foolish endeavors

I paid $50 for a .pdf file of a 109-page color booklet on converting a car to run partially on water which I had to print out once I realized that there was no "kit" coming in the mail. It was a foolish endeavor to begin with -- I followed a Google ad at the top of my gmail box -- but I felt like I had done my research, though the research I did was on whether the conversion kit would work. "Anybody can install it!" the ad claimed. But shit, I didn't know I was gonna have to build the thing, too!

Fortunately I've got J on my team. Or do I? I offered to pay him to install the kit, but he refused payment because the project sounded exciting to him. I don't know if building the contraption will excite him as much. Well, yeah, I know it would excite him under normal circumstances, but his plate is kinda full right now, what with working on our house, working on the fishing reel he designed, and other project he's got going (two cars, a beer still in an old Airstream, their house projects, a fence around the property, and on and on).

Oh, well, I got a check for $51 for being an extra on some cable TV show called "Friday Night Lights" (never seen it), so I can kind of call it even, even though I would've made twice that had I stayed home and worked my regular job, but, oh, well, beggars/choosers, blah-blah-blah

I set out to write last night, set an alarm, pulled out all the paperwork and folders and binders and boxes, and then S came in with the offer of dinner. We had his squash and okra New Mexico Stew over polenta -- mm-mm! -- and then root beer floats (our daily obsession this summer). I kept time and reset the alarm for another 45 minutes later, but my work consisted more of organizing than writing. It was a necessary deed, but a bit tedious. There were moments of creative juiciness, particularly with the direction the "journey home" chapter is taking.

I made tabs out of pink and green post-it notes cut to slivers just big enough for chapter numbers (pink for first draft complete, green for in progress), 34 in all, and taped them to the first pages of each chapter or chapter notes. I'm happy to report that there are more pink ones than green ones.

S has a film class on Tuesday evenings (7-10), so I think it would work out better for me to schedule my weekly writing time for Tuesdays, since I sometimes find the kitchen table a nice place to sprawl with all my stuff. I love that table; I think it should go in the upstairs container when we move; I really want the upstairs porch (or "hanging porch," as my neighbor R called it) to be a comfortable place to hang and relax and create or whatever. It has to be at least as wonderful as the porch we have now. I wonder if we'll really have to screen it in, or if the fact that it's ten feet in the air will make the mosquitoes less bothersome. Hm...

I feel kind of stuck as to where I should start writing. S suggested working on whatever inspires me, new stuff not rewrites. I guess it doesn't have to be the same thing every week. We'll see when the time comes.

Speaking of the house, I've been studying up on cob building and I got a big idea to make the west wall out of cob, maybe even build a fireplace into it... Of course, it's something I would have to get approval on from J&M, and it's another something that would get put on J's plate, to some extent, because he would have to bother himself at the very least with working this element into the overall design. But I think a cob wall would be very cool, aesthetically as well as temperature-wise.

I am totally obsessed with a game called Tris (don't even know how to pronounce it), an application on my iPhone.