Hangin’ Out the Van at High Speed

Yesterday . . . what can I say?  Well, I could say it sucked, but that would be unfair.  The day didn’t suck, but I sure felt like I sucked.

It was a day of big-time headaches, and there were a few times when I was almost yelling due to the pain.  I mean, remember Tony Dogs gettin’ his head put in a vice in the movie Casino?  I felt a little like that, only my eye didn’t pop out of my head.

Brutal, I’ll tell you.

But, just like the time I was turned into a newt, I got better.  By night time I didn’t feel that bad.  If anything, by the time I went to bed, I felt like I was doing pretty well.  But during the day–no.  Not feeling good.

However . . . I kept writing.

I wasn’t blazing through the story as I have been.  In fact, it was a real struggle.  I think some of the headaches are coming from having to copy street names found in Makassar.  Here is my document notes for the chapter I finished last night:

From the square at Jalan Pasar Cidu and Jalan Tinumbu, down Jalan Lamuru to Jalan Mesjid Raya, to Jalan Jenderal Urip Sumoharjo, on to Jalan Perintis Kemerdekaan, to a road past Rumah Sakit Bersalin Daya Grasia Hospital.

Ya got that?  You spend part of the day typing “Sumoharjo”, and your head is gonna hurt, too.

It was an interesting chapter, though.  I had my main character chasing another van that was being driven by . . . no one.  Ooooooh, spooky.  Really, they not only chased it, but they managed to get next to it, and one of the characters decided she needed really good video of no one driving a van, so I had her hanging out of her window for about a half a kilometer.

I liked the scene.  I could see everything in my head, and the flowed nicely.  The chapter ended up running four thousand, three hundred fifty words, which was a good run, and my biggest chapter yet.  I know I’ll have a few more that will be this big, and a couple will even be larger.  When I run the numbers, Nate Silver Style, I find that the story is inching toward fifty-nine thousand words, which is the goal I’m aiming towards.

Thing are going according to plan–yessssss.

I’m actually a bit surprised that the story is going well.  There was some concern before NaNo that I wasn’t going to have enough of a story to fill out sixty thousand words.  But that doesn’t seem to be the case now.  I know where I have ahead of me, and when I look at the places where the novel is going to stretch out a bit, I see that sixty thousand isn’t going to be a problem.  I’m actually thinking that sixty-five thousand isn’t out of the possibility of reality, either.  But I’m not going to count my words before they are written.

Just let them come, one at a time, and the story will end when it’s time.

A Leaf on the Wind

If you were in the Chicago area yesterday, you experienced some incredibly weather early in the morning.  For about thirty minutes, it was pretty much a downpour, with lots of wind and lightning.  The Real Home is up around there, somewhere to the east, and it got caught in the deluge.

From what I was told later, it was pretty bad.  Tuesday is Garbage Day for us, and everyone had their stuff out, so that ended up all over the streets.  The neighbors had up a canopy, and that ended up in our yard–and may have damaged one of the arborvitaes that we use as a natural fence.

But according to the wife and daughter, our big tree, the one at the front of our house, the one that was there, maybe a year old, when we moved in eleven years ago, took two lightning strikes, and went down.

My daughter is pretty upset over what happened.  She wanted to know if there was any way it could be saved, even though–from what I understand–half of it came down during the storm.  It upset me as well, because . . . well, I get attached to things.  Of course there isn’t any way to save it, because it’s been split to hell and gone, and the only thing to do now is cut away what’s left, and have it hauled off.

I have some unusual feelings about this.  Like I said, I was upset yesterday.  To be honest, I’ve shed more than a few tears over the fact that our tree is no more.  You would think people shouldn’t get upset over a tree.

I’m not like most people, in case you hadn’t noticed.

It used to be that, in China, most people thought a dragon lived in every mountain.  Here, and a lot of other places, there are many who think of trees as having spirits residing within, entities that are part of the natural order that surrounds us.  Now, I’m a rational person; I’m not suppose to believe in spirits in trees.  And yet, I can’t help but think the tree was looking out for us . . .

See, it’s wasn’t one of those really tall trees, not like the ones in the back.  It was low and very spread out, with thick foliage.  On a hot, summer day, it gave great shade, and more than once, when I needed a break from mowing, I’d go lay down in the grass, stare up into its limbs, and gather my thoughts.  It was very comforting to be there, feeling cool and relaxed, and I’ve ideas come to me while I was there, gathering my strength.

We watered it in the beginning, pruned it when necessary, and, if I can be so open, showed it a lot of affection.  I love having trees around a yard.  Every time I see a house go up a property that’s had every tree cut down prior to construction, I want to find the owner and beat them with a lead-filled rubber hose, because they’ve desecrated their land.

This tree was only about as high as my house.  The house had as good a chance of taking the strike as the tree–and there were two strikes, from what my daughter said.  If the house had been hit, we probably would have lost all the appliances, the daughter’s computer–maybe the place would have caught fire and burnt down.  That’s all very possible.

And the tree, or the spirit inside, or both, decided, “I got this.  Don’t worry; you’re going to be safe.”

It took the strikes, and died.

Like when The Doctor lost his sonic screwdriver in The Visitation, I feel like I lost an old friend.  I’ll go home tomorrow afternoon, and see it lying upon the ground.  I’ll be home Friday, and the service will come to remove it, to take it away, where it’ll likely be chopped up into mulch.

But while the service is there, they are going to dig us another hole, a foot or two away from where our tree used to stand.  We’ve planted two other trees since moving in, and they’ve grown tall and strong.

We’ll do the same Friday.  As soon as everything is clear, we’ll plant another tree, and help it grow, and let it take its place on the corner of the yard where everyone can see it.

I’ll make another friend.

‘Cause that’s just the way I roll.