Clio blogs! Shhhhh...

Never mind what my shrimpy little sister says, I'm the top cat in this household. I'm in charge of everything, actually. My plot for world domination is all going according to plan. Callie is obsessed with FRESH CHICKEN; and I must admit, FRESH CHICKEN is extremely tasty. More important, however, are my ongoing efforts to bend my people to my will. They are undergoing my Pavlovian training without even knowing it; it is quite easy to fool humans, really. Today the Toy Lady is out to lunch, leaving the computer free. Like any megalomaniacal supervillain bent on world domination and on the cusp of success, I must therefore reveal my plans to the world so that they may admire my genius. The Toy Lady will never find out; besides possessing a heavenly beauty, I am also a master of camouflage, as you can see from this photo.

The goal of Pavlovian training is to induce an automatic response from the training subject, and I am confident I have achieved this goal. The instrument of training is the "toy" known as the Cat Dancer, a simple tool with which I control the Toy Lady's behavior. With just one movement and a simple command phrase, I induce the Toy Lady to pick up the toy and twirl it around like a crazy person. The method is simple: I lie on the floor, emphasizing my natural cuteness, and give a series of coded chirps. The Toy Lady picks up the Cat Dancer and I reward her by chasing it.

By now, she is so well trained that it does not matter what time of day I give her the signal; she will respond. Last night, for instance, I brought the "toy" outside her sleeping quarters and gave the signal. (I'll admit, I might have had to meow very loudly a couple times, but she is lazy and it is very difficult to wake her up at 2 am.) Still, several minutes' effort aroused her from her slothful slumber and brought her to me, where she picked up the "toy" and threw it down the stairs. AhHaHaHaHaHAHAHAHA! She is completely under my control, and soon will put into effect further plans to place the world under my dominion. Do not think I am foolish enough to reveal those plans; I've watched enough James Bond films to know I should keep some secrets.

Just in case you do not believe me, I offer proof that I am the one in total control (and that my sister is an idiot). If the Toy Lady should try to warn the world of my upcoming domination, no one will believe her. I am just an innocent kitty cat...

Beautiful dreamers ... until you wake up

Okay, I'm not too proud to admit that I like naps. Actually, I adore them. With Boy headed for school at 6:30 am, in combination with my crazy evenings, I often don't get the ten, er, eight hours of sleep I need to feel fully functional. So occasionally, like this morning, I see Boy out the door and then head straight back to bed for a couple hours' make-up time. I wake up feeling refreshed and ready to waste work the rest of the day.

This morning was a little different. I had a really weird dream, so weird that it actually woke me up. It involved driving with Boy and getting lost (and I did get lost alone in my car this weekend, different story), finding a way back to a place I knew and finding it blocked, turning around, and then being forced to leave the car for some reason (the dream skipped that part) and go by bicycle, then foot, to escape a city via rail tracks. (The dream also skipped why we couldn't just take the train; they were in the station.) Anyway, Boy and I ended up in someone's workshop, being chased by zombies we didn't know were behind us. Pretty creepy, and yet, as I was dreaming, a little corner of my subconscious was saying, "Escaping a city chased by zombies? This would make an awesome story!"*

Now, there's no reason that dreams can't inspire good stories. One of my favorite writers of historical fantasy, Katherine Kurtz, has written over a dozen books after fleshing out a story (and an entire world) that she had in a dream. Of course, she likely had notecards right next to her bed to take down the dream in minute detail. My little corner of the subconscious is not that proactive. It whispers, "Oh, this would be an awesome story," yet it doesn't bother trying to wake me up to take notes. (It, too, probably needs its ten, er, eight hours of sleep.) So I have woken up, vaguely remembering the following:

• A girl's home is about to overrun by invaders? aliens? ecological disaster? She escapes to the town's underground library, where she will rebuild civilization with books. And everyone will be grateful and treat her like a goddess! (Why the library is hidden underground, I don't know. Why a smartypants should expect to be treated like a goddess is equally mysterious. And yet, while I was dreaming this, I thought it was the greatest idea ever!)
• There's something like a jungle gym in the sky. And people run around it to fight each other! They might fall off! But the winner will rule the kingdom! (Again, why in the sky? I don't know. And yet, my silly subconscious was telling me, "This is the greatest story ever!!!")

So I was reminded again this morning that while my subconscious might come up with an image or a situation that seems really unique and interesting, when you take away the immediacy of dreaming, by itself it's not very compelling. I've never been tempted to try any of these ideas because there's no story to them. More important, there's no character in them. Now, someday I might dream up a character who seems to fit in one of these situations, and that might spark something. But for now, I just take that little subconscious voice with a grain of salt. And vow I'll try to get to bed earlier tomorrow.

*Or it might, if Max Brooks hadn't beaten me to writing the definitive zombie book.

Deadlines make my brain hurt

Or maybe it's the ungodly hours I'm keeping. Saying "I'm not a morning person" doesn't begin to describe things. It's true, I'm not a morning person at all. Get me up before 7 am, and I'm likely to grunt and squint for a good hour before I can produce intelligible human speech. But I'm also one of those people who needs sleep. A lot of sleep. Eight hours is livable, nine is preferable, ten is optimum. With the start of the school year, I'm lucky if I get seven. Since Boy is now in high school, we have to get up at 6 am because the bus comes at 6:30. (Thank goodness he's not a high-maintenance girl requiring an hour of prep time.) With September comes band practice every Thursday, and I don't get home until after 9:30. On Tuesdays I have flute choir, and I don't get home until after 10. Every other Wednesday I have critique group, and I can be out until 10. So by the time I get home, put my stuff away, deal with any mail or school handouts, have something to drink, check the weather, feed the cats, and scoop the catbox, it's close to 11. The math just isn't working for me.

Okay, sometimes I cheat and go back to bed after seeing Boy off to school. This will get rid of any headaches I wake up with (and morning headaches happen more often when I get less sleep), but try not to do it more than once a week because it eats up my days. I don't work at the computer all day every day. Monday and Wednesday mornings I have TKD class. Thursdays or Fridays I volunteer at the animal shelter. At least once a week I spend the half the morning doing grocery shopping and other errands. My goodness, no wonder I feel like I don't get any work done!

So while I'm adjusting to the fall schedule, I'm feeling a little squeezed by deadlines. My mom entered us in a quilt show, so I was working to complete a quilt by this weekend. (And today I finished the last step, the binding, hooray!) I've got an assignment due at the end of next week; it's under control, but I don't have any wiggle room. If I don't finish early, I'll be under the gun to get something ready for my critique group to read next month. Then there's another assignment coming in, more chapters to write, concerts to practice for, seminars to attend .... erk. I guess I'll just keep on with my usual life management style: "selective procrastination." Earliest deadlines first, then I'll worry about the rest.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take a nap.

Confessions of an Olympic Junkie

Oh, my blog posts will be short and few these next two weeks. Hi, my name is Diane, and I'm an Olympic junkie. I'll watch nearly anything if it's Olympic. Gymnastics? I love watching the tumbling and near-falls. Swimming? As a kid it was the sport featured in my gold-medal dreams, before I discovered I was short, slow, and klutzy. Diving? Hoo boy, look at 'em twist and tumble—and how do those 10-meter divers manage not to crap their pants every time they look down from the platform? And we haven't even started the track-and-field or taekwondo or archery or rowing competitions yet.

Thanks to the joy of TIVO, I don't have to watch all the commercials, all the "human interest" stories, all the replays and interviews. I don't have to stay up until 1:30 am to see the end of live competition. I don't have to procrastinate on Chapter 17 by writing in my blog....

Whoops! I think there are pretty horses jumping for gold! See you later!

Why do I compete? ....

... because it feels so good when I stop. That's what I concluded today, my last day at Nationals, talking with my fellow adult competitors. I mean, is it really worth a week of sleep deprivation? (I've woken up earlier than planned every day this week, and I can't get back to sleep with my brain obsessing over past or future performances.) Is it really worth a week of upset stomach and nervous digestive system? (I'll spare you the gory details, but I had to force myself to eat this morning. I never have that problem.) Is athletic glory really worth it?

Well, I'm not sure. But after I finished competing this morning, I was the proud possessor of two bronze medals, as well as a rejuvenated appetite. I feel pretty good about it. I thought I performed my form about as well as I could; it didn't score as high as I'd hoped, but I still earned a medal, coming in third out of four competitors. Some of the kids on my team were in divisions with 20 or even 30 other competitors, so they weren't as fortunate. They all have a great attitude, and the team as a whole had a great tournament. A couple of golds, three silvers, and a over half a dozen bronzes, all coming back to Michigan. I'll be glad to be home, with some nice souvenirs to remember my week here in Madison.

There should be a word for this.

I suspect there are many people in the Detroit area suffering along with me this morning. No, not because their beloved Red Wings lost last night, but because they stayed up way past their bedtime watching the game. Now, I usually have a practical approach to watching playoff sports. If the game lasts way past my bedtime, I stop watching and go to sleep. I tell myself, "If they win, I can watch the next game in the series. If they lose, I don't want to see that anyway." But last night the Red Wings could have clinched the Stanley Cup (and were 35 seconds away from doing so, grrrr), so I didn't want to miss that. So I stayed up through triple overtime and didn't get to bed until after 12:30 am.

So now it's the morning after. I got up at the usual time (6:45) and now I feel bleary. My head is vaguely achy, I need a nap, and caffeine is not dealing with my usual morning grumps. (Plus Gigi is mewing at me because she wants to play. But, being Gigi, she will not let me get close enough to play, thus forcing me to move--blech--if I want to shut her up.) Now, if I felt this way because I'd had a little too much to drink, I'd know what to call it. I think most of us are familiar with the term "hangover." (Thanks for the lesson, RAF Association Band of Hillingdon!) It's a dreadful state caused by over-indulgence and it's all our fault.

So what to call my current physical state? It's certainly dreadful, it's caused by over-indulgence (of the TV), and it's my own fault, as much as I'd like to blame Maxime what's-his-face for sending the game into overtime. Maybe I'll call it a bangover, because "BANG! The game is over! Now try to sleep, ha ha ha!" Nah, that doesn't really sound right. A gangover, because I was watching my gang until the game was over? Ehhhh.

I think I should leave any more attempts to coin new words to mornings when I'm not suffering from--whatever.