Welcome To The Planet Venus

• Yesterday we had a brief -- like, two second -- power outage. After that point, I noticed it was getting warmer and warmer, but I chalked it up to
  1. the intense heat (around 108) outside and
  2. my running in and out of the house, talking to the gardener.

  I said, "Darin, this just seems to be blowing hot air."

  He came upstairs and said, "Jesus Christ!"

  Downstairs, where Darin works (and where we sleep -- thank God) is on a separate air conditioning system. The upstairs air conditioner had stopped. It was the same temperature as outside up there. Ooops!

  We tried power-cycling the AC, but that didn't work. The AC guy is coming here today. Between 5:30 and 8:30. I'll bet he's pretty popular today.

• Darin and I went to dinner last night at a new restaurant (for us), Mezzomondo. Darin loves the fact that this means "Middle Earth." At least, we're pretty sure it does. Anyhow, we were done at 10, we walked back to the car, and we noted that it was still pretty hot out -- though, thankfully, it's a dry heat. We got in Darin's car, whereupon the car's outside temperature reading told us it was 104 degrees F. At 10 at night. Whee!

• No other celestial object has been mistaken for an extraplanetary spacecraft as often as the planet Venus.

• Many astronomers agree that the San Fernando Valley is doing a heck of a job imitating the planet Venus right now.

(Okay, that last one was a joke.)

Yes folks, I sat in the upstairs for hours yesterday, noting that it was hot, and thinking that the AC was just having a bit of trouble. Then I noted that Darin was as happy as a clam (a well air-conditioned clam) downstairs. Upstairs, 108; downstairs, 72.

Folks, we have weather happening on our stairs.

So now I'm downstairs as my first desk position, a paper airplane's throw from Darin's office. I am trying to be quiet as a church mouse to avoid interrupting him. In fact, the other church mice refer to me as "snotty," "stuck-up," or "weird" for being so quiet.

Actually, with all these baking temperatures, I'm just glad that there hasn't been a smog advisory. The sky is blue and clear.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

No running today -- but that was the plan! My day off.

It's 10am; haven't gotten started writing yet. I wrote a couple pages of my Buffy spec yesterday. Darin also read my "Ideas" file and he said he thought they were great, but one thing I've got to do is concentrate more on ideas that affect me, terrify me, really get me where I live.

Clearly he wants me to write about broken air conditioning.