BH: um, thinking?
unnamed antho story: research, mulling
exercise: um, sweating?

Yowsh. Long day. I want to write, but I’m not sure what to work on. It can’t take too much brain power. [g]

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We got up today, lounged, ate breakfast, etc., and finally got on our way, running a couple of errands and eating lunch at Quizno’s Subs before we headed north. By that time, it was getting hot. I mean, really hot. And we were going through the desert. Yeah, the desert. That’s how hot it was. It hit 101° before it was over. Told you it was hot. We couldn’t find my summer riding gloves before we left, either. We were guzzling water and still feeling dehydrated. Yuck and double-yuck.

But then we got to the Feline Conservation Centre, slathered on sunscreen, and visited the big kitties! Panthers and jaguars and pumas, oh my! And more fishing cats than last year, because they procreated! The tigers and lions are still almost impossible to see, because they haven’t finished building the new tiger area (although there’s a building and pools where there was nothing before). I was surprised that it was taking so long for a nonprofit to raise $75K, and even more surprised that $75K was all that was needed. But then, this ain’t the San Francisco Zoo; this is a struggling breeding center in the middle of the goddamn desert. (Did I mention it was hot?)

We didn’t scatter Eclipse’s ashes; we’ve decided to wait until we order her commemorative brick for the walkway.

Then we continued into the heat, to stop a few miles away at a Foster’s Freeze for ice cream before heading way home. Our goal was to wind our way up into the mountains and through the Angeles National Forest, where it would be cooler, and prettier, and more fun. So we did. We went from desert, to scrubby plants, to towering pines and alpine vistas. From 101° to 68°, blissfully. Alas, the road we were on proved to be closed halfway through (probably for the holiday weekend, to deter a mass of bikers). We stopped at an overlook/parking lot for hikers, and I saw a lizard, and we took pictures of the mountain that still had snow on it, and sat on a shady bench, and found an alternate route home. Said route led us through a resort town with A-frame wooden houses and thicker pines, and made me homesick for my Adirondacks. I want to go back to the motel that was advertising hot tubs and woodstoves…

The road started down, and went through an area of scrubby plants with these bizarre tall stalk plants sticking up above everything. Ken thought they may have been bottle brushes? They were truly alien.They looked like they were massing to march and attack. They were slender, then poofed into a pale, off-white mass of growth.

We found a really fun bump in the road and had to go over it six times, as we always do when we find fun bumps. That was in an area of weird hills, huge rounded stark sandstone lumps with pockmarks in them. They reminded me of the scene in Galaxy Quest with the rock monster.

After all that amusement, we hit the freeways for home. Except that an hour from home, we determined that we were hungry, and had nothing in the house that would make for a quick meal (and it’s hard to find nutritious snacks on the road). So we stopped for supper; nothing fancy. Then we continued on, and came home, and I showered and made phone calls and dealt with e-mail and GWW stuff. And that catches us up to now.

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So, no writing so far, but I’ve been researching for that antho I mentioned yesterday. One of the things Kris and Dean tried to beat into our heads was professionalism. This is a job, this writing thing, and you meet deadlines, period. If an antho editor calls you on a Friday night and says he has a hole in an upcoming antho and it’s about to go to press and he needs a story by Monday, your only appropriate response is “How many words would you like my story to be?” (You have maybe—_maybe_—once chance to say no—but your reason had better involve death.) Anyway, Kris told the story of the time an editor called Dean and asked for a story about Wallace Simpson. Dean said okay, hung up, turned to Kris, and said, “Who’s he?”

That’s how I feel right now. I’m starting with nothing, nothing that I have to turn into something. The process can be terrifying or exciting. I’m trying to fall on the exciting side.