in which nothing happens.
If he writes a message of love over Springfield, we're all screwed.
The FOX network is going to investigate paranormal phenomena. Somehow, I'm not confident they're going to get to the bottom of things.
I had a nice surprise today. I was sacked out in the living room, trying to recover from my insomnia, and I turned on the baseball game that was on, which was the Yankees versus the Expos. In the fourth inning, the broadcasters were pointing out that David Cone was pitching a perfect game. Despite that it's well known in baseball circles that you aren't supposed to point that sort of thing out--it's bad luck; it'll jinx it, y'know--they continued to point it out for the next five innings.
Cone pitched the 16th perfect game in baseball history. Pretty cool. I believe a perfect game may be more rare than hitting for the cycle (one batter hitting a single, a double, a triple, and a home run in one game).
For those of you in other countries, a perfect game is when nothing happens.
(Okay, not really. Well, kind of. A no-hitter is a game in which the pitcher keeps the opposing team from getting a hit. A perfect game is a no-hitter in which no member of the opposing team reaches base for any reason--via a walk, a hit-batsman, or an error.)
Yesterday, Mary and Rod had a pool party over at their house. They bought a huge new grill and cooked hot dogs. Darin and I brought berries, shortcake cups, and light sour cream to make berries-and-sour-cream-in-shortcake-cups desserts. We hung out with our legs in the pool and Mary's friends from the Disney program came by.
(I remembered my camera about 30 seconds before we got to their house. I have to start remembering the camera before I leave the house. Sigh.)
Grace is changing so much. I guess they do when they're that little. Mary was so happy to have tons of people around who could take turns holding her, so that she didn't have to all the time. Grace is still incredibly cute. She's just heavier than ever.
Darin and I left around 5:30, because suddenly I was so tired I couldn't think. Darin dropped me off at the house before going over to the Guys'. I went to bed and slept pretty darn soundly from 6 to 9. I woke up at 9 and thought, Should I just go back to sleep?
(Note to self: from here on in, the answer to this question is always yes.)
I decided to finish The Man From St. Petersburg by Ken Follett, which is a thriller that hinges on such a major coincidence (which spawns little baby coincidences) that I felt like slapping Follett across the face. But he's the one with the massive mansion, so what do I know?
At midnight, I thought, I'm sleepy, but I guess I'm a little hungry too, better get something to eat.
(Note to self: in the future, just go to sleep. You can eat in the morning.)
I went upstairs and made a bowl of chicken noodle soup. I started reading one of the Regency romances Tamar lent me.
Darin came home around 1 and went to sleep. I finished the book, turned off the light, and lay there for an hour or so. At 3, I went upstairs, got another romance novel, and read until 5:30, at which point the horizon showed the first rays of dawn. I slept until 6:30, then slept again until 10, at which point Fernando called and asked if we wanted to go to breakfast. I said no, but I didn't get back to sleep.
I figured it was better to just stay up all day and try to get on schedule. And hey, I got to see that perfect game (albeit via TV).
We entered four complete months' worth of bills and statements into Quicken tonight. It's much easier to do every month, but clearly we haven't been.
If you need a good way to tucker yourself out--enter statements and credit card receipts into Quicken. You'd much rather be asleep.
I went back and tried to rewrite a few chapters of my novel in the first person. It doesn't work for me. Unless a character has a really distinctive speaking/narrative voice, writing in the first person just sounds like...me. I far prefer third person. You can do more with it.
(I just read a how-to writing book--How to Write a Mystery by Larry Beinhart--that was fairly interesting until the author got into a discussion of point of view: first person, second person, third person...and he got it wrong. Point of view is pretty darn basic and it's tough to get wrong. However, he described Bright Lights, Big City as being in the first person, present tense (uhhh...that's second person, "you," sir), and the Sherlock Holmes stories as told by Dr. Watson as being second person (uhhh...that would be first person).
(It's the kind of error that makes you distrust everything else said in the book.)
Scott Anderson asked me if I had gone back to fiction full-time. No, I'm just taking a breather from screenwriting. After my last script, I need to fill up again before tackling my next one.
Is it just me, or is this orgy of interest in the supposed death of JFK Jr. little on the "Gosh, we need some kind of orgy of macabre focus on something" side?
I have to admit, I'd rather focus on the 30th anniversary of the Moonwalk, but that's not exactly sexy.
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Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com