Oh my goodness, what a day!

I spent more than three hours writing fiction today, y’all. That makes up for the last two days missed, and then some! What happened was, I fell asleep last night thinking about the setting that will support my stories, and I woke up thinking about it, so after I did my abs and stretching and ate breakfast (while chatting with Guy about sci-fi novels we’ve read and concepts to consider for my world), I settled in with “20 Questions to Ask Yourself When Worldbuilding” from the folks at NaNoWriMo. The next thing I knew, three hours had disappeared, and I was deep into my world. I was also very hungry, with other things to do. So I tore myself away from my laptop (it was seriously a struggle to stop writing) and commenced with the doing.

Daily Challenges

Stretching	✓
1SE	✓
Intimate Time	✓
Cooking	Today’s Menu: Guy fried up some eggs this morning, and we each had our version of an egg and cheese sandwich, mine on bread and his on tortillas; for lunch, we feasted on tuna melts; for dinner, I again ate food prepared by professionals, though it was considerably tastier than yesterday (I ate curry steak skewers from the Can Can, so good.) I’m not penalizing myself for this divergence—I was out for a friend’s birthday, during the time I would be eating dinner at home, and I needed food to go along with my booze.
Reading (Poetry)	My favorite line from the provocative “Lust Money” by Lillian-Yvonne Bertram reads: When I say I like a man who knows   what he wants, there’s nothing more about him to like. She’s writing about the expectation on pretty women to pay attention and deference to men who have little to offer beyond their wealth. It’s something I think most modern women can relate to.
Reading (Fiction)	The Poisonwood Bible is very long. Today, in writing about my world, I was thinking about manioc (cassava), which is the staple of the Congolese people in the book. Every culture has some sort of starch: what starch will my society depend on for survival?
Reading (Nonfiction)	In thinking about how information is stored and exchanged and destroyed, I started out reading about the library of Alexandria, which I always thought contained a lot of information that we tragically lost, but it turns out it had been in decline over a number of years, as intellectualism fell out of fashion and benefactors stopped sending money. I squirreled down the Wikipedia hole in a couple of different directions, reading about other destroyed libraries and also a bit about Akkadian literature (stuff written in the Middle Bronze and Iron Ages). I keep thinking about the ways a post-apocalyptic world might echo a pre-industrial world.
Music	It was a day without music again. Maybe tomorrow will be for music what today was for writing?
Postcard Poem	These social justice puppies are intense, y’all! My poem is in direct response to doing my makeup today. I don’t know how I feel about makeup; sometimes I hate it, sometimes I love it. I can’t tell what is programming, what is reactionary, and what is genuine in my response. Anyway: Gently press to clear neutral territory. Sculpt your face with shadows, Draw attention to your resolve. Smooth your emotions with powders, Ointments, creams, gels, oils. Pull smoke across your eyelids, Hide your vulnerability. Fortify lashes with steel and ink. Stain your kiss with a promise. – Sarah Reebs, 10/18/2019
Trash Pickup	I left the house really early, and Howie didn’t feel like walking in the rain before I left, so I didn’t gather trash today. I didn’t really consider whether we might have bananas weather, when I picked this challenge.

Today’s Challenges

I got back on the horse with my abs, yay! I still look at my tummy and see floppy flab, and the scale refuses to change (makes me wonder if I should change the batteries) so it’s hard to be enthusiastic about this challenge. At the same time, when I touch my sides, it feels like there is less fat there, and I do actually feel my core getting stronger and leaner, so I’ll have to trust what my hands and my body tell me over the mirror or the scale. Plus, I remind myself that, no matter what my body looks like, it’s capable of some wonderful things, and it’s served me very well so far, even though I largely treat it like garbage.

In preparation for a challenge that I will officially tackle on Sunday, I spent about an hour figuring out how to shape my hair into a victory roll. I have a terrible curling iron, I learned. Also I am very slow and clumsy when it comes to shaping hair. But I think it turned out OK after all, and I know I will execute it better and faster on Sunday. Tomorrow, I have to paint my fingernails, apply the custom temporary tattoos I ordered specially for this photo shoot, and finalize my outfit and accessories. I’m getting excited for it!

---

Featured image: artistic rendering of the library of Alexandria, based on some archaeological evidence. (Public domain; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ancientlibraryalex.jpg)

---