It doesn’t really feel as weird as I anticipated that nearly everybody I know–both teachers and students–are returning to school and I am not. I have not accomplished nearly as much as I hoped to do this summer–but what’s unusual about that?–so with the pool season ending I hope to get moving faster with both my writing and the organizational things I want to do.

We had planned to take a week-long trip to Quebec City later this month, but our friends’ new van’s engine self-destructing has delayed those plans possibly until Spring. So we need to decide very shortly whether to take a camping trip ourselves, or perhaps stay in a condo somewhere (hopefully not in Hurricane Alley, since this season does not seem promising).

Currently Listening: When I am working on the computer, I spend more time listening to Sirius than to cds, usually to Deep Tracks, where they play album tracks of classic rock artists, much of it new stuff to me (and who wants to listen only to the same-ol’-same-ol’ all the time anyway?). Tom Petty and Bob Dylan both have shows, and right now I am listening to Tom Petty’s Buried Treasures in which he plays a lot of good music.

Currently Reading: C.J. Cherryh is one of my favorite writers, equally adept at culture-building and exploring her characters’ personalities, but Sunfall is a complete departure for her. It is a series of poetic stories set in the distant future when our sun is dying and the inhabitants of several ancient cities (Rome, Moscow, Beijing, etc) are struggling to survive. It is more reminiscent of the writing of Roger Zelazny, and it is very evocative and well-done overall.