Projects

Aug 01 2010 Published by brian under personal

Here’s what I’m currently working on, for those who care (howdy to the both of you), in order of priority.

  1. Assisting my spouse with the ongoing effort to keep her mother out of a nursing home. This effort is not being helped by the distinct lack of elderhelp services available for people who can’t already afford to buy everything they need. Have I mentioned how nice it would be to live in a country that cared about the well-being of its elderly?
  2. My job. A very close second, but still second. Thankfully, I’m working part-time, and have flexibility, so I can take a day off here and there to deal with #1 and make it up without too much trouble.
  3. Job-hunting. Despite #2, I do still want to find something in my chosen field. Might take quite a while, though, given the state of the economy. My boss, if he’s reading this, can relax.
  4. Writing. I have at least three stories I’m actively working on, several more that have been effectively abandoned but could be revived, and at least half a dozen ideas I’m developing on an ongoing basis. (Biggest problem here is that the last of the three is absorbing most of the effort; I need to shift my energy to the first, if I’m going to accomplish my goal of publishing something this year.)
  5. Learning Chinese. I started well in February and March but lost my momentum since then because of #1. I’m making occasional stabs at restarting, but it’s not easy.
  6. Reading my backlog of unread books, which are numerous (71 at the moment, according to LibraryThing). I have a whole bookcase near my bed devoted to these, and it snickers at me whenever I pass it.

Those would appear to be the major ones. Minor ones include getting back into programming, reviewing my scientific math, and learning to play music. (I recently came across a piano course that, glory be and save us, actually worked. Once I get a full-size keyboard, this will move up in priority.)

This list contains more than I would like, and is not in the order that I would choose. But, as we well know, the universe is not obligated to conform to our desires and expectations. More’s the pity.

Update: Just realized that this post is distressingly similar to this one from just a couple of weeks ago. Not only am I whining about having too much going on, I’m repeating myself doing it. This is not good and must change.

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Blast from the past.

Feb 09 2010 Published by brian under personal, writing

And now, a fragment of early writing that will never be published elsewhere. (Let us all bow our heads in fervent thanks.)

———————–

At first it seemed that he was simply sitting quietly in his room, waiting expectantly. But then, as the familiar giddiness crept into his head, everything began to change. Suddenly he was lying on the floor, held down as if by invisible Lilliputian bonds; the next moment, he was standing, and he and everything else in the room was a thousand times larger than before. He tried to take a step and moved as ponderously as a mountain. Shortly after, he was sitting crosslegged on the floor, his eyes closed against the distractions of the room. His breathing was deep and calm.

He waited.

—

The eagle fell upwards into brilliant blue sky. It beat its wings in smooth, powerful strokes, pushing, striving for altitude, brushing against an updraft and sliding into it, riding the warm bubble as it rose. Soaring, the bird looked to the horizon and called out in defiance, and was drawing its breath to call again when the buckshot tore through its body, opening its lungs to the air, releasing the breath in a wheeze. Gasping, dying, the eagle watched through dimming eyes as the trees spun up to catch it and

“I don’t know what you were thinking,” I told him, as he took off his shoes. I caught the raw, stale scent of the sweat on his shirt, in my hands. I dropped the shirt into the hamper. “Maybe we should go back.”

He sighed. “Love, it wouldn’t be any better back there, and you know it.” He stared up at me with those blue eyes. God, those eyes. “And we couldn’t be together there. Your mom’d never let me near you. At least here we’re together.”

I looked at him and smiled. He reached out his hand. I took it in mine and

He took a sip of water and resumed typing. Both models provide reasonable scenarios for the emergence of modern H. sapiens. The multiregional evolution model suggests that gene flow would provide the direction for evolution, by spreading new evolutionary changes throughout the species and providing opportunities for natural selection to work differently in various regions. Yeah, he thought, but we can’t connect regional variations between ancient and modern forms. Need to say something about that later. He checked the clock and

So, anyway, Bobby threw the ball to me, and I tried to catch it, but it went a little too high and flew over my head. When I turned around, I saw it bouncing over the sidewalk, and I ran after it, and it only went a little ways out into the street, so I went on after it. When I got to the ball and picked it up, I heard Mom yelling at me to get out of the street, and when I turned around to look at her I saw the truck coming. It was going really fast, too. I started to run and

He barked furiously at the shape in the yard, trying to scare it away. As a result, he couldn’t hear its voice until he paused for breath, and then he heard, “Ringo! Calm down, you silly dog!” Happy and relieved, he walked up to his master and

She pulled the handle and shoved the mower forward, watching with pleasure as the wild tufts of grass were sheared flat and spat out the side of the machine. Won’t take too much longer, she thought. She turned the corner and

Suddenly he had the rope around my neck and was pulling it tight. I felt the skin of my throat tearing under the friction, I felt the pain of the compression, but worse than both of those was the sudden inability to breathe. I instinctively dropped to my knees and rolled forward and

He could smell it as he opened the oven. Perfect, he thought. This is going to be delicious. He reached in with the potholders and

She listened to them shouting at each other for hours. When curiosity finally overcame her disgust, she put a glass up to the wall. She was frustrated to hear words that sounded vaguely like Arabic. She sighed and walked into the kitchen and

I pulled back on the stick and the plane began to climb. Gently, gently, not so fast; good. I hit the switch for the landing gear and

The eggs and bacon sizzled together in a puddle of grease and

Squirt bottle in hand, he crept up behind Chris and took aim. Suddenly Chris turned around and

The dead goldfish floated serenely at the top of its tank and

—

Alex awoke between sheets heavy with sweat. His eyes snapped open, trying to focus on the darkened ceiling above him. His hands were trembling.

–July 25, 1996

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