author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

This'll be short because I'm tired. It's been a long dang Saturday, full of Stuff. Stuff, as you know, is made up of Things. Today's Stuff consisted roughly of two Things, which I update for you as follows:

Thing the First: NaNoWriMo update. Nothing at all written yesterday. Some 2200 words written today. Sticking with the notion that some representative of each of the previous chapters shows up in the current chapter, most of them in response to an ad that Martha's father takes out in the town paper.

Maggie Eirenholdt had blown into town some few months before Lucille but about a year after Ben. She was, she said, on an extended vacation -- at least, that was the story she'd given her family. But the long and the short of it was, she was putting distance between herself and everyone she loved as a defense mechanism, both for herself and them.

"It all went wrong. And it's this thing's fault." Then she alarmed Ben momentarily by pitching the tiny computer against the wall. She put some heft into the throw, too. Any team on any town's recreational softball league would have been proud to have her. The machine hit the wall at about twenty miles an hour then rebounded, skittering, across their table, narrowly missing Ben's coffee by inches. Finally the computer rattled its way into the corner formed by the floor and wall beneath their booth.

"Ouch," Ben said mildly as the machine hit his exposed toes.

Maggie retrieved it. "Sorry. I'm just so angry, and that thing wouldn't break if you took a sack of hammers to it. Sometimes I think that's the only good thing that's come of owning it. I get an indestructable punching bag to vent my frustrations on. Of course," she said, letting her fist fall into a lifeless open palm atop the computer, "I'd have a lot less frustrations to vent if I hadn't bought the thing."

Also, it's no coincidence they're all meeting up in this one town that no one can place on a map, where night mists blow up out of bone-dry days and bring with them crowds of half-heard voices. It's definitly no coincidence the shop showed up here.

Thing the Second: Skating update. This evening I took myself off to the nearest roller skating rink. That would be Skate City in Westminster. Guess what? I still got it. To the extent that I ever had it, I do in fact still have it. There were two reasons I got fooled into thinking I'd lost it somewhere along the way:

1. Skating on city sidewalks is no fun.

Cement makes my skates stupid. Yesterday I put 'em on to go pick up the car at the neighborhood Big O, and the moment I got off the sidewalk and onto their smooth floor, I was suddenly all grace and competence. Well, competence anyway. Ditto when I got out on the rink tonight.

Also,

2. My skates appear to be falling apart.

Not all of the skates. Just the bushings. (See diagram.) They've probably been coming apart since Wednesday night. Tonight, they pretty much came to pieces on me. Whee. Time to find me a skate shop!

And also,

3. I appear to be falling apart.

I'd just gotten over being all sore from Wednesday. Now I'm all sore again. My left groin muscle is so sore I'm having trouble lifting my leg from the hip, and both my knees are grumbling at me. We will not, however, discuss this, because I am totally in denial. Knees? What knees? My knees are fine. Shut up, knees.

And that is all. Good night.