Drank too much coffee yesterday. After just two hours of sleep don’t expect coherence from me today. Not that you ever do. Found, scrubbed and reactivated old espresso machine on the weekend, you see. And visited friends, who brewed coffee strongly. They have a nice, new white dog which I manhandled. “Hey, ya giant white fucker c’mere” and all that. I miss having dogs around, but our yard’s too small for a dog. Accidentally inactivated my Nanowrimo account this morning. Family’s all doing fine, except favorite uncle had a massive heart attack and we’re all keeping our fingers crossed. Lots of overseas calls going on in that connection right now. Lots of anecdotes. He’s eighty-something, they jump-started his heart one dozen times after he had the attack, he was in bed sedated, and the nurses caught him trying to get out of bed yesterday.

My mom thinks he wanted to go wash windows. He never retired, you see, and still works as a window-washer.

Any hack can finish a novel in a month. I once wrote a novel in three days, on a typewriter, while drinking only coffee and gin, seated at a small table next to the kitchen.

In a revolving restaurant.

This year, next month, take the Metamorphosism challenge and write two 50,000-word novels for Nanaimo. Or Mie Nanamori? Whatever.

Quick, someone design a logo.

To the guy who got the idea that a rotating restaurant at the top of a humongous tower overlooking the city would be a good idea: dude, what is your favorite movie? Have you ever tried to eat in your own restaurant? Is it your idea of romance to sit across from someone whose eyes keep flitting uneasily from right to left as they try to focus on your face yet keep getting distracted by the horizon rotating slowly beyond your head? In which particular medical products do you own stock?

Etc etc.

Egrunt, the automated Caveman Therapist. Now appearing at Acerbia.

Well, Chris in the comments below pre-empted my planned post about seeing interesting wildlife this morning, so I’ll tell you about the cool fog instead.

It was different today – instead of covering the land in cool sheets 6 feet off the ground this morning, it was this neat shroud 50 feet up. Driving along the freeway through the woods felt like being a geranium in a hothouse, with that big transparent dome above, only going faster and with Lorena McKennitt in the CD player.

Relax.

Do this visualization excercise with me.

Now relax. Seriously.

Lean back in your easy chair.

You’re not relaxing.

Close your eyes. I’m not going to pull anything.

Seriously, close your eyes. Trust me.

Jesus, can’t you relax? Just fucking relax already.

That’s better.

You are in a large room full of people in suits.

You are at a United Nations conference.

The room is huge. It looks like a fucking science fiction set. Like wookies should be walking around and Star Wars troopers or something. But no Princess Leia anywhere. Although some of the secretaries are hot. And the ambassador of [deleted] is cute and stylish. And the delegate from Ireland, woot. Look at her! She could be in Playboy [Oh, you know, there's nothing I like better than frolicking naked in a dewy field of heather after a massive fry-up in the morning, that's just grand...] Wasn’t she on Riverdance? And her shoes, they must have been designed by an atheist.

Relax, I said.

You are in this room, on a chair in the back, but you have no translation earpiece so you sit there listening to the chairman say something in English, and then when a delegate starts saying something in Arabic or Russian or Chinese or French your attention drifts and you listen to the ambient sound in the room.

Shuffling papers. Muffled conversations.

Snatches of distorted translator voices escaping from vacant earpieces, in all five official UN languages. Especially English, for some reason her voice really carries today.

Doors opening and closing, footsteps on the carpet. Someone clicks their attach

You humble bean
You wake me up
You start my heart
With a big hot cup
Fill me with elation
Stimulate my urination
Fill me with delight
Keep me up at night
I know you give me
What it takes
When I drink more
I get the shakes
Coffee, I love you.

Couldn’t find any links, but happy International Day of Coffee anyway.