dr_pretentious | Farewell, Bodacious Redheads of Seabright

paganpilgrim threw their parting potlatch party tonight in an effort to unload even more of their worldly goods before they go adventuring.

paganpilgrim's going to work on a sailing ship from Thailand to Gibraltar by way of the Maldives and the Suez Canal, and

soleilfire is going down to New Orleans to work at an anarchist food bank. I suppose it's not surprising that, when FEMA barred the Red Cross from feeding the hungry in a disaster area, the anarchists were undeterred. Anyhow, there's still plenty of misery left down there to keep busy anyone who wants to alleviate it. Nobody knows when either of our bodacious redheads will return, once they take off, or whether they'll ever come back to stay. I'm downright melancholy about that.

I like to imagine that if, when I was just cresting thirty, I had been single and able-bodied, I'd have taken off on that kind of grand adventure. But then, it's kind of hard to imagine what it would be like to be either single or able-bodied, at this point. At least the good fortune more than outweighs the bad on those two scores.

Other reasons it does not suck to be me:

1.
Within five minutes of our arrival at the party, three different people demanded more of my work to read.

soleifire doesn't want to leave town until she has the last two chapters of Vol 1 Pt 2.

vgnwtch is most wroth with me that I haven't finished the first draft of that short story, because she's already read all the Beltresin bits that are fit to circulate. Another covenmate lamented that she'd only ever had a chance to see Vol 1 Pt 1, and why did I not remember to bring her the rest of the manuscript? That took some of the sting out of the post-bookum depression, all right.

2.
The stuff our hosts pressed us to take away in the potlatch portion of the evening is Really Spiffy. Some of it was too large to fit into Dan's little car, so tomorrow

vgnwtch is going down with me in the big station wagon to help me load up a steamer trunk, two massive potted plants, and, astonishingly, TWO KAYAKS! Okay, the kayaks are only fostering with us until next time

paganpilgrim's back on this end of the landmass, but still. Boats! O! Jubilation!

3.
Best of all, yesterday, I finally reached the point in my planning and free-associating where I could map out the plot of The Traitor of Imlen, my Nanowrimo project. The whole thing fits onto 21 index cards, with one major incident or incident cluster per card. I may not be able to lay down the bones of all the chapters in 30 days, but the far more important thing is that I can hope to fit the whole story into a single volume of under 100,000 words. The story can be kept small enough. If I can also write it so that it does not suck, a career might conceivably ensue someday.

Farewell, Bodacious Redheads of Seabright

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