Apr 09, 2007
Today (Monday) Gary successfully made his transfers and drove himself to and from school! Huge step in his independence, and I congratulated him. Now I’m waiting for him to do our grocery shopping himself ;-)
Monday morning at 10 I had an appointment with an orthopedic physician. I finally got in to see him about 11:15. One of my pet peeves is waiting around in doctors’ offices. (Another one is standing in lines, so I guess the common denominator is “waiting.”) These days I usually bring a hardcopy of my story to work on the revision if I think I’m going to have to spend time waiting, but I was at a sticking point in my story (and have been sort of stuck there since April 1st) and found it hard to concentrate on it in those surroundings.
Anyway, I finally got in to the doctor, and “Dr. Bob,” as he calls himself (I should have introduced myself as "Dr. Peg"), looked at my x-rays and at least gave me the good news that there is no sign of arthritis in the knees – nice big gaps between the bones. The bad news is he thinks I have torn the meniscus (cartilage between the bones). He gave me a prescription for an anti-inflammatory. I couldn’t read his writing, and after I filled the prescription I realized it was just naproxen which I probably could have bought OTC cheaper! He also set me up for physical therapy. They have the PT in the same office, and when I went over there to set up an appointment, they said I could have my first appt. right then, if I wanted it, which I did. They attached sensors to the muscles around the knee and took me through four exercises during which I was supposed to make this little monitor beep. I was surprised at how tough the exercises were – I thought they’d start me off easier, but the exercises were quite tiring and they made my shin ache. Actually, the PTs said they were starting me off easier because when they asked of my health history I told them I had CFS, though it was not as severe as it had been. All throughout one of the exercises, one of the PTs kept asking me about CFS. First of all, I’m not much of an exponent for anything, but even less so when I’m trying to concentrate on something else. I should have told him that some of my symptoms are cognitive, and in particular, I cannot keep my mind on two tasks at once – in this case, I couldn’t keep track of the number of reps I was on while talking to him. “I have no idea if that is five or ten,” I said at one point. “Guess you’ll have to start over again,” he said. He kept talking. I have no idea how many reps of that exercise I actually did.
They gave me a sheet with the four exercises on it and told me to do them daily. I will see them again on Friday. It was after 1 p.m. when I was finished, so I went home, had lunch, and then it was off to the chiropractor at 2 for about an hour – so Monday morning was shot taking care of my right leg and Monday afternoon was shot taking care of my left leg!
I have been doing the exercises at home, and they seem easier – not because I am getting better at them but because I don’t have some little machine I am supposed to make beep, and even though I try not to ease up on the exercises, I know I am – I give in to the aches when there is no taskmaster beeping at me.
Apr 11, 2007
Tonight I finally finished that scene in the story that had been giving me problems since April 1st. Even though I like it, I wonder what my critique group will say about it. It is the darkest scene in the story, I think. Originally it was only four paragraphs long, but now it is about eighteen double-spaced pages long. I wonder if they’ll find it too dark. Another potential problem is that it is a flashback, and I think there is some unspoken (or maybe, spoken) rule about not having long flashbacks. On the other hand, it is a revealing moment about one of the characters.
It is strange how sometimes I can like what I’ve written and then later not like the same passage – and sometimes later read it again and like it again.
I have problems figuring out locations for the scenes. Like, I decided I needed to have something occur in a rural area not too far from Los Angeles. So then I had to go online and figure out some place near L.A. that was rural. Then I had to figure out what might be on such rural property, what the surroundings might look like. I had to go online and look at real estate properties. I couldn’t find one for the original area I chose, so I had to keep looking around the internet until my requirements were met.
I can’t even describe a scene in a house without getting out a book I have on housing floor plans and picking out a house to use. This seems weird to me that I need to do this, but I am frozen in writing the scene until I do.
I also have problems with technical stuff. I don’t see how writers come up with scripts for movies like The Thomas Crown Affair, or the James Bond movies. I’d be stuck at, “But how does that really work?” In other words, I am not good at winging anything.
My desk is apparently not big enough. My cats have decided they are indispensable sources of inspiration to me, and that they can best perform this service by sitting on the desk next to me. Now, Blackjack alone is not too bad – he’ll usually leave a reasonable amount of space between the mouse and his head. Tigger, however, has to put his head right on the mouse, so that his head gets rubbed when I click the mouse. This he does whenever he is not trying to walk across the keyboard (I have lots of iuxp’s and other nonsense words in my story on account of him). Since Tigger will not ever let Blackjack be anywhere close to me without him trying to horn in, the real fun begins when the two of them are up on the desk curled up as close to me as they can get. It is very distracting to be trying to write and having two furballs in such proximity. And it doesn’t work to close the door on them – they will scratch at the door and/or howl until I let them back in.
*Sigh* I think I will have goldfish for my next pets. If they get obnoxious I can flush them down the toilet.
Today (Monday) Gary successfully made his transfers and drove himself to and from school! Huge step in his independence, and I congratulated him. Now I’m waiting for him to do our grocery shopping himself ;-)
Monday morning at 10 I had an appointment with an orthopedic physician. I finally got in to see him about 11:15. One of my pet peeves is waiting around in doctors’ offices. (Another one is standing in lines, so I guess the common denominator is “waiting.”) These days I usually bring a hardcopy of my story to work on the revision if I think I’m going to have to spend time waiting, but I was at a sticking point in my story (and have been sort of stuck there since April 1st) and found it hard to concentrate on it in those surroundings.
Anyway, I finally got in to the doctor, and “Dr. Bob,” as he calls himself (I should have introduced myself as "Dr. Peg"), looked at my x-rays and at least gave me the good news that there is no sign of arthritis in the knees – nice big gaps between the bones. The bad news is he thinks I have torn the meniscus (cartilage between the bones). He gave me a prescription for an anti-inflammatory. I couldn’t read his writing, and after I filled the prescription I realized it was just naproxen which I probably could have bought OTC cheaper! He also set me up for physical therapy. They have the PT in the same office, and when I went over there to set up an appointment, they said I could have my first appt. right then, if I wanted it, which I did. They attached sensors to the muscles around the knee and took me through four exercises during which I was supposed to make this little monitor beep. I was surprised at how tough the exercises were – I thought they’d start me off easier, but the exercises were quite tiring and they made my shin ache. Actually, the PTs said they were starting me off easier because when they asked of my health history I told them I had CFS, though it was not as severe as it had been. All throughout one of the exercises, one of the PTs kept asking me about CFS. First of all, I’m not much of an exponent for anything, but even less so when I’m trying to concentrate on something else. I should have told him that some of my symptoms are cognitive, and in particular, I cannot keep my mind on two tasks at once – in this case, I couldn’t keep track of the number of reps I was on while talking to him. “I have no idea if that is five or ten,” I said at one point. “Guess you’ll have to start over again,” he said. He kept talking. I have no idea how many reps of that exercise I actually did.
They gave me a sheet with the four exercises on it and told me to do them daily. I will see them again on Friday. It was after 1 p.m. when I was finished, so I went home, had lunch, and then it was off to the chiropractor at 2 for about an hour – so Monday morning was shot taking care of my right leg and Monday afternoon was shot taking care of my left leg!
I have been doing the exercises at home, and they seem easier – not because I am getting better at them but because I don’t have some little machine I am supposed to make beep, and even though I try not to ease up on the exercises, I know I am – I give in to the aches when there is no taskmaster beeping at me.
Apr 11, 2007
Tonight I finally finished that scene in the story that had been giving me problems since April 1st. Even though I like it, I wonder what my critique group will say about it. It is the darkest scene in the story, I think. Originally it was only four paragraphs long, but now it is about eighteen double-spaced pages long. I wonder if they’ll find it too dark. Another potential problem is that it is a flashback, and I think there is some unspoken (or maybe, spoken) rule about not having long flashbacks. On the other hand, it is a revealing moment about one of the characters.
It is strange how sometimes I can like what I’ve written and then later not like the same passage – and sometimes later read it again and like it again.
I have problems figuring out locations for the scenes. Like, I decided I needed to have something occur in a rural area not too far from Los Angeles. So then I had to go online and figure out some place near L.A. that was rural. Then I had to figure out what might be on such rural property, what the surroundings might look like. I had to go online and look at real estate properties. I couldn’t find one for the original area I chose, so I had to keep looking around the internet until my requirements were met.
I can’t even describe a scene in a house without getting out a book I have on housing floor plans and picking out a house to use. This seems weird to me that I need to do this, but I am frozen in writing the scene until I do.
I also have problems with technical stuff. I don’t see how writers come up with scripts for movies like The Thomas Crown Affair, or the James Bond movies. I’d be stuck at, “But how does that really work?” In other words, I am not good at winging anything.
My desk is apparently not big enough. My cats have decided they are indispensable sources of inspiration to me, and that they can best perform this service by sitting on the desk next to me. Now, Blackjack alone is not too bad – he’ll usually leave a reasonable amount of space between the mouse and his head. Tigger, however, has to put his head right on the mouse, so that his head gets rubbed when I click the mouse. This he does whenever he is not trying to walk across the keyboard (I have lots of iuxp’s and other nonsense words in my story on account of him). Since Tigger will not ever let Blackjack be anywhere close to me without him trying to horn in, the real fun begins when the two of them are up on the desk curled up as close to me as they can get. It is very distracting to be trying to write and having two furballs in such proximity. And it doesn’t work to close the door on them – they will scratch at the door and/or howl until I let them back in.
*Sigh* I think I will have goldfish for my next pets. If they get obnoxious I can flush them down the toilet.
posted by Peg Daniels at 8:21 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home