Two nights of poor sleep leave me feeling brittle and strange. Unusually vulnerable to communication -- and to stomach upset. I went into the world today with strange hair, drank mocha slowly, browsed Barnes and Noble.

The books I touched on today were Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics and Food and Loathing by Betsy Lerner. They strike me with equal force -- both pressing truth into the world, projecting personal story. No matter that one is an argument for the value of comics as a medium, and the other the story of overcoming depression and compulsive eating. Both personal, both true.

My hair doesn't look that bad to me, coming home and looking in the mirror. This morning, I twisted it into three locks -- faster and more chaotic than braiding, each lock two strands twisted then countertwisted against each other. I don't have enough practice to make them even and regular as I imagine them ideally. But if I saw them on someone else, I'd probably think "Cool." Asymmetry, order, chaos.

Still, wearing them outside, I felt exposed, too strange, an outsider. I went to a coffee shop I never frequent for the steamed soy that seemed like it would settle my stomach, not wanting to encounter people I knew. Fortified by the impulse additions of chocolate and coffee, I braved my frequented bookstore. The pointing and laughing I half-expected never materialized. I guess I managed to pass.

Then I encountered Scott McCloud and Betsy Lerner -- both in their way outsiders -- from the marginalized art of comics and the sensation of self as unaccepted when overweight. How many of us feel normal and popular, anyway?

Never mind. My empathy to Scott, to Betsy, and to me -- three outsiders trying, at least, to say something true and personal.

Lost another post. Hit the wrong button this time. Well, I do keep learning. I hope.

We are making progress on exercising more often. It has even been somewhat pleasant.

We've made the tour of local health clubs, more or less proceeding from least expensive to most. Tonight we used the first of three passes to try the most expensive.

This is what more than doubling the monthly fee and more than quadrupling the initiation fee gets you in our area:

Showers with both soap and shampoo dispensers. Racquetball courts. Impeccable cleanliness and complimentary use of towels. Higher ceilings and reduced noise. An indoor pool and jacuzzi. Seasonal outdoor pool and jacuzzi. Outdoor track. Three aerobics rooms, and water fitness classes as well. An attached restaurant and snack bar. And all the prestige of knowing you belong to a club so exclusive it has a two month waiting list.

There are actually fewer weight machines, and no more cardio machines than at the next most expensive place. All in all, we need the extra cash more than the extra amenities.

But we're savoring our passes while we have them. Hmmm... so this is what it's like to be rich.

Yes, it's indulgent. And it's more than we need.

Google has found me.

Suddenly, I may not be writing into a void any more. Suddenly, I may have listeners.

It's a strange feeling. I felt almost protected, if a little lonely, writing my thoughts onto the web. Someone could see them, but -- it seemed a bit unlikely. Now, I will turn up when someone searches for Anna Paradox. Whether anyone will search for that phrase is another question, still a bit unlikely. But I have moved several levels of likelihood farther into the public view.

My strongest reaction, however, is that I had better give you guys something. I haven't been updating very frequently. If you find this, why bother to come back? Nothing's happening.

So, I am resolving again to write more often. I want to put some time into the Nanowrimo area, and complete the logs. I'm considering posting the whole novel, suitably tagged as adult material.

And if you have any feedback, by all means write me at:
annaparadox@mac.com

Looks like I didn't post a single entry in December. I managed to, while writing a full 50,000 word novel in November.

December is different. It's like one month that lives in a different space than all the others. Christmas looms, foreshadowing and shaping the entire month, providing it with drive, build-up, climax, and those strange days where Christmas is over, but a new year hasn't yet begun.

And, of course, December is high season for professional home makers. All the family support activities that belong in our job descriptions move into high gear. Laundry and dusting take on new urgency, knowing you may need to travel or accept guests at any moment. Shopping reaches Olympic levels, avoiding or fighting crowds. We make extra efforts to think of our families, writing to them, buying gifts for them, making extra calls and planning visits. We prepare special, higher labor foods. We get out the good clothes, give them the extra attention they need, and wear them to parties. We may even host parties.

So January comes as a lull. The very first edge of it may hold a party. Then we coccoon, as the bad weather we ignored in pursuit of Christmas continues, without any such lively reason to forge out into it.

I look forward to doing some writing in January. 'Til then, may the new year bring all the wishes of your heart.

I won! I won! I won! I won!

Taking a break from the Nanowrimo novel. It has been absorbing most of my writing impulses this month. It's coming along well at the moment, only a few days left.

Last weekend, I went to Orycon, an annual science fiction convention in the Portland area. I've been attending it fairly regularly for more than 10 years. I know a lot of people there to talk to, and recognize more faces. It makes me very happy to be there, among the writers and costumes and filk musicians.

I took advantage of the internet lounge this year. A hard working fan named Christopher was running it, long hours for three days. He immediately recognized what I was talking about when I asked if he could set a computer to Dvorak for me. And he did it, no fuss. Then I discovered he had a Japanese language Tomoko Fuse origami box book with him, for folding purposes. He taught me his original stand for the Kawasaki Rose, too.

That's three hits on three of my personal quirks -- Dvorak keyboard layout, favorite origami author, and science fiction fan. What are the odds?

The community is one of the pleasures of Orycon. It's a real pleasure to be in the company of people who share my interests -- the only tribe I'd want would be organized by such interests -- and I'd scarcely expect children born there to grow up to share them. Some, perhaps, but not all.

Away from fandom, we build community out of courtesy and shared experiences as we go along. The bonds of family, with shared history and helping each other out, are often made in spite of differences of opinion rather than because of shared interests. Family is important and real. It's also often more work than fandom.

So, when recently I ran into these lyrics:

I love those dear hearts and gentle people
Who live in my home town
Because those dear hearts and gentle people
Will never, ever let you down
I feel so welcome, each time that I return
That my happy heart keeps laughing like a clown

(recorded by Dinah Shore)

They fit oddly on my memories of the town I grew up in.
It's true, we had a real community. People helped each other out, and they still do. With a population floating around 300, they find volunteers for fire and EMT work, and put on an annual festival. They build community buildings. And I find more people to talk about my interests with in a single weekend of Orycon than I did in an entire childhood there.

It's fandom that makes me feel welcome, and where my heart laughs just to be there. So, when Dinah sings,

I have a dream house I'll build there one day

I'm not dreaming of her "picket fence and rambling rose". I'm thinking of an apartment in a city with a good population of science fiction fans.

Just returned from a week's vacation. Spent several peaceful days in Arnold, in the mountains above Angel's Camp, California. Spent an evening and two exciting days in Las Vegas. Doug's parents were with us, their first exposure to megacasinos. We had a great time showing them around.

Spent more time than in either place on the road. There was ten hours driving from here to Angel's Camp and ten hours from there to Las Vegas, more or less.

Made some experiments with writing while someone else drove the car. It's workable when my health is otherwise good. Too little sleep, or poor quality food, and writing in a moving car threatens me with motion sickness.

And Las Vegas is very distracting. So I find myself several days behind on my Nanowrimo goals. For the first time, I need to better the 1750 words per day I set as my original goal in order to finish on time. I feel able to do it.

And that, in itself, is a huge benefit to this project.

Something else worth noting -- the two days I didn't write in Las Vegas, I developed story arcs for my characters Mary and Richard. They now have problems and resolutions within the overall problem of loss of human fertility. Even if none of the other characters develop arcs, this may be enough to give the book a novel like shape. And it means I now know what follows the scenes I had so far. At one point, I had written all the scenes I had ideas for, and had to push to the edge of my hazy preplanning. It's nice to have more vision ahead again, and this may be enough to carry me to 50,000 words.

I don't want to draw the conclusion that days of not-writing are good for story generation. I think that would be simplistic. I think I will instead draw the conclusions that:
A. Days of intensive writing prime my Muse
B. I can have faith that I will continue to come up with story.

I wish you all creativity.

Most of my writing energy is going into my NaNoWriMo novel. I'm over a quarter to the 50,000 word goal, and less than a quarter through the month.

It's working pretty well. Yesterday, I had two one hour appointments, lunch with Doug, and a three hour meeting. It was the first day I didn't meet my self-imposed goal of 1750 words per day. (All right, I also had one 1749 word day. Is it worth the quibble?)

I found myself rather frustrated, but when the evening meeting was over, I just couldn't push out another page. Nonetheless, I managed 1520 words, and though I went to bed tired and grumpy, I'm fairly happy about it now.

I may very well pass all other writers whose city includes "Bend" today.

So, time to stop blogging and get on with it!

Spent much of the day adding to my website. New areas of possible interest include an origami gallery and a quick page with a little info on National Novel Writing Month.

I enjoyed that work. It seems a bit of a push to go back to housework after all that brain sweat. May very likely put off vacuuming, dishes, and making cat food another day.

(Considers daily goals from list.) Hmm... I could still quite easily slip in some reading and yoga. That sounds like a plan. Yesterday, I took Grandma for a long drive to have lunch with Dad, so I'm good on that. Laundry, yes, I could do laundry, too. Aha, a plan!

All right, off to work then!

Still thinking about I. Asimov.

Asimov was my hero. My first favorite author, until I discovered Zelazny. I found many particles of my philosophy in him. I may very well owe him my concern about overpopulation, my reticence with swear words, and my feeling that humans of different nations have more in common than separates them. He was a great proponent of rational thought, and of equality for all. He was an optimist. And he was a very engaging writer.

I've had other heroes -- many of them writers. I admired Leslie Fish's strength and Heather Alexander's passion. I envied Kristi Yamaguchi's good-humored grace. I was floored by Tomoko Fuse's spatial brilliance, and Neil Gaiman seems superhumanly generous to his fans. To create, to create, to create -- and to have a virtue informing that creation -- that draws me.

I suspect these heroes all hold mirrors to parts of myself I feel lacking. I hope, looking back on my life, I will wish, as Asimov did, not to be someone else, but to be myself.

And to that end, I must continue creating myself as I would wish to be.

Is the novel dead?

Walking into any bookstore makes the question seem absurd. I was incredulous when Harold Bloom asserted it -- but then, I couldn't agree with much of his book The Western Canon. But now I've run into a very curious fact, and I'll have to give the whole question a rethinking.

I just finished I. Asimov. The man who produced over 450 books had trouble with novels! Towards the end of his life, he dreaded them. He wrote long history books in preference.

I have also had trouble with novels, but I thought it was personal. Someday, I hope, people will all treat each other with respect. I want humans to work together on wonderful projects like feeding everyone and building amazing bridges and exploring space and creating art and music. Oh, the things we could do if we weren't wasting our time fighting each other!

Ok, when someone is stealing others' abilities to live and create, stopping that someone is necessary. But I hope for a future when the human predators will be contained with only a small portion of human activity.

So, I dream of peace. A balance of tolerance and freedom that will allow each person the most choices and creativity consistent with allowing every other person the most choices and creativity as well.

Peace. But every novel has to have a conflict. How do you reconcile creating conflict, out of your pure imagination, and living with it for the year or more it takes to finish a novel, with working toward peace?

My other, lesser problem with novels is that they must end satisfyingly. Life doesn't do that. In some ways, it's part of the same problem. A novel's pattern includes conflict and resolution. Filling that pattern with a story, setting, and characters is artificial. And that shouldn't surprise me. The enterprise is fiction, after all -- art, creation, lies. No more ridiculous than crosswords requiring small numbered boxes or office buildings needing spaces people can walk through, really. It's what a novel is.

(Some have tried fiction without this structure. I haven't seen any yet that I like. So I wouldn't try to write that kind, and its existence has no relevance to my own concern about novels.)

The most useful perspective on the problem of writing about conflict while hoping for peace came from a study on how much stimulation people were comfortable with. It's a spectrum -- as I would have realized if I'd ever thought about whether people needed or wanted excitement. Some people need lots, some prefer very little.

So while we need excitement, let us work towards having novels, instead of wars.

I have signed up with National Novel Writing Month. It looks like fun. I'll keep you posted on my progress. I also added a page to my website for it. See that . I'm getting some practice on my weblink spelling, too.

Life is good today. I think I have avoided a cold that was slowing me down the last few days. I've completed a few tasks that had been hanging too long. And I have the prospect of adventures next month.

I like looking forward. In fact, my second likeliest personal motto (after In Paradox Truth) is The Future is My Country.

Have you tried the timeline exercises in Change Your Mind and Keep the Change by Steve Andreas and Connirae Andreas? I recommend them. If you have tried them, you'll understand that my time line usually makes an extended s-curve with the future leading out to the right, the present running right to left back from it, and the past running back and left over my shoulder. Having gleaming pictures out there in the future cue really brightens my day. It takes eyes in the back of my head to see the gleaming pictures in the past. Of course, imaginatively I do have eyes in the back of my head.

So, the cheery and humorous web site of National Novel Writing Month put some attractive visions in my future cue. They make writing at least seven pages a day (based on my usual format of 250 words a page) for thirty days sound like fun. It would also jumpstart me back into fiction -- something that has lapsed since the car accident -- and many other valuable effects. So, I sent them the requested donation, and I've started considering possible scenarios for the novel. Wish me luck!

Just looking through my archives. Several of the links have gone bad. I was fairly happy with the remaining entries. Guess I'll have to start keeping copies.

I'm not devastated by the loss of my words. I kept a copy of my A Disciplined Life list, telling what I'd do daily and weekly if I did all the things I think I should and how long it would probably take me. I'm glad to have it. But there are words a plenty in the world, and the loss of a few of mine will likely make no difference to any significant number of people.

I ran into a woman who was my neighbor when I was growing up last night. It's a little strange to feel perspectives on me telescoping across the years. I was an extremely promising child, especially for the very small pond in which I grew up. I think I was the only National Merit Scholar ever from our high school. I won the county spelling contest several years running. At one point, I was the only student in the Talented and Gifted program.

Now, there's not much to make me stand out. People ask about my work. I don't, I say. Kids? No. I may go on to say I finished writing a novel last year. But it's not published. Largely, I'm an ordinary homemaker, (and not an excellent one at that).

Maybe my 15 minutes of fame are already over. Maybe I chose the quiet rewards of home rather than the public rewards of work. Maybe I'm still rebelling against the dozens of people who came up to me in that high potential childhood and suggested some job they thought I should do. Maybe my intellect just couldn't overcome the flaw of my lack of ambition. Maybe I'm still in the cocoon waiting to emerge as some glorious creature whose work will be known far and wide. Maybe it takes time to be something new or think new thoughts

Maybe I'm just too comfortable being ordinary.

Who knows? This morning I'm glad to exist in the eyes of a few friends and family, and not too concerned about possible disappearance in the view of the world.

But I will start keeping copies of this blog.

Now that was a bit of an adventure!

Heard a strange hissing and went to investigate. Not coming from the garage. Not coming from outside. Great Oa! It's the fridge!

Took a cautious sniff. No unpleasant smell. Then I stepped further into the kitchen. There was water streaming out from under the fridge! It was already a quarter inch deep on the kitchen floor, and starting to leak beneath the threshhold strip.

At the back left between the fridge and a cupboard, the line that feeds the icemaker was spraying out a snarling cone. I pulled the excess hose out -- no luck, the leak was only a few inches from the valve. I can't reach it. I know there's a shut off behind the fridge. I try to pull the fridge out. Shoes slipping in water, I can't budge the fridge. I grab both the kitchen towels and throw them to try and block the flood leaving the kitchen. They're barely a sop to it, so I run to the bathroom, and return with three full size towels, and manage to build a dam in a crescent extending into the dining room.

Now I have a moment's spare time. I call Doug. Voice mail. I call my mom's cell phone. Voice mail. I call her husband's office. Pleasant exchange with Julia, but he's not in. I call his cell phone. Larry answers on the fourth ring. I say I have a small emergency, the ice cube feeder line is leaking, and I can't move the fridge to stop it. He says he'll be right over. Good man.

I still have a bit before the towels overflow. I run to the garage -- no obvious turn off for the water there. Looks like all those valves feed the watering system.

I run to the curb, and lift the metal cover to look at the water meter. Meter, spiderwebs, live spider -- no visible valve. I run back to the kitchen.

The water has made it past my dam. I get another kitchen towel from the drawer, toss it on the floor, lift it to the sink, and squeeze it out. Again. Too slow, I'm losing ground. I take my largest bowl out of the cupboard, and start squeezing the towel into the bowl. It holds about two gallons. I fill it once, run to the sink, and empty it.

As I squat and sop and squeeze to fill the second bowl, I think about Loki and his wife and his snake from Sandman, and then I think about the little dutch boy and the dike. Empty that one. I think I'm gaining on the water a little.

Near the end of the fourth bowl, Larry arrives. I left the door ajar after running to the curb. He rings the bell, and I shout for him to come in. We pull out the fridge. A simple twist of the wrist, and the water stops.

We laugh.

He can't stay. I lean on the porch railing, a little breathless, and watch him go.

Then I go back upstairs and mop two more bowls of water off the floor. I wring out all the towels. The floor is pretty clean now.

Then I go blog.

I love paper.

I buy notebooks on impulse more often than candy bars. I've been known to spend hours swooning over online washi catalogs. I have a supply of greeting cards and stationery to cover all occasions. I keep two dozen different rolls of wrapping paper.

I have paper accessories, too. I have a guillotine cutter and a rolling cutter, and exacto knives, and scissors of course. I have two sizes of self-healing mat. I have templates and I know how to sew a simple book. I have two dozen pens on my desk alone, four dozen in the supplies cabinet, and another three dozen in useful locations around the house.

I even do things with paper. I have three dozen origami books, and I fold boxes and flowers and animals. I write on it. I divided my underwear drawer with paper. I occasionally paint or draw on it, and many of my favorite games have paper cards. I covered cans with it to make pen holders, and lined shelves with it. No wall paper though -- my husband used to live in Belgium, and he developed an allergy.

Really, I have a deep and satisfying relationship with paper. So beautiful, so versatile, so abundant.

You can look for me at the stationer's. I'll be wearing my papercuts as badges of honor.

What do you want the future to look like?

Not too long ago, I heard a radio interviewer ask a medical guest if science was developing a lot of devices that look like the ones we have seen in the movies and on television. The guest replied that many scientists follow science fiction, so even if the new devices don't do what the fictional ones do, they like to make them look like them.

I think it goes farther than that.

Einstein said, "Imagination is more important than knowlege." Certainly there are accidental discoveries. But most often, first a researcher or inventor imagines something they would like to do, and then works to find a way to do it. So, if there are already images of future devices in the scientist's head, he or she is that much more likely to try to make devices that look and act like them. So we find current developments reflecting the art design and imagination of the past. Thus, artists have a strong effect on the future.

Gene Roddenberry made a conscious effort to imagine and show the kind of future he would like to have. It is a future I would be glad to live in. I want to see humanity grow up, and I want life to be exciting without us fighting one another.

So if you haven't thought about what you want the future to be, you might consider Star Trek. And if you don't want that future, you'd better develop your own vision of the future!

Because our best chance for a good future, is to have images of good futures before us.

Listened for a while today to the OPB coverage of the US Senate debate about authorizing military force against Iraq. I found them more eloquent and polite than I expected. And both sides presented arguments that showed they held a perspective that made their choice the right one within their world view.

Strangely, I was reassured. The thought of people killing each other always makes me a little queasy. No matter if it's a national and declared war or a little street shooting or capital punishment, I'd like to think we could come up with better ways to resolve our differences.

But at least our representatives are debating. They are offering both sides of the issue, and trying to decide in a reasonably rational manner.

And, humanly, we haven't yet come up with a better way to run a nation.

At last I have repaired my template. Definitely slowed my interest in writing when I couldn't publish. Shouldn't have put it off so long.

Remember the car accident back in May? Yesterday I spent my first day without back pain since then. I felt like bouncing around like a Brownian molecule. It's great to be feeling better and getting more done.

It's so amazing that you can reach out your hand and change the world. I reorganized the fridge and freezer with plastic trays. It's pleasing to look inside and see order, and reach anything at the back easily. I'm enjoying the more intense color an extra two coats of paint created on our front door.

When you look around, most of what you see was shaped by humans. Plants grow, but people place them and tend them. Buildings rise in the thrilling slow dance of construction. Roads stretch, and packages travel along them.

Much as I love wild places, and know we will always need them, I love excellently furnished architecture more.

Gibbous is the most Lovecraftian phase of moon. It reminds one of gibbering gibbons and babboons, and other inhuman parodies of mankind. Unlike new, and crescent, and quarter, and half, and full, it seems incomplete and sinister, more defined by what it lacks than what it has.

And there is the gibbous moon in the morning sky, pale and corpse-like, brooding over the hazy in town in which I awoke from a nightmare.