Word count: 1204 | Since last entry: 308

As you can tell from the timestamps of my last few entries, I’ve been staying up stupidly late to get my writing done. I came home today tired and headachy and firmly committed to an early bedtime.

After a quick and simple dinner (soup made with instant Tom Yum soup paste from the Asian market, a yummy recent find) we set out to take our comforter and mattress pad to the laundromat and wash them in the big machines there. This looked like a win, because I could sit and write while we waited. But first Kate wanted to load up her iPod with some podcasts to listen to at the laundromat, and there were some frustrating technical problems (iTunes on the PC doesn’t always seem to notice that the iPod has been docked), so it got kind of late before we even hauled the stuff out to the car.

I don’t think we’ve gone to a laundromat once since we moved into this house. The first place we tried was completely empty of anything but washers and dryers — no other people, no place to sit, and no heat. The second was so skanky-looking we didn’t even slow down as we drove past. The third was just about to close. So we drove our bedding back home, with a frustrating detour caused by several police cars blocking a major street, lights flashing (I suppose we’ll find out in tomorrow’s paper what the fuss was about). I finally sat down to write about 9:30 — still tired and headachy, plus frustrated. I’m not sure I’m completely happy with tonight’s wordage, but it’s still over 100 words so I’m giving myself a silver star on the calendar.

A snippet: “During that period I traveled to Earth only when there was no alternative. By comparison with the clean expansive future we hoped to bring about, Earth seemed a sewer jammed with people too stupid to see how badly they were fouling their own nest.”