, both of which I can travel to easily.

My new state issued ID came in the mail today, so now I can rent a PO Box for Drey Books while I'm next out and about. The picture, of course, is about as unflattering as these sort of pictures can be. I look like a fat thug. Seriously. careswen admonished me for not smiling, but I did, is the thing. It's just that their dodgy piece of shite lowest bidder digital camera took a good thirty seconds to take the picture, several seconds of which involved a bright light in my face.

careswen stayed home with a continuation of her migraine today. She seems better now, after a lot of drugs and a nice nap. We walked over to the little neighborhood store and made a couple of purchases, noting on the way that the squirrels and chipmunks are feeling the spring. Mostly this was accomplished by watching multiple fuzzy animals chasing each other around. At one point it looked like a small circus on my patio, with four or five squirrels and a couple of chipmunks dashing around chasing each other. The Reverend is amused by all this.

My sister called this morning. My mother is back in the hospital. I don't have a lot of details yet, and what I do have are sketchy, so I won't say any more until I do.

Made some good movement in on the current WiP, but I really do need to get serious about finding a publishing home for Last Car to Annwn Station.

I also have a couple of short stories I need to rewrite and a couple more I need to finish. And another novel I want to work on after the current one. I need to learn to write faster.

Rija's Tale


Yes, I've increased the projected word count.

I just talked to my sister. Everything is fine, and they will be moving mom to her room shortly.

Today:

I knocked an unidentified something off the Bakers Rack. I heard it hit the floor with a plastic thump. I wasn't too concerned about breakage, but when I went to look for whatever I knocked onto the floor, I then knocked the scissors off the Bakers Rack. I jumped to get away from the scissors and my foot came down in the middle of some leftover dessert, which had popped out of the plastic container that fell to the floor. I made a big squishy pile of chocolate and caramel and whatever else was in it on the floor and on the bottom of my foot.

And:

When I brought the groceries in from the garage, I left my cart on the patio, went inside, kicked off my shoes, hung up my coat, and quickly changed from jeans in to pajama pants. When I pulled open the blinds on the patio door, a large, fat, gray squirrel was pawing through my groceries. He looked up at me, surprised, and then vanished like a fuzzy-tailed ninja.

Some days.

I talked to my mother tonight. Her surgery is tomorrow morning. I'll be waiting for word from Oklahoma tomorrow while trying not to drink too much coffee (which is what mmerriam's do when nervous or stressed).

The presentation at TCSFWN went pretty well. Jason, Joel, and I talked markets, answered questions, and got some help from hilarymoonmurph, welshbard, and others. I had lunch with akillianna after. It's been awhile since I was at a TCSFWN meeting: it was good to see everyone.

Finished typing in the draft of the Pirate Space Opera story. The entire thing is just under 7600 words. I wrote just over 4000 words on it yesterday. Next up is Steadfast and then Fey and Mage 01, which, like Fey and Mage 02, is just as likely to be a novel in disguised as a short story.

Neither of my kids have a working phone, it seems. Both, however, have MySpace pages they keep updated. I guess I'm gong to need to join MySpace to keep in touch with my sons.

Been suffering from slight dehydration and mild dizziness, despite all the water I've been drinking. I really wish it would stop.

In other news, the Reverend Selena is both furry and purry.

The Harrison/Merriam/Myers/Wilcox family gathering went off with only some minor hitches, mostly being that the Harrison part of the family had car trouble and did not make the gathering.

I'm not sure what the exact count was, 24 or so adults and children. It was a good crowd and it was good to have us all in the same place for the first time in years. We met in the gym of my Aunt and Uncles church, who were both crazy enough and thoughtful enough to put this gathering together. It gave us plenty of room for the small children to roam and play and just be kids in Christmas day, while giving the adults plenty of space to rest, talk and just be adults on Christmas day.

Food was served buffet style. We had all the usual holiday food suspects, including a couple of dishes I haven't seen in a few years. It was all tasty.

I spent time with cousins I haven't spoken to much, played with kids, and generally enjoyed myself. Everyone took a ton of pictures.

It was the first time I'd seen my mother in over four years.

Good food. Good people. It was a good day.

Words cannot express how thankful I am to have these people in my life.

Today we will descend on my brother and his family. careswen and I are picking up cold cuts and some soda, then calling my sons, and we are all meeting at my brother's farm house for food and games and talk.