author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Totally spaced that today was coming up, since a whole bunch of other April dates have overshadowed it, but--today is "no longer 'almost'" day. Which is to say, I am no longer almost 39. I can own that number, y'all! Woot!

I had rather a hobbit's birthday. Have I got that right? It's been a while since I've read the source text, but, isn't it hobbits who have the tradition that when it's your birthday, you give other people gifts? It was kind of great. I had occasion to bring flowers to one person and cake to another. The reason for the cake was a lot happier than the reason for the flowers; nevertheless, bringing people nice things is fun. Flowers are pretty. Cake is tasty. I like hobbit birthdays.

I am less fond of the stereotypical attitude toward women's birthdays: "remember the date, but pretend to forget her age." Feh. Other way around for me. I don't want a big deal made out of the day--I prefer to let it sneak by people like Bilbo with the ring on--but I do want full credit for every year I've been alive, please and thank you. In tabletop role playing terms, those are experience points. Respect the experience points. They get funneled into awesome stats.

My parents called, of course. Dad mostly wanted to hear that I came through the tournament without breaking myself this time. I don't think he fully realized that this absurd new hobby his daughter picked up comes with a real risk of injury until I sprained/tore my ACL early this year. I could hear him sort of pull up short when I told him about the MRI and diagnosis and recovery plan. Like, woah, shit got serious, I'm suddenly not OK with this. I think he needs more reassurance now because of that. Oh, and my brother texted. That always makes me smile.

I did give myself a present--well, I tried. Events of the day intervened in the implementation of the intent, but the intent was good. The intent was to figure out how best to schedule my work days so as to make them comfortable, productive, fun, and as little stressful as possible. And, well, I came up with a good schedule, but the universe reminded me that, as they say, life is what happens when you're making other plans. That's OK. The plans can be reused for many days to come.

The plan goes something like this: Two and a half hours of writing in the morning, ideally from 8:30 to 11:00, then two and a half hours of writing in the afternoon, ideally from 2:30 to 5:00. Tying the writing sessions to actual times on the clock helps it all get done before derby or other evening activities, and it gives me permission to tell people, "I'm at work right now." True, sometimes I can't bring myself to say that, mainly because some requests are too important to turn down. But most of the time those random things that come up can be put off until the lunch break, which I've made deliberately long precisely to accommodate those random things along with the more predictable day-to-day household administrative duties.

So that's my plan for tomorrow. That and maybe a nice evening out. We'll see what I'm up for.

It's hard to think about being up for anything when you're dead exhausted. Tonight's roller derby scrimmage was a bit under-attended, what with the Bombshells being just back from Indiana and the All Stars preparing to go to Idaho. We had only enough skaters show up to field a single line-up for each team over and over and over again. It was a great endurance work-out, but we all got tired and sloppy toward the end of the night, and that can get scary. When it seems every jam is ending in a messy pile-up, and everyone's getting a bit of someone else in the face at high speed, you start wondering how long before someone sustains actual damage. So I was glad when they declared the third period over while the tally remained at the bruises-and-scratches-and-aching-muscles level.

Which is a long way of saying I go collapse now, K? OK.