Friday, 27 July 2001

The days are already getting shorter. That's only to be expected, more than a month after the solstice. But it makes me sad.

Around here we get what is probably our best weather in the fall. September and October are usually great months. Sometimes we get long Indian summers that last well into November. But it is very easy for me to ruin all that great weather by spending all of my time dreading the approaching long dark nights.

I see this as foolish. What sort of person starts worrying about winter in July? But I do. It doesn't start the instant the solstice passes, but about now: As soon as I notice that the sun is barely up when we head out to the Fitness Center at 6:00 in the morning, I start thinking of December and January when it is not only dark when I go to the Fitness Center but dark when I come out again and still dark when I get to work. As soon as I notice that the street lights have come on when it is barely after 8:00 in the evening, I start thinking about how, in the winter, it has already been dark for an hour when I head home from work, even when I head home a little early.

These past two years it's been a little better, partly because we've had long falls. Jackie likes fall the best. I'm trying to learn from her.

I'm writing at work. That is, creating a document is my main work task this week. Over the years, probably 20% of what I've done has been writing prose in some form or another. I kind of like it. But when it is the main thing I do at work I find it harder to write in the evenings.

Even so, I have big plans for the weekend. I want to finish my story. That'll be a couple thousand words, entirely doable in one long day or two easy days. Once I get that done, I want to get to revising my Clarion stories. I'm still not sure which one to do first, but right now I'm thinking the Sthii story, since I wrote it before Clarion and I want to see if any of the things I've learned can be brought to bare on it. Besides, Kelly Link liked it.

Besides writing and revising I want to get in a run and a workout. I want to spend some time outdoors. I want to read. Maybe a long walk with Jackie. She got to go for a long walk today: We met for lunch, then I took her and a big bag of library books to the library and dropped her off. She got to walk home. Maybe we should walk to the library together.

I'm looking forward to it, whatever it is.