Irate neighbor apologized today to the husband. I would have gouged his eyes out and knew I would so I locked myself upstairs with the cats who also would have gouged eyes out, probably without much prodding. All the usual excuse cards were played: "My medication, the economy, my unemployment, the kids, the dog barking down the street. the weather..." I nearly yelled down from the luxurious cat abode upstairs how much I liked the weather but kept my tongue to myself. The husband was very accommodating even if he was barely able to get a word in edge-wise yet again.

I'm still not going to trust the neighbor who seems to pull one of these hissy fits once or twice a year. He's a sneaky one; all apologies one minute, carving knife and fork set in the back the next. Avoidance at all costs is the new rule around here...

...unless I need more fodder for my character file. I'll just make sure I'm wearing chain mail if and when I re-open that dialog.

193 words written this afternoon on a piece that won't see the light of day anytime this year. Just had to capture my emotions. Missed the aura of Fireside and my writer friends there.

What an interesting evening! Husband was called a derogatory name to his face (literally screamed at) by an irate neighbor who was manipulated by his seven year old daughter. Again. All over a ball thrown into our back yard. Again. And without letting us get a word in edge-wise, we were told to move "if we didn't like it." Neighbor kids then flipped us off through our clear front glass door for the rest of the evening. This is like reliving grade school.

We outrank this guy in this neighborhood by five years. We ain't going nowhere. And he's publicly known as an overly medicated loose cannon by his own admission. Knowing this guy, one of those kinds who exists by suing anyone and everyone over everything, I'm expecting papers to be served within the week. Ah, drama. I'll keep my doors and windows locked anyway.

Yep, I just might have lots of character-driven stories cropping up this summer.

While writing at Fireside Coffee Lodge last night, I finally felt like I was falling back into The Car Novel. You know that feeling: Reconnecting with old family and friends, I mean with your characters, knowing in a heartbeat what some will say in response to anyone and any situation, and immersing yourself back into the world you've lovingly and painstakingly created for them.

In real life and in The Car Novel, the timing is right. The season has just begin. The weather is the same, the worries are the same, the challenges are the same. The frantic, time-line rush to get everything right feels the same for me as I'm editing the first half of my MS for the third time and for my characters as they are walking into a season unlike any they've ever known. Look out big block, side-draft pumping, blower-clad, paddle-shifting, open exhaust, triple chromed, street rod-lovin' world, here I go again!

Come July, I expect I'll be more Floyd, Cecil, Scratchy, and Novato than myself, a mental state that I expect will last deep into autumn. If anyone out there has got a burning question they've wanted to ask me, ask now or risk getting obsessive automotive trivia gibberish later.

Now I've gone and done it. Written myself into a corner all because I don't understand math and don't want to chain my short story characters to known laws of physics. Basically, I've written a dead story, a stillborn not completely formed, never to be.

Dang.

No doubt I'll try to find a way to salvage it, steer it away from the math and physics aspects so as to not insult anyone else with my utter and complete lack of understanding of either. Or I'll pluck out the two characters and drop them into something new, something different that doesn't involve the sciences. It's a shame really because after countless hours of science-y and physics-laden research including but not limited to Corona Discharges, Azimuths, Geomagnetic Pole Reversal, Statites, Spherules, Dyson Shells, Solar Sails, Telsa Coils, Magnetometer, Nanotechnologry, and Electromagnetic Ions, I thought I might have been onto something. I'll only be discouraged momentarily. No time to sit and whine about it.

But hey! We got that new and improved toilet installed.