Disconnected Rambling, with Pictures

Update If you tried to read this post and noticed that there was no jump, I apologize. My .html coding skills are not what they once were. It's all good now.

Ah, me. Sorry for the extended absence. I've had a rather lousy week, and by Wednesday had no desire whatsoever to talk to anyone. Fortunately the week is behind me and I can look back on it and say it wasn't so bad at all.

So, I sat down to write up a little ditty about the week, each day, what awful things happened, and so forth, and I realized I could scarcely remember Monday or Tuesday at all. I got drunk on Wednesday because I was depressed, and, well, sometimes when you drink to forget, it works. By Thursday things were better; Friday was terrific. Today would have been great if my bike tire wasn't flat; as it is I can't even get to the library as I'd like to do, much less take my usual weekend ride round downtown to check on the construction. There's more after the jump.


Riding a bicycle around town to look at construction seems a bit weird, I'll warrant, until you realize just exactly how many construction projects are going on down here. And that I should do so on Saturday simply relates to my not having a death wish. Riding downtown isn't particularly brilliant even on Saturday, because of the quality of the sidewalks, but of course if I were to point that out to our wonderful mayor she would no doubt inform me that it's illegal for me to ride on the sidewalk anyway. And riding on certain of the roads would very much require a death wish.


My normal bike ride takes in 11 active construction sites, plus three more that seem to be stalled, and a few soon-to-become construction sites. I took this handy picture just this afternoon from my porch--click on it for a bigger view. I may repost this in the huge original size (my camera takes pictures at about 12x15 inches), so check back. There are 8 cranes in it, but you can be forgiven for only being able to see five of them. It will probably be another few weeks before the really large crane goes up at Trump Tower Tampa; meanwhile, many of the newer buildings in Channelside I will never see from my porch. I wish I had a room in the 20th floor of this building... if there was a 20th floor in this building.

In any event, I have been too lazy today to go buy a new tube for the bike, so it appears I shall do no riding this weekend at all. Oh well. A project for later in the week, like vacuuming out the car and such.

I did brush the cat today. Per request, here is another picture of Cinders, looking vexed because I woke him up with the flash. This picture does a slightly better job of showing his full size, but he’s the sort of cat you have to meet in the flesh. For all his dimensional capaciousness, he has the tiny squeaky cry you’d associate with a kitten, except a lot louder. And a lot more of it. I’ve figured out about four or five of his words well enough that I don’t think I’m insulting him when I talk to him. But I am probably just repeating, "feed me," over and over again.

So anyway, back to my week. Wednesday, as I mentioned, drove me to drink, but while so doing I sat down and wrote a six page letter to myself and seem to have straightened out most of what was going wrong. I've written a good many letters to myself over the years; they're not the sort of things that see the light of day (except in rare cases). In this letter, I did at least address a few problems: The Artiste is bored, and I'm overscheduling myself. So I spent some time Thursday evening, and again today, at work on Lauderdale (working title), not actually writing but at least sketching things out and thinking about the novel. That seems to have helped somewhat. And I gave up my carefully plotted designs on the rest of the week and decided to just go with the flow.

That's what I normally used to do, anyway. I've never been the type to make extensive plans for my time, or to follow them when I have. Five years ago I took a 10-day trip to France with only the most general idea of what I might do once I got there; this annoyed my father to a hilarious degree. As it was, I missed both the Eiffel Tower and the last bus out of Carnac for the night (forcing me to hire a cab, though I speak no French and he spoke no English), reason enough I suppose to at least do a bit of planning for some things. But, really, why bother? One of the most amusing memories of the whole trip is missing that bus.

In the last year or so though I've developed the habit of, by Sunday evening, having something of a plan for the entire week. I then get irritated when, bit by bit, the plan falls away, as it nearly always does. Then, every evening when I come home and don't have time to do something I'd planned to do all week, I get miffed and mope around, watch tv and chat on the internet all night and then wonder why in the hell nothing gets done.

So I've officially given up on scheduling events. Aside from long vacations, of course; I don't have to plan the vacation itself, but I do have to figure out when to take it. Try scheduling three weeks' leave with only a day or two notice some time and you'll see what I mean. We'll see how it goes; it's always possible this could result in my never cleaning the house again, or in not working on Lauderdale but once every few weeks, but I'm sure that won't happen; I managed to clean much of the house today, but unlike in previous weekends I didn't plan an extensive list of chores for today, just did what seemed necessary. It does, however, mean that since I won't have an intricate plan for every evening, I'll be available to do things, so feel free to invite me to dinner. I might even pay.

This has already had positive effects. Because I hadn't planned to spend the evening writing (Friday is one of the few nights I can safely start writing at 8 and get in four or five hours of work without paying for it the next day; note that this does not always mean I actually work on the book for four or five hours, given my laziness and dissatisfaction with everything lately), I finally felt free--for the first time in, what, a year? more?--to go out on a Friday night. Yes, that's right! I went out socially! I'll be riding this high for a week or two.

Of course, that high will stem at least in part from comments made during the evening, in jest, that I must be on steroids. That may sound an odd thing, but I've been working rather hard in the gym of late and it's nice when other people notice that. Now I must put it out of my mind and not start thinking I'm some sort of pulchritudinous (couldn't resist that word) Adonis. A brief glance in the mirror should do the trick... ah, that feels better. On to other topics.

Anyway, now that I finally feel free again and can do things when I want to instead of when I arbitrarily decided I should six days ago, I think I'll go and put on some dinner and watch a movie. I've had it in the house for days, you know. A review will, no doubt, be forthcoming.

Oh, for your viewing pleasure, here is another snap of downtown I took several days ago, the first day we had any real rain this past week. I just love storms, don't you? You'd better, if you live here.