It was another warm and sunny day today. This has been the most amazing spring and summer so far. Usually we have a lot of rain during the summer but this year summer started some time in May. I love it. It reminds me of the summer of 1992. I grew some killer tomatoes and green peppers that year. I had my first tomatoes by July 4th that year. I certainly won't have any that early this year, but they'll be better than last year's late September first harvest. We ate outside and it was just delightful. Ed sprayed the wasps' nests under our eves so they've pretty much disappeared and we were bothered by nary a wasp or yellow jacket. It was really nice.

This afternoon, Joey and I watched the mama and daddy swallows feed their babies. We could see their little beaks opened wide to receive the delicious bugs gleaned from the air above our neighborhood. They still have no feathers so we could see their bald heads and skinny necks over the rim of the mud nest. I loved it.

One of Joey's friends is nine years old. Her parents are recently divorced. Her mom owns an upscale home decor store and her father is a professor at a local university. The last day of school for her was the 15th but her father still had to work this week. For some insane reason, they decided not to get daycare for her for this week and left her home alone from 8am to 5pm on Monday. All by herself. This is a nine year old girl. That's not even legal in this state. I couldn't believe it! She would have been home alone the whole week if another friend's mother had not intervened and offered to take her. She's coming to our house tomorrow.

I'm so disgusted with her parents. Why the hell didn't her mother, the shop owner, bring her daughter to work with her? She could have sat behind the counter reading books and playing her gameboy and drawing pictures and been with her mom instead of being home alone. I just can't believe these people. This girl, Neelou, lives primarily with her father but it is so apparent to me that neither of these people has time to be a parent. Her mother is a workaholic--she is always at that shop and even bought a few other shops, too, that she is trying to keep up with. Her father has more time for her but is still always late picking her up at almost everything she does. I feel so sorry for this beautiful little girl. She lives in a giant house with all the amenities--a swimming pool, Nintendo, Game Boys, all the newest toys and games. Everything a girl could want, except parents.

I want to go on a bike ride but Joey isn't riding well enough to keep up with me and in the evenings, when Ed is home to watch Joey, it's been too hot to ride until dark. She's going to play with a friend tomorrow morning so perhaps that would be a good time to ride.

I'm tired. I should just go to bed. Why don't I just go to bed? I just seem to have a mental block with going to bed before midnight.

I did some writing this evening. Not much, but I'm thinking I'll take my notebook to bed with me and do some writing before I go to sleep. I like to write my first drafts by hand. There is something wonderful about the kinesthetic experience of physically writing out the words. It's like kneading bread dough. I go at a slower pace. A different part of my brain kicks on. When I was a technical writer, I couldn't do fiction with a keyboard because a keyboard meant work. It meant technical stuff. It did not mean dialogue. It did not mean description or scene building. I had to write by hand to be able to access that fiction part of my brain. Now that the keyboard isn't necessarily associated with technical writing anymore, I still write by hand because it feels good. I like writing. I like dragging a good, smooth, fine point pen across a narrow ruled page. And because I write by hand, I can write anywhere. And I have. This novel has been written in restaurants, the school cafeteria, the school library, the waiting area at Joey's dance studio, in my car, at church, at the beach, in the airplane, in the backyard, on the porch, in bed.... Have notebook, will travel. That's my motto.

I often write my first draft in my "traveling" notebook, which is a smaller spiral-bound notebook that I carry around with me, then I transfer it to my primary notebook which is a 12 3/8" x 10 3/8" Boorum & Pease fine ruled record book. It has 160 pages in it and I'm on page 143. The last 5 pages are filled with research notes and plot notes to myself. When this is finished, I have an 8.5" x 11" Boorum & Pease 350 page record book to continue in. They're kind of expensive but I just love them. It's something I do to reward myself. I'm the kind of person who needs to have special tools--special scrapbook tools and pens, special fiction notebooks and pens, special cooking tools and knives and cookware. Those special tools validate what I'm doing and I think I do a better job because of them. I take myself more seriously when I have them than when I'm just winging it.

So now it's midnight and I'm taking my notebook off to bed with me. Think prolific thoughts for me. :-)

--L