Philip Brewer's Writing Progress

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Monday, 23 July 2001

I made some progress. I polished up one of the articles I was working on and submitted it. I also worked on my insurance story. It's at 1480 words now.

I brought my laptop in and did some writing today over lunch.

I had decided to bring my laptop in as soon as I got up, so when Jackie said there wasn't time to make me a lunch before going to lift weights, I decided to have lunch at Panera. That may seem odd, but in fact it is a very good indication of the way my brain works: I decided that because Panera used to have little signs on a few of their booths to indicate that there was an electric socket there, so you could plug in your laptop. Mind you, I had also decided not to bring in the charger, because the battery is good for well over three hours and there's no way I'd get in that much writing time. But that made no difference to my brain which had firmly associated with laptops with Panera.

I did get some writing done over lunch. Panera was crowded--there were no tables free inside when I got my food. So, I went and sat outside. Nobody else was sitting outside, even though several small groups of incipient diners (manghontoj in Esperanto) were circling the room, ready to pounce on any table that looked like it might come free. I guess they thought it was too hot. And it was pretty hot--over 90 certainly--and humid. But it was okay, sitting in the shade, out in the breeze. I barely worked up a sweat.


To warm up before lifting weights, Jackie and I usually go for a walk around the neighborhood of the Fitness Center. One route that we sometimes follow goes around Noel Park. There are some nice houses that back up to the park and one of those houses has a friendly cat named Greta.

The same house used to have another friendly cat named Grendel. For a long time we didn't see Grendel and I feared that she had met with some misfortune, but a few months ago I caught sight of her, so perhaps she just became more wary of strangers. (Grendel is such a good name for a cat that I was bitter over not having thought of it myself. Not that there aren't a thousand cats named Grendel. Or Rapunzel, for that matter: But I never knew a cat named Rapunzel before we named our cat, so it's okay.)

We saw Greta today. When we paused by her yard she ran over and struggled through some thick plantings along the back fence in order to get out to see us. Jackie and I sat down on the sidewalk and petted her for some time. She's much smaller than Rapunzel, and much less fierce. After playing with her for a few minutes we got up and headed on to the Fitness Center, but Greta followed us along the sidewalk for some distance. She's so small I was a bit worried about her being so far away from her own yard (although I dare say she probably knows the whole park, at least). But she seemed to know where to stop following.

At the Fitness Center they were in the middle of moving the weight machines that Jackie and I usually use. (They had a sign up saying that they'd be unavailable over the weekend, but they were still not available today.) Jackie and I made do with free weights (and a couple machines in the free weight room). We didn't get our whole workout in, but did okay, hitting the main muscles groups.


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