Speaking of senior moments...

I was at a meeting at work yesterday, and the lights were dim to accomodate the overhead projection with the predictable PowerPoint presentation, and for the first time in my life I needed to put my glasses on in order to take notes. I didn't need them later, when I got out into a brightly lit room, to revise and read them, but it was just one of those moments in my life that hammered home my age.

It's like when Omaha jokes, after I've forgotten to shave for three days, that maybe I should just grow the goatee (c.f. Evil Overlords Rule #35). But I look at just how much of my goatee would be salt and pepper and say, uh, no thanks.

What annoys me is not the hardware failures, but the hardware unreliability. My eyes, my knees, my stomach, even my dick have all reached the point where ongoing daily maintenance and/or medicinal intervention have become neccessities. It's not that these components are broken, it's that they may mysteriously decide to not work when called upon for no apparent reason at all.

I know, I'm a bit whiny. I didn't get much sleep last night; the night couldn't decide if it was too hot or too cool, and when Omaha woke up around 2 in the morning to turn the window fan off, she revealed that the white noise of the fan was covering up metalshop sounds coming from the airport, a sound like a horde of blooded orcs bending a million pruning hooks into swords. It was horrible. I turned the dust fan on just to put some white noise back into the room.

Brains!

WND: Obama Thinks He's Better Than You

( Still looking for that perfect synonym! )

Dan Savage on John McCain offering his wife to the men of Sodom

( But Dan, It's Still Creepy. )

Justin Fox asks for better conservative criticism of Obama.

( Because there's just so damn little of it )

Listen to Obama, Win A Hundred Dollars.

( Brad DeLong on McCain's failing moral responsibility. )

Paris Hilton's Energy Policy

( No, really, that's what it is! )

Writing without interruption

I was struggling this past weekend to write. It shouldn't be hard for me to write; after all, I've been doing it all my life. Writing at home is hard, though; I'm reminded of Neal Stephenson's comment in an interview about his being a "ruthlessly bad correspondent," because if he answered emails he'd never get any work done. One of the things he says is that he can do a lot with a four-hour block of time as long as he knows he's not going to be interrupted.

That's true for me as well. Not the four-hour block, but the lack of interruption. As most of my long-time readers know, I write during my commute on a county bus, or at a cafe' near my home, most of the time. I can get a lot done in a half-hour, as long as I'm absolutely confident that no one will interrupt me.

In the past three days I've written 5,596 words. All on one story, Moi Neuroses, which is a Shardik Journal Entry (gasp, yes I can still write those) in which Shardik and a Sterling woman develop a curious relationship, and how Aaden sort-of freaks out over it. After two weeks of no-writing-time madness, it was nice to be able to get back into a groove (or is it a rut?) that I had missed for far too long.

All I needed was a block of time, no matter how small, during which I knew I would not be interrupted by work or family.