Tuesday, August 28, 2007

dragon ate the moon, I fell asleep

Last night I was up watching the lunar eclipse, at least the partial-to-full part. It stayed full so long that I went and lay down again, figuring to get up for the full-to-partial part. I woke up about 6 am, so I'll have to settle for whatever pics are up online.
Today I am not at my best.
What I noticed was that the more the moon was covered, the more visible the covered part became, till at last, rather than being a black slice, it was a round coal glowing under grey ash. The sky was clear and a great many constellations were visible. It surprised me how much light was coming from the sky even when the moon was quite hidden. Before the eclipse began, the moonlight laid sharp dark shadows across the back lawn, the sort of light that makes people say they could read by it. Once the eclipse was complete, there was still enough light from the sky that I could have walked about, but I wouldn't have trusted my depth perception, and I would have relied on knowing the place well.
Priscilla was confused greatly by my getting up and walking up and down stairs in the night. She charged up and down after me, and rushed outside when I opened the back door. When I sat on the bench outside, she followed more sedately and sat on the grass, near the place she sits in the daytime. Power of habit, I suppose, as I doubt there was any sun-warming left by then.

Has anyone ever come up with an explanation for vampires being able to tolerate moonlight but not sunlight? Given that moonlight is reflected sunlight? Varney the Vampire and Count Ruthven were rescusitated by the full light of the moon. But then I think they (and Dracula?) walked about in the daylight as well. I should see if I can find out when the Killer Sun was added to the mythos.
My astrologer-vampire ruminates about why silver should be harmful to vampires when moonlight is beneficial, given that silver is the metal of the moon. He doesn't come up with an answer.
And what do werewolves do when the full moon is eclipsed? Turn into hairless wolves?

Good news on the arthritis. I went to my second rheumatologist appointment, and it seems I'm having no ill effects from the meds thus far, and I can try dropping the Naproxen to one tablet a day instead of two--my choice as to which one to drop. The hydroxychloroquin stays as before, being the one I can expect to be on for good and all, barring serious side-effects.
I asked about prescription renewal, and my own doctor can do that, which will simplify things. I've entered yet another realm where everyone already present knows stuff that I don't, and they don't know what they need to tell me because none of it's new to them anymore.
I had a few minutes to look about the Arthritis Centre this time. The chairs in the waiting room are designed to allow people to hoist themselves in and out, and have accessories that can be attached to support the arms and so on. A rather queasy mix of relief and guilt that I didn't need those so far, and had biked to the centre on my cool black bike.

The 3-Day Novel contest is coming up, and this time I will be home for it, so my word count should be higher. I don't have an outline, only an assortment of images and motifs that will (I hope) come together into something resembling a storyline.
Yesterday I biked downtown to pick up more ginger teamix and snacky food to carry me through the weekend. On Friday I'll probably get a veggie plate and some other finger-food. Plus the plums are coming ripe. If I need a break I'll prep a few trays of plums for the dehydrator.
Once again, the challenge is to keep typing, to not stop to revise and tweak, to not dither about wordchoice, just to get it down. My feeling is that this will be a collage-y type of story, with different voices, so I should be able to jump around in time, get the beginning and ending down, then fill in the middle. Maybe I'll write a bunch of scene ideas on index cards and pull one out when I get stuck.
No all-nighters, though. I will eat and I will sleep. And I will try not to fuss about whether this story is as good as last year's. It's about the experience, not the judges.
Mark will be at September Crown. So he gets to go to the meetings instead of sending me. Mwa-haha.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, Barbara. I added a feed of this to my livejournal f-page. I hope you don't mind.

Dorothy Winsor

batgirl said...

No, I'm thrilled, actually! My LJ is bmlg if you'd like to friend me - I rarely post there, just use it to keep up with my friends and comment.
-Barbara

Anonymous said...

Great. I'll friend you on LJ too. My name there is dawtheminstrel.

Dorothy