the rest was gamma rays
Inevitably, the New Mexico family visit led to the question always asked by people who I only talk to every few months: "Any news on your book?"
"No," I say, "afraid not. You'll be the first to know." At some point—probably at Christmas, when my money runs out—this will mutate from an exercise in patience into something more sinister. Indifferent Universe, I only want to keep warm at night.
I have replaced the poo-puter with a new desktop featuring: a) a DVD drive; and b) a reelylong monitor cable; so if the mood strikes me I can lug the monitor over to the coffee table and enjoy fine movies from the comfort & privacy of my sofa. Or I would be able to, if I didn't have to go to Reno on Friday. One day I will find work in the city where I live, but God knows when. Anyway, now I can turn the laptop into a very expensive typewriter by wiping it clean of everything but Word, which one hopes will make it less jittery. Plus I had the idea (which I should have had three years ago) of using Word macros to compensate for the backspace and delete and enter keys that haven't worked since the Great Coffee Spill of 2000. I haven't done the laptop-in-coffee-house thing since the summer of that year, when I knocked out the terrible first draft of Approaching Zero over six weeks at the excellent Café Abir. It may be time to try that again.
