To the driver of the black pick-up going the other way who flashed his headlights at me to warn me about the speed trap just around the bend: THANK YOU!
On last night:
Had a blast at britzkrieg‘s birthday shindig. I was naughty and had a Tom Collins, although Matthew helped me finish it so I wasn’t that bad. My speaking voice appears to be at about the same tonal range as the background noise created by a bunch of other people in a room talking. In such situations I always feel like I’m shouting and people still lean close, give puzzled face, and say “what?” a lot at me. Sigh. I tried talking high and squeaky, and Matthew, at least, could hear me better then. But I felt too silly, even with several swallows of gin in me, to keep it up.
On writing:
Hacked at my new “weird” fantasy story a bit. Streamlined the prose a smidgen and added about 600 words (bringing it to around 7000 using manuscript count) to the ending to try to give it a little coherence. I think it’s now spilling over into Dark Fantasy or even Lite Horror, but I’m not sure. I seem to have a hard time labeling what I write. Sometimes I fit nice and snug into genre boundary lines (fairy/folk tales, for e.g.) and others I end up scrolling through all of Ralan.com trying to find a market which might possibly consider a cyberpunk vampire novelette or a SF-ey psychological horror tale. Argh.
Maybe I should just write more fairy tales.
On Hobkin:
I’m rather worried about the little fuzzhead. He’s got a really (really) sensitive tummy. Periodically, for no reason that we’ve been able to accurately pinpoint, he sicks up his food. At first, we thought it was just a young animal thing. Human babies do it all the time. But he’s no longer a baby, and from all the sources we’ve heard from in the skunk owners community, his case is pretty unique. He did it again this morning. He always seems fine right afterward. He’s active and usually hungry, but all this sicking up can’t possibly be good.
We’ve taken him to the vet and they can’t figure out what’s causing it either. Fortunately, they also reassure us that he seems perfectly healthy otherwise. He only sicks up occasionally, not enough to lose weight or run the risk of dehydration or malnutrition. But I’m so worried that things will get worse and he’ll stop eating or won’t be able to hold anything down.
Wah.
My speaking voice appears to be at about the same tonal range as the background noise created by a bunch of other people in a room talking.
I’ve been in that situation too, on both ends. It’s a real pain. Very inconsiderate of the Great Unwashed not to pick a different frequency. 🙂
Re: Hobkin — Have you tried keeping track of the circumstances surrounding his being sick? Not just what he ate, but when, what he’d been doing beforehand, where he was, things like that? It may even be something that you completely wouldn’t think of; a particular odour may set him off, for instance.
Get well wishes for the little guy!
“Have you tried keeping track of the circumstances surrounding his being sick?“
We kept a log of what he ate and when for a while, but then he didn’t sick up for a couple months, so we sort of slacked off. Looks like we should start that up again.
We have noticed that he tends to get an upset tummy more often when we have company staying with us. I think he gets territorial and then stresses out. But we don’t have company now, and he’s sicked up before when there hasn’t been anyone to threaten his space, so that can’t be the only trigger.
Wah!