What I’m Doing With My Sunday
Posted on June 22, 2014 Posted by John Scalzi 38 Comments
Prepping my playlist for the 80s dance I’ll be DJing at Detcon1 this July. If you’re going to Detcon1 and don’t show up to the dance, I will be quite put out.
This song, for one, will definitely make the playlist.
And what are you doing with your Sunday?
Washed my car, getting ready to pull some weeds, then put on my well worn US soccer t-shirt for the USA vs Portugal match. That is my Sunday in a nutshell.
With work and outside commitments, I need to push some things permanently off my plate. Today is that day. Trying to decide what to keep and what to give up. Never a good thing because my personality says keep it all.
Fragmented sleep (PTSD, death of our beloved 18-year-old dog Monday) so up 3-5 a.m. writing 700 word chapter “What is a Jew?” (1935 Nurenburg laws) of novel begun 31 May 2014 “Anomaly-Austria”, about Hitler Versus Einstein, and the Spear of Destiny, 162 pages, 52,550 words total so far.
Sitting with my autistic son while he is taking a nap & playing gin rummy on my smart phone. And as always waiting for the next update to Whatever.
Giving half a dozen headlines that end with a “?” the finger (not really, to much effort), waiting for the second cup of coffee to soak in, and listening to an old favorite – Mirror in the Bathroom by the English Beat.
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“Will Shale Solve Their Energy Problems?” Silly headline (sung to the tune of ‘Tricks are for kids’), no. But for an absurdly narrow definition of “energy problems” “Can It?” is (absent corruption, stupidity and enemy sabotage) almost worth thinking about.
Plodding through the list of museums in Athens which will be open when I spend a couple of days there prior to getting on a ship to Istanbul; it is going to be very, very hot and good museums have good air con. Equally, arriving at a museum only to discover it is closed can be a tad irritating, so I’m doing my preliminary sift now.
As Sundays go this is a good one…
Working on chapter five of my new novel. It centres around not very bright shape-shifting robots finding a new purpose in the midst of a robot uprising. Quebec language laws also feature prominently. It may not be as cool as preparing to DJ, but it’s the coolest thing I can imagine doing with my Sunday afternoon. :-)
1. Prepping our son for his math examination on Monday.
2. Putting food on the table.
3. Watching football (Belgium v. Russia, 1-0, good result for us Belgians but bad football)
4. Starting to work (Tuesday = a deadline day, and I only this morning got everything I needed to start, so no stress there)
5.Reading a chapter or two in Joe Abercrombie’s ‘The Heroes’
6. Falling asleep in the couch
So far I’m stuck in n° 4. 5 and 6 still a loooong way off, I’m afraid.
Took Dog #1 to the vet for probable UTI. Got home, ate a snack in lieu of lunch, then back to the vet with Dog #2 for what turned out to be a semi-hidden injury inflicted by Dog #1 before the first vet trip. Injury isn’t too serious, and Dog #2 was probably not an innocent victim. Now both dogs are napping, time for me to work on the MuseCon program book, which was my original plan for the day.
Not much noteworthy going on around here, unless you count the fact that I think I just suckered myself into crocheting at least four ponchos, of varying colors, sizes, and difficulty levels, for friends of mine. Friend #1 put the pattern on FB as a joke, I foolishly replied “Pshaw, if that’s crochet, I can make that, no problem,” he replied “Wow, can you really?” and next thing I know, Friends #2, 3, and 4 all chimed in and said “We’d love it if you made the other ponchos for us!” At that point I told everybody they’d have to pay for my efforts, and I haven’t heard back since. So I may be very busy for the next few months, maybe not. :-)
Take some serious ear plugs. I mean it is 80’s music after all….
Sleeping too late, eating too much brunch, lazily poking around on the Internet.
Green tomato/spinach/gouda omelet at The Grit was yummy.
If it’s okay to report progress… Flexner headed the Institute for Advanced Study.
[Incomplete Draft 56.0 of 12:12-12:38 p.m., 22 June 2014, 164 pages, adds 800 words, to 53,350 words total]
…
Part XXXXIX: Einstein in Dimension
Flexner was afraid that public attention directed at Einstein would spark hostility towards German refugees, and amplify anti-Semitic sentiments. Einstein didn’t know, but Flexner was opening and reading Einstein’s mail.
Flexner even intercepted the invitation to Einstein from President Roosevelt.
In January 1934, Einstein and Elsa were received at the White House.
Albert and Elsa dined privately with Franklin and Eleanor, then spent the night in the Franklin Room.
Obviously, a lot of the conversation was on foreign policy, more and more in the shadow of Hitler, and domestic policy, this still being The Great Depression.
The women tired of politics before the men…
At the moment, sipping a 15-year Balvenie and listening to Rush.
Dragged a huge Ficus out through a medium sized door and gave it a good pruning and washing. It’ll come back in in September.
Figuring out what to pack for a two day trip tomorrow from Detroit to New Orleans. Doesn’t matter though. I’m gonna sweat buckets no matter what.
@Michael Walters: Outstanding :-)
Procrastinating research by adding to a wiki page some cons that have adopted anti-harassment policies (http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment/Adoption#Speculative_Fiction_and_Fandom_Conventions). You would not believe how many have adopted in the past year or so. What’s up with that? ;)
Did a long bike ride with a friend then watched the National Day celebration of my temporary country. A good day all around.
It would be lovely if you would share your playlist after the event, should you be so inclined.
Still in recovery mode after participating in a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society from Friday morning to Saturday afternoon. If I was going to be totally honest, I would admit that I am a bit too old and decrepit for that kind of thing any more, but I do it anyway. Because, reasons.
Other than that, having a good time with Younger Kid and his girlfriend (both of whom traveled from the other side of the state to participate in the ACS event), doing a bit of laundry, trying to get all the fundraiser supplies sorted out and put away for another year, and slipping into the occasional brief nap in my chair.
Let’s see…the laundry is done, my windows are spotless, and I’ve created a bunch of new graphics. I _must_ be writing to a deadline.
Reading, watching the football (congrats, Belgium!) more reading, some house-cleaning, more football watching (so far, not so good for the US. I’m Dutch but very pro-USA here: can’t stand the Portugese team…) after which probably more reading.
I should be practicing reading poems aloud. I promised a guy I know I would read some of my poems at a small cultural festival he’s organising in a village in the North of the Czech Republic. Not looking forward to that: first time – and last time I’ll be doing this.
Reminder to self: when you promise someone to do X in a half year’s time, only say yes if you would be happy to do the same thing the next day too.
Sitting in a roadside rest on I95, about 100 miles north of Miami, waiting until 4 AM when I can drive into Boca Raton and make my delivery. I’m hoping it will drop below 80 once the sun sets. It
1-1
YusAY!
Drove to Seal Beach (SoCal), parked my butt in a beach chair under an umbrella near the pier, and read Lewis Black’s Me Of Little Faith. Two slices of pizza on Main Street, a little people watching, then a ride home with the top down. And NO TRAFFIC!! Amazing.
Spent an hour discussing theology with my Sunday not-a-church-church group at our favourite cafe, settled in for an afternoon of Serious Jigsaw Puzzle Assembly and then fetched my parents’ new German friend from the airport (they met last week at a backpackers in Auckland. As you do…)
Not bad all up considering I had to work Sat :S
Engagement photography session with a young couple in love.
Too cute!!!
Besides that the usual laundry, bill paying and typical domestic weekend activities.
I spent my Sunday mostly playing “Spandex Force: Champion Rising”, which is basically a bunch of “match three” style mini-games strung together by something which is similar to, but almost completely unlike, a plot. Given I was operating off about five hours sleep, it seemed a thoroughly worthwhile effort for the day.
(Why was I low on sleep? Well, I tried to stay awake for the full 24 hours of the solstice. Managed 6.55am on Saturday until about 3.25am on Sunday morning, when I crashed hard. Woke up again about 8.30am Sunday, and spent the day as described above).
Galloping our horse Byline, enduring comments from wife about how I’m ruining his gaits (he’s a Tennesee Walker), calling my folks while she takes Byline out for remedials; reading old favorites … usual stuff.
Aw, darn, I’m going to miss a Scalzi DJed party? DetCon is the week I’m off at Sirius Rising, otherwise I’d be there. When is someone going to invent a way I can be two places at once, darn it?
Tested out camping gear this weekend, in anticipation of a week of camping and you don’t want to find out then that things are broken. Which they’re not, thanks to duct tape and a stake, but we really need more stakes. And sleeping in a tent not far from a chicken coop makes for a considerably earlier morning than sleeping not far from random pagans.
Selling pottery at the Fremont Fair in Seattle. Naked bicycle parade was yesterday, so today people (with pockets) were actually taking money out of them and buying things. Also, the booth across the street was selling geek fashion, including little steampunk hats in blue with “POLICE BOX” on the hat band. with an LED on top…
Er, today’s Monday on this side of the world. I spent it putting castors on my guitar amp, fixing a stool that’s been out of commisstion for months’ and playing in the rain runoff between squalls with my daughter. (None the leaf-boats we sent down the drainage pipe came out the other side. Trolls are suspected.)
I ate amazing food with friends, then caught a burlesque show tribute to the music of Queen. I’m pretty satisfied with that, as Sundays go.
Watching John Kusack stab a guy in the throat with a pen. Obviously.
Stephen McNeil– Cusack, but yeah, that’s the first thing I thought of, too.
It’s karma I tell you…this morning I see you posting a fine fine video…then I see that Dave Wakeling is looking to put out a NEW English Beat album!
http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2014/06/23/english-beat-pledgemusic-campaign-dave-wakeling/
I am now a very very happy man!
I was prepping playlists too! For a swing and blues dance I DJed Sunday night. Also teaching a waltz class, writing carefully grammatical but weirdly phrased sentences in Russian on VKontakte (Russian Facebook), and discussing how to teach people to figure out the dates on some Regency-era music pamphlets, which is one of my Dance Historian Superpowers.
It’s lovely that all of that counts as work. :)
Between weekend traveling, weekend guests, volunteer work, and a 16-week Spanish course I took in 5 weeks, I’ve gotten behind in everything, so I apologize that it has taken me this long to make this request:
Can you please play Small Town Boy by Bronski Beat? It’s a song I keep thinking of as gay marriage keeps gaining in acceptance. It always makes me cry, but it also makes me think of how far we’ve come and how far we will go in the future.
I don’t usually dance but if you play this or any other English Beat I will. Great band.