R.I.P. Sue Grafton

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42522100

Kinsey Millhone is gone. Goddammit. Where’s my trusty black dress?

Okay, a little grumpy

I’ve been looking at planners, though I will probably go on with my self-designed entries in little Moleskine pocket-sized notebooks. I like setting up a page that is just what I need it to be, though it does take a bit more time than working with a pre-made one. I’m definitely wedded to paper. I like the act of writing things down, and seeing when a page fills up: no, I really can’t add another thing to that day.

I have long known that I am a difference-sorter, and a rebel. I don’t like being told what to do. “Inspirational” planners make me want to sit in the corner, pick my toe-jam, and sulk. Despair.com has my number, and in fact I have ordered a 2018 calendar from them, starting with “Dysfunctional.” Unfortunately, they only have monthly calendars, not a weekly planner. So in the despairing spirit, here’s my template for the Sulker’s Planner:

I can’t manage to make the picture display at a decent size. Please click to enlarge, and feel free to adapt for your own planning if it speaks to you.

900: Falling off the face of the Earth

In the middle of last month, I realized that my next post would be #900, which seemed to call for some special notice. I was mulling over a post about metaphors for writing and why I like to read blogs about restoring old houses in France (which is definitely one of those reading-not-doing items for me). I hoped to write the post before leaving for the Thanksgiving break, but figured after, or even during, would work just fine.

Then we went to visit my family for Thanksgiving, and all plans went to hell in a handbasket. My father, reportedly doing very well following a hospitalization at the end of October, was supposed to move from a rehabilitation facility to “independent living.” My soon-to-be-ex-niece-in-law (I had understood) had done a lot of the necessary organizing and everything was set for an orderly transition. There were just a few little loose ends that could be easily wrapped up.

Mmm-hmm. I’m not sure if I should say that the loose ends unraveled or that pulling on them led to a massive snarl of yarn. Either way, it was a mess, and I didn’t really work out how much of a mess until I had about 36 hours before I had to leave for the airport. I moved mountains, and was briefly proud of myself, and then the mountains collapsed, after all (volcanic eruption? I really should leave the metaphors alone). A week later, my father was in the hospital with pneumonia, all his work in rehab undone.

To make a long story short, he is now in a nursing home, where he seems likely to stay for the rest of his life. He is one of the highest-functioning patients there, both mentally and physically, but he’s still not in good enough shape to tackle even assisted living. He might get there, but at his age, just making the move from one situation to another would be enormously stressful and likely to lead to another setback.

At any rate, my life seems to be back on track now. Grades are in. One of my greatly-delayed sets of revisions, the easier one, is done and submitted, thanks to the editor leaning on me. And I really do mean thanks; I would not have got them done without the kick in the pants, but the work provided a useful counter-irritant to a whole lot of calls and anxiety about my father. The editor for the last chunk of the MMP has extended me mercy unhoped-for. I have to pound out a revised intro and conclusion, but I think I’ve fixed everything else, and if I can keep a clear head and finish off in the next ten days or so, the largest and most elaborate piece of the MMP will see daylight in 2018. God willing and the creek don’t rise, with the help of the Lord and a long-handled spoon, and any other such folk sayings we can come up with (please leave them in the comments).

One happy side-effect of living on adrenaline appears to be that I am not suffering from SAD this year, at least not so far, and so you are spared my usual grousings about winter and the holidays. I am actually looking forward to a sane and ordinary get-together with Sir John’s side of the family, and to a nice calm dose of ordinary work instead of having to apply my skills at gathering, organizing and communicating information to elder-care. I guess another happy side-effect is realizing how useful these skills actually are in real-life situations.

Roll on Christmas excess. Sir John impulse-bought a lovely bottle of lovely Spanish sherry last week, and I have been lapping it down at such a rate that I think I need to get him a new bottle for his stocking. Ding-dong, merrily get high!