(Not to say that I wouldn't write on a holiday. I've written on Christmas evening before. I just didn't happen to do so on this particular holiday.)
New Words: 5800 (1150 / 1750 / 1200 / 1700) on chapter 3 ("The Hardscrabblers, 1929") of The Great Valley .
Total Words: 124150, including 100 words I just chopped out. Getting way up there fast.
Reasons For Stopping: Many great and sundry.
Book Year: 1931.
Mammalian Assistance: None, at least during the first few scenes each day. As I said the other day in my Facebook status, I no longer have a "Minimum Word Count" so much as a "Minimum Word Count Before I Let The Animals In The Writing Room".
Exercise: Mostly walks around campus with Laurie and the dogs. Our campus fitness center has been closed over Thanksgiving Break.
Stimulants: Some Dr. Pepper today, otherwise none.
Today's Opening Passage(s):
Tuesday: Evans Mountain grew lonelier with every passing year.
Wednesday: Though Daniel Evans was only twenty-four when the new decade rolled around, he'd been with the National Park Service for six years and was a seasoned veteran. Yet that didn’t stop him from constantly finding wonders in the forest—or make him immune to the growing awareness that much of the mountain land in the eastern Valley, along the Blue Ridge, was all but ruined.
Friday: Jackson entered his house half-asleep, barely managing to get his hat and coat on the rack by the door, wanting nothing more than to disappear into his office for awhile with a glass of…something. He was too sleepy to do more than protest when a maid grabbed his hand and pulled him wildly towards the stairs. When he finally realized she was babbling about Amelia he snapped awake and ran to the bedroom.
Saturday: By that winter Daniel realized he was trying to repair a ruined heart that was not his own.
Darling Du Jour: I'm rather fond of
She retreated to her porch and hunkered down in her rocking chair, despite the cold. The rocking barely warmed her but her anger did. She would not sell. And for that moment it felt as if so long as she could stay on her porch, rocking away against the tide of the Federal government, no one could get past her and snatch her home away from her. Again.
Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: Terraforming Earth, by Jack Williamson.
- Location:The Wherewithal To Wear Withal Land
- Mood:
hopeful - Music:"Lynchburg Town", by the 2nd South Carolina String Band
Tweaks and enhancements
- In order to improve site security, we've temporarily suspended the ability to change passwords for old email addresses that haven't been used for over six months. For further information and support, please visit our customer care page.
- We've launched a new mobile site with an enhanced UI at m.livejournal.com. View spotlights, post to your journal, read and post to friends pages, and more, no matter where you roam! Please let us know what you think, since this will eventually replace our existing mobile interface. You can update your mobile preferences on your account page.
- We've upgraded from Beacon to Facebook Connect to improve dual posting. If you've already signed up for Facebook Beacon, you're good to go. If you wish to update your Facebook Connect setting, visit Account Privacy settings and scroll down to the option labeled: "Send information about my updates to Facebook." You can choose Always or Ask each time. Remember to save (on the bottom left corner of the page). To learn more, check out FAQ 249. While we're on the subject, if you happen to be visiting that side of town, please join our Facebook fan page for a touch of home away from home.
- You'll now receive the Writer's Block Question of the Day in the body of email notifications. To sign up for Writer's Block notifications, visit
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif)
writersblock and choose the Watch Community option. Next, update your Writer's Block notification settings by checking the box to the right of "Someone posts a new entry to writersblock." - Paid and permanent users can now view, add, and edit Notes of commenters. Notes will appear beside the username of comment posters (instead of stars) on S1-themed comment pages.
Send some lovin' thanks to your friends with our holiday vgifts!
Photos of the week
We're so delighted with the immense talent of our growing, global lj_photophile community that we've decided to introduce a poll. Each week, we'll choose a half-dozen photos (based on user comments and staff feedback) and ask you to select a photo of the week. The winning photo will be announced in the next newsletter. If possible, please limit photo size to 350x350 to ensure that images display properly on friends pages. We want to thank you again (and again!) for sharing your passion.
Check out this week's photo poll and more fantastic user content after the jump!
( Read more... )
Curtains
Thanks for joining us. To our American friends, have a fantastic Thanksgiving. To all of our international neighbors, we'll eat a little extra for you!
Never, EVER watch or listen to this while in an altered state.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqQFWXWVB
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqQFWXWVB
I'm not saying this video is perfect in execution, but it kept on making me crack a smile, and for that I'll give it points:
Muppet Bohemian Rhapsody
Muppet Bohemian Rhapsody
- Mood:
tired
With everything else that's been happening lately, I completely forgot to post this: pictures of the two pictures I have up in the campus art gallery.
One of the professors here, Jeff Dalton, was putting together a pinhole camera show: taking paint cans with film in them, you point your can at your subject, brace it, lift a strip of electrical tape for 10-20 seconds depending on the light, then quickly seal it again. I volunteered, took my shot--a family graveyard next to an old farmhouse across the street from campus--and then volunteered for a second after some of the cameras didn't coming back. The second shot was of the remains of a chimney deep in the forest behind our house, which I've posted pictures of here before.
My pictures of the two shots aren't very good--though honestly, the originals aren't exactly digital quality! But I still had a lot of fun doing it, and the second picture included a 45-minute hike around Ferrum Mountain, so it was even better.
The showing included the photographs on top and the original negatives on the bottom.
The graveyard.
(I don't know what caused the swirling effect,
but I like it.)
If we do this again, the woods that contain the cemetery also contain another cemetery, complete with iron fence, that I discovered last year. I may make that my next subject.
One of the professors here, Jeff Dalton, was putting together a pinhole camera show: taking paint cans with film in them, you point your can at your subject, brace it, lift a strip of electrical tape for 10-20 seconds depending on the light, then quickly seal it again. I volunteered, took my shot--a family graveyard next to an old farmhouse across the street from campus--and then volunteered for a second after some of the cameras didn't coming back. The second shot was of the remains of a chimney deep in the forest behind our house, which I've posted pictures of here before.
My pictures of the two shots aren't very good--though honestly, the originals aren't exactly digital quality! But I still had a lot of fun doing it, and the second picture included a 45-minute hike around Ferrum Mountain, so it was even better.
The showing included the photographs on top and the original negatives on the bottom.
The graveyard.
(I don't know what caused the swirling effect,
but I like it.)
The chimney.
(Which you really can't see here,
but it's in the dead center of the shot.)
A sampling of our cameras
(with instructions still pasted to the cans).
If we do this again, the woods that contain the cemetery also contain another cemetery, complete with iron fence, that I discovered last year. I may make that my next subject.
- Location:Wanting Another Pinhole Camera Land
- Mood: chipper
- Music:"L-O-V-E"
New Words: 1300 on chapter 3 ("The Hardscrabblers, 1929") of The Great Valley.
Total Words: 118450.
Reason For Stopping: Late start, getting a bit sleepy, and ended the scene.
Book Year: 1930.
Mammalian Assistance: None.
Exercise: Walked with Laurie and the dogs around campus.
Stimulants: None.
Today's Opening Passage: “The secret to not getting caught,” Boone Gillespie told his 10-year-old son Bobby, “is to not look like you’re doing something that needs catching.”
Darling Du Jour: As long as the moonshine flowed, the Gillespies could keep their heads above water, and their chins up while they were at it.
Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: Creation by Gore Vidal.
- Location:Morning At The Library And Waiting For Thanksgiving Break
- Mood:
hungry - Music:Music from *The 10th Kingdom*
Dancing at Technicon. It was where I met her, and one of my favorite places to find her.
Staying up Way too late before my court date at her place after my accident in '04. Watching tv, and just chatting.
Parties at Dave and Kayla's.
Lots of bright, sunny smiles, laughter.
Staying up Way too late before my court date at her place after my accident in '04. Watching tv, and just chatting.
Parties at Dave and Kayla's.
Lots of bright, sunny smiles, laughter.
- Mood:
sad
Up until Saturday I was occasionally getting slapped with the doleful thought, I'm almost 40.
Then Saturday, on the hike, the same thought suddenly altered slightly and brightened considerably: I'm almost 40 and I can still hike up to McAfee's Knob and back!
My 20-year-old Self would snerk at me for having a belly...but be secretly proud that 40-year-old Self could still make a 7-mile Appalachian Trail hike.
Now if I can just keep it up for another 30 or 40 years...
Then Saturday, on the hike, the same thought suddenly altered slightly and brightened considerably: I'm almost 40 and I can still hike up to McAfee's Knob and back!
My 20-year-old Self would snerk at me for having a belly...but be secretly proud that 40-year-old Self could still make a 7-mile Appalachian Trail hike.
Now if I can just keep it up for another 30 or 40 years...
- Location:Sitting At A Desk But Only For Now Land
- Mood: optimistic
- Music:"Enterprising Young Men", from *Star Trek*
4 years ago today, we lost someone dear to us. Hugs to you all. Cat, I miss you still, though I didn't get to spend nearly as much time with you as either of us would have liked, I miss you. This day is a hard one. We will get through it, like all the others, one breath at a time. Enjoy the memories, even the painful ones. At least She was able to touch our lives while she was here.
- Mood:
melancholy
--Amelia Earhart
The day after Jess' death there was talk of doing a hike in her memory on Saturday--she was zealous about hiking (even more than me in younger years), and it seemed like a great way to honor her. One of the Outdoor Rec students messaged me on FB to talk about some tentative hiking plans; he and I both thought of McAfee's Knob, a gorgeous hike and summit on the Appalachian Trail that she had done before. The next day it came out that her memorial service at home (Winchester, VA) would be Saturday so there was no more talk (yet) about a hike--but I couldn't get to Winchester, so I just decided to do the hike myself.
Laurie and I found a gorgeous day on the mountain: sunny, not too breezy, and highs in the upper 50s. As close to perfect as you can expect in the Virginia Blue Ridge in late November. A wonderful day, a wonderful hike, and the farther we trekked the more I remembered about Jess, including from our first conversation--when we talked mostly, appropriately enough, about hiking.
This was also the first McAfee's hike I'd done in the wintertime since 1995, and I forgot how beautiful the light was, and how much more water runs down the mountainside when it's not so hot and dry out. The whole day was the definition of bittersweet.
My first glimpse of the great sunlight.
- Location:I Never Get Enough Of That Mountain Land
- Mood: mellow
- Music:The wind over a peak
A sudden memory stopped me in my tracks this morning and sent a chill up my spine.
On October 20th I wrote the following excerpt in my daily (handwritten) journal: I got to the (fitness center), spent 20 mins. on the elliptical chatting w/ Jess Goode, then 3 resistance machines, inc. 90 ab crunches.
This was the only time I ever mentioned her in my journal--and I wrote about her in passing, not realizing I'd done it till it was done. At the time I didn't know why I felt compelled to add a note about chatting with her that one time. But the reason it sent a chill up my spine was because I suddenly realized that this session on the elliptical machines with her was the last time I ever talked to her in person.
We swapped some e-mails after that. I saw her at the library a few times, smiling and nodding (or waving) as we passed each other. But October 20th, almost a month before she died, was the last time I stood next to her and we talked. For reasons unknown to me at the time I felt the need to record that we had.
And some people wonder why I believe certain events have meaning--particularly if we don't recognize that meaning at the time.
On October 20th I wrote the following excerpt in my daily (handwritten) journal: I got to the (fitness center), spent 20 mins. on the elliptical chatting w/ Jess Goode, then 3 resistance machines, inc. 90 ab crunches.
This was the only time I ever mentioned her in my journal--and I wrote about her in passing, not realizing I'd done it till it was done. At the time I didn't know why I felt compelled to add a note about chatting with her that one time. But the reason it sent a chill up my spine was because I suddenly realized that this session on the elliptical machines with her was the last time I ever talked to her in person.
We swapped some e-mails after that. I saw her at the library a few times, smiling and nodding (or waving) as we passed each other. But October 20th, almost a month before she died, was the last time I stood next to her and we talked. For reasons unknown to me at the time I felt the need to record that we had.
And some people wonder why I believe certain events have meaning--particularly if we don't recognize that meaning at the time.
- Location:Thinking Of Missed Opportunities
- Mood:
frustrated
Profile
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
team_kitty- team_kitty
Page Summary
- madwriter : Writing Through The Holiday Season [+0]
- pearlswine :: jfboyd : 11.27.09 [+14]
- pearlswine :: jfboyd : Thanksgiving 2009 (U.S.) [+12]
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/newsinfo.gif)
news :: theljstaff : LiveJournal Major Notes: Security, Mobile, Facebook, Writer's Block, and Notes [+161] - stephaniesmom : OMG [+2]
- pearlswine :: jfboyd : 11.25.09 [+4]
- mikailborg : Any Way The Wind Blows [+0]
- madwriter : In Which I Take 19th Century Pictures [+1]
- madwriter : Settling Back Into Normalcy [+0]
- pearlswine :: jfboyd : 11.24.09 [+6]
- stephaniesmom : (no subject) [+0]
- madwriter : Paradigm Shift [+12]
- stephaniesmom : 4 years [+0]
- pearlswine :: jfboyd : 11.23.09 [+12]
- madwriter : McAfee's Knob Memorial Hike, Part Two (With 12 Photos) [+14]
- madwriter : McAfee's Knob Memorial Hike, Part One (With 13 Photos) [+0]
- pearlswine :: jfboyd : 11.22.09 [+14]
- madwriter : Jess And A (Good Kind Of) Chill [+2]
- pearlswine :: jfboyd : 11.21.09 [+4]
- pearlswine :: jfboyd : 11.20.09 [+3]