22 March 2005

Despite the basketball tournament snow, we got to Omaha safely and returned safely. It's tradition here: when the high school boys are playing their state basketball tournament, we get snow. It doesn't happen every year, but it's traditional all the same. I told Stella not to feel sure that the snow was over until the high school boys were done with their basketball tournament (perhaps not even then), but did she listen to me? Nooooooo.

Anyway, today it's sunny, and the snow is melting off, and it finally feels right to have the snow melting off. That's what snow does in late March. I missed having a real snowy Minnesota winter this year, but that doesn't mean we should skip spring to make up for it.

The trip to Omaha itself was good, but I threw my neck out, so I spent yesterday getting it fixed and feeling sore whenever I had to move my head. This was an improvement (I could move my head). It's still a little sore. The muscles involved feel righteously indignant at having to adjust to two different bone configurations in as many days. Advil is our friend.

I'm deliberately moving my head and neck around now, to remind the muscles not to scrinch up. I feel like Stevie Wonder.

I suspect that I don't look much like Stevie Wonder, actually. Nor even Ray Charles.

I'm currently reading Dorothy Dunnett's Checkmate, which is the last in this series and has a sort of momentum about it. I'm also reading the first bit of a friend's book for critique purposes. Sometimes reading books in chunks works for me for critique purposes and sometimes not. I tend to think of books as a whole unless they really don't work for me, is the problem. I think this one will go okay with some insights, maybe, but I can't be sure. I may end up saying a few things and then trailing off, "Aaaooooknow. Write the rest of the book and I'll tell you." I hope not, but it's at least a more reassuring response than, "For heaven's sake don't finish this as is."

I'm in one of those moods where everything reminds me of something else I have to get done. The up side is that I'm getting a lot done. The down side is that I think I will keel over in exhaustion by 8:00 p.m. And, of course, there will still be a list, because coming up with stuff to do is one of my main talents. I would blame my mother -- if I ever announced that I was bored, she would offer to find me something to do around the house, so I never did -- but some of the things I come up with to do are exactly the things she would have had me do as a kid, so I don't think it's all her fault.

Wait, not blame the parents? That's not the American way! Okay, so it's all Mom's fault somehow, or maybe the remaining bits are Dad's. I just don't know how yet. I'll figure it out later.

Blame the parents and procrastinate: now that's the American way.