David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

Word count: 65673 | Since last entry: 0

Amazingly smooth travel. On both legs of my flight the plane was half full, took off right on time, and landed early! Picked up my rental car (PT Cruiser) in Albany and had no difficulty finding my hotel in Saratoga Springs. The hotel looked to be miles from the convention on the map, but it’s actually only 10-15 minutes’ walk.

Saratoga Springs reminds me of Ashland, especially in that it has a very high quotient of good restaurants and fine shops for its population. Had breakfast at Beverly’s and dinner at Hattie’s (the latter with Peggy Rae Sapienza and a bunch of her DC peeps) on the recommendation of tripadvisor.com, both were wonderful. The fried chicken at Hattie’s is particularly recommended.

The convention started at 3pm today but when I showed up right after breakfast (at, um, 11am) there were already plenty of people hanging out, including Ken Scholes, Sarah Monette, and of course the ubiquitious Jay Lake. Later I ran into Elizabeth Bear and WotF compadres Jae Brim and Patrick Rothfuss. Dozens of others too, whose LJ handles are too large for this margin to accomodate. I also met Ellen Klages, who immediately jumped in my arms and sent both of us crashing to the hard slick marble floor. Ow. Haven’t seen her since.

My reading this afternoon (“Charlie the Purple Giraffe”) went very well; about a dozen people showed up even though a lot of my friends were all off at dinner with their agents or editors. Apart from that I have seen neither programming nor parties, instead spending my time in the bar and lobby area. Perhaps I will so something else tomorrow, perhaps not. I seem to have an amazing ability to find the one spot at the convention where all my friends will pass, and not budging from that spot for literally hours at a time.

During dinner I got a call from Kate, who has had to cancel her trip to Guadalajara due to illness (hers). Crap. Drop by her LJ and bring her some chicken soup.

Jay and I decided to turn in early, realizing that we’re both tired (and my voice is threatening to leave me for someone who won’t abuse it so) and there is an entire normal convention (Friday-Sunday) yet to come. But when I got back to my room I had to check in with the class. (Oh wait, it appears that I have not mentioned that this week two online community college classes are studying my story “I Hold My Father’s Paws”, and I’ve been invited to participate in the class discussion. This is even cooler than I had thought it would be.) And then there was LJ to read and… look! It’s 1am!

Night night.

Word count: 65673 | Since last entry: 1317

I cannot believe how fast the last couple of weeks have gone.

Let’s see… we went to Ashland for the Shakespeare festival, where we stayed for a couple of days with square dance friends Mark and Tim in their lovely new house just blocks from the center of town. We saw As You Like It, a terrific production set in the Depression and using 1930s pop songs; On the Razzle by Tom Stoppard, a delightful farce full of rapid-fire wordplay; and Distracted, an intriguingly metafictional play about a mother coping with a son who may or may not have ADD. We also spent a little time with square dance friends Paul and Danny, who were in Ashland in their RV and intersected with us only because a car accident made them stay longer than planned. Many fine meals were eaten.

Right after we got back from that was Kate’s 25th college reunion, at Lewis & Clark College here in Portland. I was surprised how dated everything looked in the old college yearbook photos. It wasn’t so much the clothes — a sweater’s a sweater, jeans are still jeans — as the hair, the glasses (big as Jeep windshields!), and the typography and layout of the yearbook itself. My own 25th is next year, in St. Louis right before Wiscon. We could easily combine the two (we did so five years ago) but I haven’t decided if I want to.

At the reunion we also attended a couple of lectures by LC faculty, one on spiders and what can be learned about genetic diversity by studying their venom, and the other on geckos and how they stick to walls. Both were fun but the gecko one was particularly fascinating. When the research started, they thought geckos used some kind of adhesive. Turns out gecko feet are covered with microscopic hairs (setae), each of which ends in a nanoscale spatula. But it took the researchers months to figure out how to make an individual seta stick to an object. The little spatulas stick to surfaces by van der Waals force; they only stick when dragged slightly across the surface, then release when pulled up at a certain angle. The whole gecko is evolved to move in exactly the right way to use these forces to run up walls at high speed. The researcher pointed out, apropos of the previous lecture, that he hates spiders and likes to point out that “my research subject eats your research subject for lunch.”

Last weekend we bopped up to Seattle for their third annual Halloween square dance (it will return to Portland next year), ably called by new co-callers Anne Uebelacker and Scott Zinser. Had a good time, lightly marred by a minor cold which is still hanging on. I also managed to lose one of my favorite hats at the dance, but it was found and I hope that we will be reunited at the Thanksgiving square dance in Vancouver BC. We hung out for one extra night to see Into the Woods, a local production every bit as good as the best Broadway touring shows I’ve seen, presented in the amazing Oriental magnificence of the 5th Avenue Theatre. If you’re in Seattle and you haven’t seen this theatre, you really should.

We’ve been taking advantage of our time off to get together with friends. I count seven shared meals in the last two weeks, including dinner with writers Amy Thomson and Edd Vick Friday, dinner with visiting writer Matthew S. Rotundo yesterday, and an impromptu breakfast today with fans Ulrika and Hal O’Brien. That’s not counting the meals with Mark, Tim, Paul, and Danny in Ashland or going out for pho with Katy King during the lunch break at the square dance in Seattle.

What with all the travel and eating out, my fitness goals are in the toilet. I haven’t been to the gym more than a couple of times in the last few weeks (one of them with my new trainer, who proceeded to kill me (I got better)). I haven’t even weighed myself in a week. I think I’m scared to.

Writing? Yes, some. Finished up chapter 9 (just barely in time for crit group) and edited a story in response to a rewrite request from Aeon. Amazingly, the rewritten story was immediately accepted. This story has had a very interesting journey, which I think deserves a whole ‘nother post. Next up is a fantasy short story for an anthology, for which I have been doing some research and cogitation, but really needs more focused attention.

So we just got back from Seattle yesterday. I’m mostly recovered from my cold, but my voice is fragile and I am somewhat short on spoons. Tomorrow I fly to New York for World Fantasy Con. So much for October. Voom!

Word count: 64356 | Since last entry: 280

Everyone I talked to about being retired said that they couldn’t imagine how they managed to get everything done and still work a full-time job. It’s true. You’d think that with 40 extra hours in a week I could relax. But no — I’m not even keeping up with my email.

You know how, going into the weekend, you think you’ll be able to get a lot done on your day off? And yet somehow the tasks expand to fill the time available, and you find yourself at the end of the weekend with only three of the twenty things on your to-do list crossed off (plus eight more things done which hadn’t been on the list in the first place)? Every day so far has been like that. Like the day I bought the iMac… it took basically the whole day, because I had to go to two different Apple Stores (one of them twice) before I found the computer and printer I wanted in stock. And getting the thing set up and all the files and applications switched over has taken a lot of time, though not nearly as much as I’d feared.

It’s easy to forget what day of the week it is. Every day feels like Saturday. But every day feels like Sunday too, because yesterday felt like a Saturday. There’s a bit of that Sunday afternoon angst, that uncomfortable can’t-possibly-get-everything-done and yet at the same time what-am-I-doing-with-my-life vibe.

Mind you, I have been able to take the time to do some things I would not otherwise have done. In the last couple of weeks we’ve attended four plays, three movies, and a reading by Charlie Stross. (Weekday theatre matinees are… different. The house is half full and they’re all female and over 60. Where are the retired men? Are they all dead, or do they just not like the theatre?) We finally got caught up on the TV shows we taped while we were in Japan. I’ve been doing the dishes and the laundry the way I always meant to. When Kate’s folks came for a visit, I was able to hang around with them instead of running off to the day job.

I’ve been writing every day, but not much… 100-300 words most days. I need to do a little more than that if I’m going to make my next crit group deadline. It’s hard, because I’m still trying to take this novel over the hump in the middle — the main plot driver for the second half of the book is just peeping its nose over the horizon now. It should start building momentum again in the next chapter or two, I hope.

I fear that I am transitioning from a successful short story writer to an unsuccessful novelist. Novel #1 has so far failed to find a publisher, and because I’ve been focusing on novel #2 I have, ironically enough, sold fewer short stories in the year since winning the Hugo than any year since I started selling at all. Also, next year’s Writers’ Weekend, at which I was to be a featured speaker, has been cancelled.

However, there is some good news on the writing front. “Charlie the Purple Giraffe Was Acting Strangely” (Realms of Fantasy, June 2004) has been picked up for The Mammoth Book Of Extreme Fantasy, edited by Mike Ashley. And I will be joining such luminaries as Mary Rosenblum, Irene Radford, Jay Lake, and Ken Scholes at Powell’s Cedar Hills for a multi-local-SF-author event on November 14. Watch this space for more details.

Tomorrow we’re heading to Ashland, where we’ll be visiting square dance friends Mark and Tim and seeing three more plays. We get back just in time for Kate’s 25th college reunion weekend. The days really are just packed.

Word count: 64076 | Since last entry: 2925

Two weeks gone by already? Wow. Plenty of stuff happening.

One big thing done in that time: I replaced the PC with a new top-of-the-line 24″ iMac. Screen: big, shiny, very crisp. Speakers: better than anything else in the house. Also took the opportunity to clear off the old desk and cubby. We found some very amusing old stuff dating back to before there was a web.

Before and after photos of the cleanup:

Before

After

Word count: 61151 | Since last entry: 450

Retirement, day 1. Collect the whole set.

Kate took off this morning to take a friend to the doctor; I went to the gym, then walked down to Stumptown and bought some coffee beans then traded them to a funny little man for a magic cow. In the afternoon I sorted a pile of papers that I’d shoved in a box before a party a few weeks ago. Fortunately there were no overdue bills or other nasty surprises, and most of them could simply be thrown away. Two or three more such boxes to go.

Then we fixed dinner for friend Brenda Cooper, visiting from Seattle, after which we worked on a jigsaw puzzle Kate brought back from Japan. It was wicked hard, with a thousand tiny tiny pieces, most of them pretty much the same color. Right around the time Brenda left, Kate’s parents showed up for more jigsaw puzzle and conversation (mostly about Japan). They were supposed to have visited this weekend, but life intervened and delayed their trip by three days.

Tomorrow morning we’ll have breakfast with Kate’s parents. It must be Sunday, right? Feels like Sunday…

You may note that I have renamed this blog. I was going to call it “A Month of Saturdays” but I think “The Days Are Just Packed” seems more descriptive. And besides, it’s a Calvin and Hobbes quote.

Word count: 60701 | Since last entry: 720 | Days until retirement: 0

The guys at work retired my keyboard.

They cut off the cord and epoxied it to a plaque with my name on a brass plate at the top. I signed it. It will hang in a place of honor in the Design Studio conference room.

I am truly touched.

I also got a going-away lunch on Friday and a get-together at the Hall Street Grill today after work. People were sincerely sorry to see me go. I didn’t get emotional (well, I got a little misty as I was going off to work for the last time this morning). I realized today that I never got a going-away lunch from Intel, or from any of the last several jobs at Intel (most of which stopped when the division was shut down, so any going-away was a group activity). I feel good about the work that I did at McAfee; I’m sorry to go, but there’s now a whole department to do what I used to have to do myself, so I’m not leaving them completely in the lurch.

Tomorrow… a new start!

Word count: 59981 | Since last entry: 277 | Days until retirement: 4

Yesterday was my last 8am meeting, and probably my last time going to the gym near work. Today might have been the last time I’ll have to make my lunch in the morning. Going-away lunch with my department tomorrow. Monday’s my actual last day.

This is a strange transitional time. Almost everything I need to do is done. I still have meetings to attend and some housekeeping chores, but I’m not really responsible for anything any more. I’m not quite done here, and not quite started there.

I have so much on my to-do list for when I’m done here it isn’t funny. Writing, of course, of which I have hardly done any in the last 8 weeks. I don’t entertain any fantasies about eight-hour writing days and octupling my former productivity — I’ve heard enough from other writers who have gone full-time that life expands to fill much of the time that the day job used to, and I don’t even intend to try to write full-time. But I do hope to improve my productivity somewhat, maybe even enough to do some short stories as well as finishing my second novel by early next year. I also have a lot of major non-writing projects in mind, like upgrading our six-year-old computer and twelve-year-old entertainment center. And we’ll be traveling a lot: Ashland, Seattle, and Saratoga (NY) in October alone. And Kate wants to re-do the bathroom.

::rubs hands:: This is going to be fun.

Word count: 59704 | Since last entry: 110 | Days until retirement: 13

First day back at work. Most of the gang was off at some kind of training class so I spent the day catching up with email. Many people said, as I’d expected, “hey, aren’t you retired?” My boss is still trying to convince me to stay on just a little longer. I remind myself of all the times in my working life I’ve poured my heart into a project only to have it canceled. Shoe’s on the other foot now…

After dinner, I went to the coffee shop for Tuesday night writing group. I spent much of the time there re-reading the synopsis and last chapter in hopes of being able to pick up where I’d left off. I didn’t find the existing material terribly convincing, but I did manage to write a hundred new words (I promised myself at least a hundred new words) before acknowleding I couldn’t keep my eyes open. At this rate I’m highly unlikely to finish a chapter before the next crit group meeting. So it goes.

This is the first fiction writing I’ve done in almost two months. This book may have a visible seam in the middle, like the Washington Monument.

Nine working days to go.

Ah, home. The blessedly familiar… While we were gone our neighbors began repainting their house. It’s now half yellow, half green with white spots. When I turned on the dining room light, one of the bulbs immediately died and gave out a wisp of gray smoke(!). When I went to replace it, the glass envelope of the bulb came off in my hand, leaving the exposed filament behind. The envelope was filled with smoke, which sloshed gently, like a liquid. Our neighborhood grocery store has been entirely rearranged. We never did find the cereal. Glad we were only gone for three weeks! :-)

The business-class lounge at Narita airport has free wi-fi. Also free booze, beer, and snacks. A girl could get used to this.

It’s been a trip. We came for the strangeness, and got it in spades. I’m tired of strange now, and ready to come home. We have been able to communicate pretty well with people here, between our limited Japanese and their limited English. But it’s terribly frustrating to be unable to read. I’m also looking forward to Portland’s more reasonable humidity.

Last night there was a religious festival in the neighborhood of our hotel. All over the neighborhood, groups of people dressed in identical yukata gathered together to carry their local shrine (a decorated box about 3′ cube) around on their shoulders, bobbing and chanting and stopping at each local business. Trick or treating? Wassailing? Not sure, but there was one guy in each group going into each business they stopped at with a shopping bag and coming out before they left, and that shopping bag was definitely getting fuller. We saw three such groups without hardly trying, and we’re told the big night is tonight. Unfortunately, tonight we will be on our way to Seattle. (Whatever “tonight” means in a day which is, I think, 40 hours long… we leave Tokyo at 5pm and arrive in Seattle at 9:30am the same day.)

In the last three weeks we’ve hardly eaten the same kind of food twice. I think it was two weeks before we repeated anything other than train-station bento, which is consistently a good quick lunch. I didn’t have katsu-don (breaded pork cutlet and egg over rice) until yesterday. Barbecued eel. Tempura. Oyakodomburi. Things on sticks. Sushi-go-round (a tiny cheap place, not the greatest sushi ever but pretty darn good). It’s all been wonderful.

Spent most of yesterday at the Edo-Tokyo Museum, which covers the entire history of Tokyo from its establishment as capitol by Tokygawa (before that it was just just a reedy swamp… hmm, just like Washington DC). Very well-done museum, notable for 25′ square miniatures equipped with binoculars so you can see the details. Every turn provided new and fascinating stuff I hadn’t realized I would be interested in, like the history of Tokyo’s coinage (Tokyo was on the gold standard, while Kyoto was on the silver standard, which did interesting things to the economy).

Boarding soon. Back later today…