Absence explained.

It is not that I’ve been away from my laptop to any great extent this weekend. Though I did spend a good deal of yesterday napping, I also did a good deal of writing. It just happened to go in the folder for my book – chapters that were waiting in my head, mental lists I was making to try to remember a couple of key points for each part of the story, specific phrases or words I felt were somehow important. So I sat down and completed one chapter and started on two others.

Friend arrived and started to marinate steaks before we flitted off to Walmart to buy extra items for dinner. I provided bread (soaked with butter), cheesy potatoes and salad. Oh, and frozen fruit for daiquiris.

There was googling for drink recipes as I baked cheesy potatoes and put together a salad. I preferred the peach variety we made first and consumed three of the five glasses that were contained in the blender. As I grew increasingly drunk, I just started work on more chapters. As the screen filled with sections of the story – I’m writing it all out of order according to where I’m drawn that particular day – I wrote and clicked and searched for old posts, both published and saved as drafts. It’s coming along. I haven’t read much in the order it will eventually go, but the pieces read individually well. And since I don’t have any real plans for the final product, I’m quite content with that.

As I tend to do when I’ve sipped too much alcohol – even when mixed with delicious peaches and simple syrup made with vanilla sugar – I grew very sleepy. Unable to keep my eyes open much past 9:30, I shuffled off to bed to sleep. I woke this morning before dawn to clean the kitchen, moving slowly but happily as I washed and dried dishes and cleared away clutter. After I fed the cat, I shooed the dog from the room. Chienne eats Sprout’s food to which she is allergic and then we have all sorts of problems. A hungry cat, itchy dog and unhappy me.

Then I went back to sleep.

I woke again hoping that it was after 9:30. That way I would have no time to prepare for church and would have to just nap all day. I squinted at the clock that produces my soothing rain sounds and sighed when I saw it was 8:30. That left time to play online, eat yogurt, walk the dog and get ready for church. So I did, scowling over my reluctance. I thought I was doing better!

I can’t really tell you why I’m avoiding the post the describes the conversation between myself and my new pastor. It was too important and special? It covered topics that are sensitive and painful and I’d rather leave it alone? Just busy with other things? I really don’t know. I think I want to write it. I also thought I'd be eager to worship this morning.

I returned home after a service I enjoyed and after a gigantic brunch at Waffle House that continues to leave me feeling very full 5 hours later, I set about working on my histograms. Again. They didn’t behave as I wanted when I first attempted my correction suggested by Boss. So I found the coding error, fixed it, then went through my 30 patients again. It’s not hard – just time consuming. Running code, checking numbers, looking at results. Repeat. Then checking statistics, reordering data, making pretty graphs. I won my battle against sleep today – I closed my eyes for a few minutes but didn’t cuddle into bed. Instead, I got enough work done to send a decent document to my collaborators. As soon as I write it.

I’m largely content with my weekend. I wanted to make some progress on the book – get certain words and scenes out of my head. That was effective. I needed to get through those histograms again as the quick fix I promised was not quite as straightforward as I wanted. Chienne took a bath (she entered the tub voluntarily after giving me a pained sigh and allowed me to blow her dry as she tossed her ears about amidst my giggles), Sprout got his claws clipped (well, half of them. I need to finish, but one was bloody from a hunting escapade and I got grossed out!), and my house is clean and laundry done. I’m rested and ready to go to work tomorrow, I think.

And maybe now that I’m back in my blog-writing mode, I can tell you about my new pastor soon.