Poor Billy Bigelow

Here's your man, with no skills to speak of, saving a hunkiness not readily apparent to this viewer, but which has the ladies in the movie salivating, who has found a stable situation as a barker for a carousel and bedwarmer for the owner. He is seduced out of this safe and suitable niche by Julie, who entraps him into marriage and immediately becomes pregnant, thus thrusting Billy into two situations for which he is utterly unsuited. He tries to rise to the occasion of incipient fatherhood in the only way he knows how, and gets dead for his efforts.

I did not finish watching "Carousel;" I can't remember the last time I rejected a story so wholeheartedly. Perhaps I've seen too many true-life versions to be entertained.

It's funny. I saw this movie once before -- my grandmother took me to see it -- I must've been all of five or six. (The way movie-going worked in my family is that my dad took me to see war movies and the occasional Disney feature, and my grandmother took me to see musicals and Jerry Lewis movies.) But, anyway, "Carousel" which, she said, I would like because it had a merry-go-round in it (it would be this same quality of logic that would later see her handing an 8-year-old me Jane Eyre, which I would like because it was "about a little girl."). In any case, I remembered the star-polishing and I remembered the carousel, but I had, as you might expect, Completely Forgotten everything about the story, retaining only a muddled idea of lots of people singing loudly and jumping off of roofs, and a lingering fondness for "The Carousel Waltz."

I should've watched "Enchanted" again, and allowed my memory to remain unsullied.

In other news, Steve is on the road. At last report, about 8 a.m., it was uphill driving (which you can see that it would be by viewing any map of the eastern seaboard of the US), enlivened by high winds and rain.

Here at the day-job, I am not defrosting the refrigerator, dern it, because my connection in the janitorial department has today off. Tomorrow, we try again. I am also in receipt of news that summer will be starting a week earlier than previous advertised, and extend two weeks longer. *Looks at checkbook* Um, oops?

There was frost on the car this morning; it's now a cool and sunny day. Tomorrow, it's supposed to be cold, windy and rainy -- I guess that'll be the weather Steve is bringing up-coast with him.

Waiting...

Last word from Steve was that he was still driving. That was, oh, 12:30-ish, I guess.

Man, today would have been The Perfect Day to defrost the work refrigerator. I was good for nothing else. Four whole days basically concentrated on one task that is not any of the tasks that I perform at the day-job makes for an...interesting day in the so-called Real World.

On the writing front, a slow word day; still working out the last few bumps in the narrative. I do have the last scene written; there two -- maybe three -- additional scenes to write, and then I can take a day or two off and read somebody elses' books before I start in the revision pass.

Finding out that summer is starting a week earlier than planned is actually a good thing for this book (if a not-exactly wonderful thing for the household finances); I'll have five days in a row for a couple of weeks to have nothing but the book in my head. This may sound scary, and probably is, but to me, a relief.

Come to think of it; extending the end of summer (while not-exactly wonderful &c, as above) may very well be good for Carousel Tides, due at Baen on September 15. Sigh. What was I thinking?

The wind is up and the clouds are coming in. The weatherbeans are sticking with their cold and rainy story, and somewhere, out there, is a man in a silver Subaru, driving north.

Progress on Mouse and Dragon

103835 / 120000

"Aelliana," he murmured, "behold our son."