Echoes in a Hollow Space

The Month and a Half From Heck is finally over:

☛ One of the busiest end of the fiscal years I've experienced in awhile
☛ Followed closely by the Meeting From Hell Heck preparation
☛ Painting and furniture moving and re-moving
☛ Another tribe of workmen disrupting the routine of the household (one more tribe to go and then we've exhausted our redecorating resources—and then some)
☛ Some numbskull deciding to push forward with the 2nd draft of her novel during all this, after only about a week off from the 1st draft

There are far worse things that could have happened to me during this time, so it gets a Heck designation rather than Hell, but it did leave me rather exhausted. After the meeting on Tuesday I collapsed in a heap. Oh, I still came into work Weds-Fri, but I wasn't exactly at my best, just dragging through. I gave up trying to write anything some time the week before, am still on vacation from writing (need to refill the well), and I gave myself permission to be a complete vegetable this weekend.

I was looking forward, with the perversity of a true ghost afficionado, to the six hour event Most Haunted Live which went off 9 p.m. Friday night from the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose. I'd just had my new DVR box from my cable company installed on Tuesday (with a return visit on Friday since they didn't do it right on Tuesday) and I'd already successfully recorded three episodes of Ghost Hunters, one hour of the medium Lisa Williams, and had the WE Tv line up of supernatural programs on Saturday night to look forward to (Rescue Mediums is a hoot, followed by John Edward). Because it's the time of year it is, there were other ghostly things to be had on Discovery and whatever the hell channel runs Ghostly Encounters (Sundays). (October always brings enough ghostly programming to choke even a devotee like myself.)

So I figured I could at least make it through midnight on the Most Haunted live event (I usually make it at least that late on Fridays), then watch the rest at my leisure, plus have all those other trashy programs to watch when I felt like it. Dudes, I was sound asleep in my chair by about 10:15. I must have been out at least twenty minutes, because on reviewing the Most Haunted recording the next day there's a big chunk in there that I had absolutely no recall of. I decided not to try to make it to 12, went to bed and slept very soundly.

It had been a very long time since I'd completely vegged out on a Saturday—I literally can't remember the last time I did that. But I did last Saturday, and it felt wonderful. I spent hours with the cat on my lap watching ghostly programming until I started to wonder about my psyche and this fascination with seeing dead people. (I still wonder, frankly, and have no solidly convincing answer for myself.) I didn't even read during that time, just sat there gawp-mouthed.

Sunday was more productive, but then I felt more rested. And now L.A. is surrounded by flame, dozens of wildfires, and a thick coating of ash on my car when I went out this morning (and yes, that means we're also breathing that crud). Dead trees, dead houses, a dead church, dead animals, and at least one dead person. We're haunted every year at this time with flame, and heroic firemen make heroic stands to save people and homes. And still we learn nothing from it. And still we rebuild in the same places and push on with our lives.

It makes me wonder about our collective psyches. I have no answers for that, either, that aren't knee-jerk and simplistic.

Screaming like girls of the day: I must say, Most Haunted was most disappointing last night. There was minimal screaming like girls, Stewart didn't panic even once, and Derek never came down with a case of possession. Given their usual antics, everyone behaved quite reasonably. I certainly hope this show doesn't decide to go legit. That would ruin its entertainment value immensely.

No Reservations of the day: Okay, I confess that I wasted at least an hour this morning watching interview clips of Anthony Bourdain at Travelchannel.com. I love his show, No Reservations, because he's such a bad boy and such a witty raconteur.

Good news of the day: Well, actually, this is from last week. I haven't talked about it until now because I wasn't sure I should make a big deal out of my egoboo, but it did please me a great deal. The first chapter of Charged With Folly got the Editor's Choice for best fantasy chapter in August on the OWW. The review was good and fair, and I agreed with about 98% of it. It was a nice thing to happen at this particularly chaotic time in my life, but what especially pleased me was that when I decided to go in a different direction with my next novel project, someone patted me on the head for it. So, thank you Jenni Smith-Gaynor and OWW.

Moving news of the day: Transported six boxes, five bags of books and miscellaneous craft items to the new residence. Discovered I had not recovered as much energy as I thought. Rested and started packing again. Tristram Shandy and Lolly Willowes made the cut, China Mieville and Lian Hearn did not.