work – Page 2 – Aphotic Ink: Words by Frances Rowat

September 9, 2013admin No Comments

Breaking it down. (for SCIENCE!)

Missed this when it came out a year and a half ago – a new superglue that bonds at the molecular level, prompted by analysis of flesh-eating bacteria.

It contrasts particularly with some of the chemical screening assessments I’ve been looking at lately. The most upsetting of those cited an experiment testing a chemical compound’s toxicity, in which one of the dogs being steadily poisoned lasted for for nine hundred and ninety days before dying.

Please accept my assertion that those were not a healthy, pain-free nine hundred and ninety days, and let us move on. (If possessed of pets, you may wish to have a small time-out in which to cuddle one or pet one of them for comfort. I am doing this thing. I am also rambling all over the place.)

August 23, 2013admin No Comments

Regrouping.

I haven’t written anything–well, outside of online communications and work-related email, which I generally don’t count–in a day and a half, which is annoying because I was on a six-day streak before that. I know why, and it’s understandable, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying.

It will not happen today. There. I have said it, so now I have to make it true.

In other news… well, there is a nineteen-and-change year-old-cat sitting on my arms while I type, gently pulsing and purring and being old and delicate and imperious. Doesn’t interfere with the typing, at least, although I do need to crane a bit to see over her to look at all of my screen. And I’ve just been reminded that vacation pay is issued upon request, which means that it’s been quietly accruing for the last few weeks.

Am finding that Night Vale Community Radio is actually very pleasant to listen to, being something between “background noise” and “actually requiring full attention”. It’s funny in a highly bizarre way, and while I can think of a few descriptors, they are a bit obscure, so I will just go with the slug that “It’s as if Stephen King and Neil Gaiman created a SimCity and let it run on its own for forty years.” The more I look at fiction, the more I find there’s a dearth of the unapologetically weird stuff. (There’s some – and there is obviously going to be a bit of disagreement over what’s “unapologetically weird in the service of the story’s mood” and what’s “bad worldbuilding” – but it’s rare. Suggestions welcome!)

April 15, 2013admin No Comments

Blinking at the calendar

Wow, it’s been a long time.

Most of February was taken up with some acute household health stuff (everyone’s fine, life carries on, thank god the crying jags were mostly staggered in timing because I think that if we’d had them all happening at the same time it would have been harder to get through). March was tied up a lot with some temporary work. And I can’t believe it’s halfway through April, good grief, where does the time go?

I spent a chunk of last night trying to update my CV to reflect something that I’m good at but that I’m not usually hired to do, and it’s a little scary. Besides that, there’s not much really going on. I’m tired and I realized today that I’ve dropped the ball on something, and I’m trying to get it back together rather than bolting in the opposite direction throwing excuses behind me. Should be manageable, really.

Piper’s having trouble walking, so I’m sitting with her in the living room and going to get through as much as I can today without leaving her alone for too long. I foresee a lot of laundry in my future today. It won’t be so bad, if I can get to the doing rather than the talking about.

October 16, 2012admin 1 Comment

Slightly surprised.

I could have sworn I’d written something here in the last month. Looking over where I’ve actually been typing, though, I can see how I didn’t manage that.

I’ve been chipping away at a couple of stories–one handwritten, one typed up, and it’s interesting to see how the pace is slightly different. I’ve also been working on a story for a game–the Story Nexus engine’s open to the public, now, and it’s got the potential to be a huge timesink. (You can check it out online over here.) And there were some repairs at home, so there’s some work putting everything back into place.

And I’m job-hunting, too, since my contract was not renewed. That last is probably the most draining of everything, to be honest.

June 13, 2012admin No Comments

Matter of time.

I can’t find my copy of The Feminine Mystique. This has been on my mind–not overwhelmingly so, but definitely noticeable–every day this week.

See, there’s this one part that mentions a study on the time spent housekeeping; what I remember, loosely, is that when the work was given to another household member, it got finished in half the time. Sometimes less. And combined with how quickly I was getting through physical filing when I had to concentrate on it (due to the lack of a computer), and how quickly work seemed to go when I started the job…

I want to reread it. Right now I have the impression that (1) the household chores are feeling alot more overwhelming than they actually are, and (2) maybe I can get over this if I can change it up somehow. Maybe the time it’s taking isn’t really the time it takes.

(Maybe I just want to read about someone cleaning an entire house and making lunch and doing groceries and still being done by mid-afternoon.)

Long weekend coming up. I’ve gotten a lot of work done, and some of it’s stuff that isn’t even necessary, it’s in the “I said I would” category. But it sems there’s been very little time for what I want to do, or that when I’ve done it I haven’t gotten any lasting enjoyment out of it.

Know this kind of thing comes and goes. Just really don’t care to sit back and wait for it to go if there’s something I can change to make it go, preferably sooner rather than later.

Helps a little to articulate this, at least.

June 12, 2012admin No Comments

My morning.

April 14, 2012admin No Comments

Slipping away.

The week started with a post, actually. A post about how, when you were doing one job and learning another and trying to catch up on three days work besides, learning that you might need to tear out a wall of your home was just a cymbal-crash finale to the day.

(As I was writing that post, my bus home drove past me without stopping.)

Then I exited without saving the draft. So there was no post that day.

Rest of the week was equally packed, and delicately spiced with such highlights as “double work loads” and “four hours of sleep.” And the lack of posts continued.

Trying to pull myself back together and relax. Saw Boondock Saints II and picked at Fallout 3 a bit; I’m pretty close to finding Harold, I think.

Not getting any writing done. I keep being caught up in thinking about a co-writing project and the person I’m working with… Yeesh, just realized haven’t heard from her in a week. Trying to overcome my natural tendency to fret.

April 4, 2012admin 2 Comments

Achey and tired.

I’ve had a headache for about ten hours now. I mean, I realize I am having this headache on a day when a good friend of mine is having a migraine, and that does a lot to put it in perspective. But it’s starting to wear on me.

I got a story rejection today. I was expecting it, and it was very polite. Still… what can you do?

~~(ObAnswer: Pick up and carry on. I know, I know. Goal for tomorrow: two new pages.)~~

Watching Game of Thrones and comfortably hating Theon. I do love the Greyjoys and the Iron Islands; they make me think of King Hagrid, cold and drawn and grey, standing by the sea and watching the waves they rule. Blood and salt and iron.

And the Cthulhu shout-outs don’t hurt either.

Started two new anthologies–End of the World and Haunts: Reliquaries of the Dead–and neither one is really grabbing me yet. I’m hoping a good night’s sleep will clear things up. Whether or not the extension goes through tomorrow (and I expect it will; early next week if not), at least there’s only six work-hours left until the weekend.

I’m very sorry. I wish I could come up with something more interesting to say.