I'm a writer. There, I've admitted it. I wonder if there's a 12-Step program for folks like me...

Most of this blog will be about writing for a living. Or maybe about trying to earn a living as a writer. Or maybe about trying to have a life while you write.

And maybe I'll be able to avoid the driving temptation to write about politics. But I'm not very good around temptation, so all I can promise is that I'll try to avoid writing about politics.

But I will write about the software I use, and the software I try out, and what I think about it. I actually spent lots of years in software testing - as a tester and as a manager of testing departments. I actually started work in software development in 1971, so I have a bit of experience with computers to back up what I have to say on this subject.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Late To Bed And Early To Rise

 

We’ve been moving boxes between apartments the last several days, working hard to get all of the small stuff out of the old apartment and into the new before the movers arrive to shift the furniture over for us. I don’t think we’re gonna make it, but that’s just my opinion.

Actually, it’s my back, and my legs and feet saying that. My sister isn’t big on lifting heavy stuff, and my brother-in-law is still tied down to a full-time job. So I’m doing most of the heavy lifting, and glad that my body can still handle it.

I haven’t treated it as well as I should have over the years, and it gets a bit cranky when I put more demands on it than it considers right and proper. It thinks it should be babied more. Personally, I think it could lose about twenty (okay, thirty) pounds or so, and it really should quit smoking, too.

But we still get along, my body and I, event though we do have our arguments over what’s right and proper. It gives a little, I give a little. That’s the secret behind any good, long-lasting relationship.

But my feet hurt, and my legs. We’re moving from a two-bedroom townhouse apartment to a three-bedroom flat. My sister and her husband have the master bedroom, I’ve got on of the smaller bedrooms and the third is going to be used as a library/office for my brother-in-law.

Right now (well, not right now) I’m sleeping in the new apartment while we move boxes in. I had to have my bedroom set up with my new bed and get my computer hooked back up. All of that had to be done before the weekend, which meant a lot of upping and downing on the staircase at the old apartment. I can now state flatly that I will never live in another house that has a staircase. I have had it with moving boxes and furniture up and/or down staircases. It’s dangerous, and it hurts.

I had all of my books and clothes stored in sealable plastic containers. ‘Stored’ is the operative word. ‘Stored’ means you don’t have access to what’s in those sealable containers, and you don’t move the damn things around will he-nill he. ‘Stored’ does not mean you haul them up a flight of stairs one month and then a few months later move them back down, stuff them into a car and then move them into another room. ‘Stored’ means you put those damn containers someplace and leave them be.

Well, Life will play its little games. I have another six containers filled with around eighty pounds of books in each, and four others packed with clothes, towels, bed linens, computer gear, letters, photos and nick-knacks I haven’t seen in years. And a large mahogany folding table that I write on (type on, as on a keyboard). And they all got moved into the new apartment, right along with a lot of other stuff. There is still a large amount of stuff to be moved, but I am living here, now. My sister and her husband will be moving in once we have all of the furniture shifted over.

I damn near killed myself moving all of that stuff in two days. Not to mention dealing with the service tech getting the cable internet and TV hooked up, setting up my bedroom and actually getting back to work on “Twisted Key”.

Which I haven't actually done yet, but I will, soon. I promise.

And I got a new bed. My sister and I went bed shopping on Wednesday, last week. There’s just me sleeping on it, so I was looking for a twin bed, or at most what’s called a double bed. I was sort of looking forward to it, because I’ve been sleeping on an air mattress since April. Several air mattress, actually. They seem to develop weak seams if you keep them in use for a month or so.

It’s not a large bedroom, unfortunately. Only about thirteen feet on a side, so a twin or double made a lot of sense. But this queen size mattress/box spring unit was only another twenty dollars and I damn near fell asleep testing it, so we bought it.

I’ve been getting into my new bed around ten or eleven the last several nights, and waking up between two-thirty or three in the morning, full of piss and vinegar.

Which is why I’m writing this blog entry well before six AM on a Monday morning. I started it around four AM, in case you’re interested.

I had a phone conversation with my publisher recently. I should have proofs of the interior and cover for “Hog Valley” some time late next week or the first of the week after. Which means “Hog Valley” just might be available in early September, as opposed to the end of the month.

And that would be a very good thing, indeed.

I hope you have a good week.

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