I have:

1) Become relatively adept at using Minnow's tiny keyboard, to the point that when I tried to check my mail on Dann's laptop, my fingers couldn't adequately reach to all the keys the first time I typed my password. I am slightly concerned about going home to the desktop tomorrow, but I guess if I'm back to laptop usage as my main writing computer, that's no real hardship--I'm more likely to get out to the coffeeshop some weekends, this way.

Mostly, I'd just like to be fluent with both keyboards, all the time. I have this vision that someday I'll be able to come home with my Great Ideas, and when I start dinner, I'll sit down at the dining room table in between frying things. I'll let you know how that goes.

2) Gone for a run. I did 5 of 7 60-second jogs/90 second walks in the Couch to 5K running plan. Naturally, I'd like to have done 7 of 7, but I decided that I'd give myself a chance to get up to speed before cracking any whips. The goal is to get two more in of at least 5/7 in the next week. Weds or Thurs, and Sat or Sun. We shall see. The wind was just perfect off the lake for the first/last chunks of my run, drying all my sweat before it appeared. I didn't start sweating noticeably until I went inside. Running would be a hell of a lot easier if it was always like this.

3) Added 2000 words of necessary material to my novel. Connective tissue, explanatory tissue, character development, tension-building stuff. Booyah.

I know that at least half of what has made this novel work is that I didn't shy away from writing longer works for a while, as unsaleable as they are. This novel, frex, developed out of a 12k word story. At the same time, I know that simply finishing loads of short stories helped me with the comprehension of overall story structure. And I'm sure that all my false starts to the six other novels I've written helped me, too, in spite of the fact that they were not completed. But. The single biggest thing that contributed to finishing this novel was the threat of library school that I held over my head. I could be content being a librarian. But I wouldn't be content like I am right now--even now, book half-rewritten, unpublished...

It's the difference between marrying a good guy and the right guy for you, I suspect.

4) Did a jack tonne of more research for this book. Every time I think I'm getting somewhere, I scratch something and uncover a billion more things I didn't know or think to know about 1489 Romania. Like, it didn't really hit me until recently that jannissaries were relevant to this setting. Ah, DUH. So, last night, read up on devshirme and figured out that, no, that doesn't play a huge role in the book, but it's a factor--in the culture, and in at least one character's background.

5) Stuck to Phase 1 of the South Beach Rewrite Your Eating Life Plan. Being at the lake and NOT eating cheetos, ice cream, cookies and red licorice at whim? BLASPHEMY. But I did it. Just eating like a normal person at the lake is hard--actually, maybe harder, in some ways, because you don't have the diet to fall back on. But we're about an hour from leaving, and I haven't even opened the bag of Twizzlers sitting on the counter. The hardest part was not getting any potato at dinner, and not getting chips with lunch. But I lived to tell about it. That would make tomorrow one week in on my low-glycemic index carbs and no refined anything effort, and I could already tell by Friday that some of my pants were fitting looser. Lunch today was Brussels sprouts and buffalo burger, which I rather enjoyed. About three days ago, I thought I might kill for a piece of fruit. Today--eh. We'll see what I think at the end of the week. Interestingly, the dairy at this phase has not set off my lactose intolerance...

...I'm sort of appalled at how many years it took me to notice how awful I felt after eating dairy, particularly ice cream.

I mean, I knew I didn't feel good. A lot. Often. Every day. I just thought I had frequent heartburn. I've pounded a lot of Tums and Rolaids over the years. I even tried Prilosec for a while, since my doctor was like, "If you lost even ten pounds, it might help, blah, blah, blah, just take a Tums." Thanks. Wow. I just realized I got ItsCuzYerFatted big time on that one. I had to come to the conclusion about lactose intolerance on my own.

Tonight, I downed two Lactaids and ate some ice cream. Other than the ice cream I ate for Dann's birthday, that's almost the first time I've touched the stuff in months.

And I don't feel like I really should consider vomiting.

In fact, I feel better than I do after most meals. I probably need to be more attentive to random dairy. Just because I don't feel extremely bloated and crampy after eating, say, cheese, doesn't mean I've been feeling good after eating it.

It's weird how not feeling sick feels ABNORMAL.

I had a "S'more S'moothie" at Write Club tonight, purchased with the $5 gift certificate that I won back at Christmas. That seems about a hundred and fifty years ago, by the way (Christmas, not the S'more S'moothie).

Something about the whole endeavor made my stomach ache; I'm kind of rumbly as we speak, in fact. I did not manage to finish said S'moothie (which was really just a mocha-freeze with marshmallows and whipped cream and fudge sauce).

When I left Write Club, I obediently got in the turn lane for the highway, knowing that this is usually the fastest way home. Forgetting, of course, that any sane person should entirely avoid the Ann Arbor stretch of 23 for the rest of the summer.

Construction barrels; a yield sign; those incredibly bright lights for night road construction; smoke/steam from laying asphalt. There was ethereal madrigal-esque music playing on the radio; I'd paused on a station I don't usually listen to, because it sounded like the music on that one car commercial, but better. Plus, madrigals make me think of Peg and Liam, and I usually pause just for old times' sake. Incedentally, I had been searching through the radio stations because the muscle car that had pulled up next to me had been blasting the Dixie Chicks, and I thought I should be able to find that on the radio, as preferable to noxious late-night chat.

So, the smoke, steam and white lights against the inky night combined with the labyrinthine feel of the construction barrels and the soaring sopranos on the radio, felt otherworldly.

And the car in front of me pulled out in front of a big ol' semi that was going way faster than it should have.

And the semi bashed right into the construction barrel in front of me, sending it flipping up and out. I was so prepared for it, that I was actually amazed when it didn't hit my car.

My stomach flipped its flop; I saw a break in traffic, and drove around the barrel and tried not to die; none of the traffic was slowing down even a smidge, it seemed, even though we had far less than a full lane to work with.

And because there was less than a full lane, I bounced down and then back up onto the asphalt, and then hit my stride on a bunch of that "wake up" pavement. The jarring made my front right headlight come on. Apparently, the bulb wasn't burned out; it was just a loose wire.

And thus I drove home.

And to think, I'd just been talking about the Celtic Fourth Dimension with Julie and Lisa. Little did any of us know I'd be taking it home.

It was the perfect hero's journey. The call to adventure, the crossing the river (entering the highway), the challenges, the reward (my headlight coming on)... Joseph Campbell would be proud. I am the Hero with the Thousand Faces.

Just for today.