So I started my training yesterday. Monday's a cross-training day so I figured I'd take the long way home... instead of cutting straight across the island to my house (two miles) or even to the cafe I hang out in (two-and-a-quarter) and then to my house (one-and-a-half) I decided to do a loop around the southern part of the island, from Thames Street (downtown Newport... think wharfs and boats and a tourist for every seagull dropping) to Broadway (the part of downtown I hang out in) via a beautiful (but apparently ten frigging miles long) road called Ocean Drive... that and the two miles to get there and the three miles at the end, plus a couple side roads I had to take, and my little workout wound up taking me just over an hour. Gorgeous day, though. Didn't have my camera with me, but I'll be doing a ride like this every week until September. Today, just an easy three miles and I think I may cheat and do it in the gym... I need practice keeping a steady pace, and treadmills are pretty good at that.

Didn't finish that book yesterday, but I came close. I got distracted by a vicious one-two punch featuring the new Peanuts collection and "Robot Chicken." I'd been telling people for years that the only reason I watched "Family Guy" occasionally was for the random pop-culture references they'd throw in. Nice to see that someone made a show based on nothing but that. But, I'm almost done and if you believe it, the book has got even better... I know that in a month I'll have to go back and read it again with a pencil or two in hand. (I thought about doing that this time, but one, I want to finish the book (a trait that the author mentioned about twenty chapters back) and two, the whole book would be underlined. After I've let it settle, I can probably go back and pick out the stunning parts.

Oh yeah, and it's my birthday today. Was going to take the day off but one of my friends is still in DC finishing up her degree, one has to work all day, and one is taking finals this week. I was actually faced with the prospect of staying home and having nothing better to do but clean and sort stuff on my birthday, and I decided that work was a better choice. Pretty sad. Ah well... I'll be able to do something later. But if anything happens tonight, I'll take pictures.

Controlled Schizophrenia... I'm 10 days and 10.6K into my new book, so I can finally admit that I'm writing again. Feels good... these characters didn't want to come out on the last thing I tried to write, which is why they blocked it, and they've really been making a mess of my head and everything, what with leaving coffeestains on the endtable in my head and everything, so now that I have them talking to me, I'm feeling so much better.

Oh, and who ordered the winter?

So the writing's at least passable right now... been doing background work yesterday and this morning, and I think I might be able to start raw writing Monday. I usually don't do a lot of background writing, at least not until I get a project floating, but since I'm translating from a book I was working on earlier... earlier being four fucking years ago... I wanted to go jback and reaquaint myself with it.

Just saw For Your Consideration. Been a fan of that group of creative types since Spinal Tap and especially Waiting For Guffman, the film I used to screen potential girlfriends with. ("Ahh, you didn't get it? Too bad... let me call you a taxi. No, you don't need to kiss me.")

Up and writing, somewhat. If I can get my stride this weekend on this new book, I'll be happy, kind of like that time I got two Snickers bars from the machine by accident. This 'new' book is actually just a tweaked version of one I was working on a few years ago... a modern dark fantasy about a place that's slowly disolving. I had originally tried to write it as a heroic fantasy, but while I liked that genre when I was young (and will admit after a couple drinks to liking one or two of the authors in that field today) it wasn't fitting my muse properly, and I fell out of it. Now, if I can just get back into my 1K a day habit (which worked for my other two completed books) I may be able to get somewhere with it.

Don't know why this heading still says "Japan." Wish I was still in Japan, but it's been nearly four months. May try to go back for a visit next year... or may try to go back to Italy, since I left my four-year-home there almost four years ago.

Oh yeah and Happy Channukah, everyone.

more later...

Well, another weekend. Trying to write on another project, and it's having trouble coming out of my head. May work on a website my friend wants me to put together for her... in fact, I should be doing that now... but the book that refuses to come out of my head is also running around, wreaking havoc on anything else I try to work on. Does that happen to any of you?

Well, it's election day. Still not entirely sure... the only New England independent running for congress that's worth a damn is over in CT. This two-flavor one-party stuff is really starting to piss me off... every other country I've been to (except for the communist/ fascist ones like China and VietNam) had multiple (and in the case of Italy, moltissimo) parties to choose from. After about three months back in the states, the only real difference I see between the Dems and the GOPs is that one party has three sylables in its name and the other has four. Still, going to vote one way or the other.

Still sore... took half the day off at work so I could come home and curl up... well, not really curl worth anything... into a ball with my cat and take a bunch of motrin. Feel a little better now, and I've already signed up for another race... the LA marathon in March. (I need to visit family out there anyway.) I never got into sports of any kind until I discovered mountain hiking in the nineties, and now marathon running. I think I like it because the only person I'm competing with is myself.

Here's two pics from the run:





Anyway, more later on. Writing again... kind of put it off the last week because of nerves, but now I'm drafting a story that I've already outlined, and I may go back tomorrow and edit my latest one.

Officially a marathon survivor now. I'll post the pictures tomorrow. I made a bunch of mistakes, number one thinking that 18 weeks of training was enough, and ending with quaffing water and cytomax and sports gel. According to one site I may now have a soup of mollases in my intenstines, which explains why I had no energy for the second half and ran it WAY below my pace. Still, I finished, and there's always another one. Cape Cod's pretty beautiful, too, except for yesterday when it was raining and sleeting and blowing 50-knot gusts... so much for sightseeing before the race. At least it was sunny today, and most of the time, the wind was at my butt, which wasn't fun when I was running by a beach, but fun otherwise.

Pictures tomorrow.

Still a busy week... went to Broadway for my first time ever a couple of days ago... had to see the revival of "A Chorus Line". (Pretty damn good... I cried, of course, but I cry during TV shows, National Geographic films, PowerPoint presentations... actually, everybody cries during those, never mind.) Trying to decide if I want to see "Les Miserables" now that it's opening. I mean, I should as a dedicated fan of musicals raised and weaned on them by my parents as I was, and I have read the book, but is the musical worth it? Now I'm just quintuple-checking my bag to see if I'm ready for this marathon in holy shit two days. Plus I have a big fat can on my lap.


Anyway, wish me luck. No good pictures of New York yet... just some of the GW Bridge that I snapped from the freeway.

Wow... have not done this blog forever. I'm not even on the same continent anymore, and tell you what, after four years in southern Italy and three years in Japan, Rhode Island is pretty damn strange. I really should have known better... I'm the one who's a serious Lovecraft fan, and coming to the place where he drew most of his inspiration really did seem like a good idea at the time. More later on what's so damn weird in this country that for some reason (based on my Missouri birth certificate and my Michigan driver's license) assumes that I'm a native.