The good: I passed page 100 on TOD this weekend. Not by much, but the book is theoretically 1/4 finished. I say theoretically because I have yet to stop writing at page 400 and I very much doubt that I'll stop that soon here too. I'm thinking more like 450+ pages for TOD.
The bad: There was a wasp in the house, hanging on the kitchen curtain. Half freaking out, I ran into the garage looking for wasp spray and all I saw was ant killer. I kept looking, quickly scanning the sprays, because I was worried he'd fly off the curtain and I'd have him loose in the house. Just when I decided that maybe ant killer would take him down, I found the wasp and hornet spray. I shook the can, popped the cap and reentered the house, ready to kill.
As I stood, just about two feet from my enemy, I fired. Nothing came out but air! It pushed his ugly wasp body against the curtain, but I'm totally freaking out now that I'm going to be attacked by the wasp. Finally, finally the insecticide comes out and I coat him with it. But it's not doing anything! He's wet, but unaffected. I fire again. Again, air comes out first before, at long last, the chemical. He's covered in foam, but still moving just fine. Now I'm worried that the spray is old.
While he's crawling on the window sill, I look for a fly swatter which is nowhere to be found! I find a long slat of wood and return to the kitchen. Standing farther away from the wasp than I was with the spray, I raise the slat and SMOOSH him against the window sill. I had to really press before I heard the crunch of his body. I HATE WASPS!
The Ugly: I was working on adding stuff to chapter 4 yesterday. I think I still need to add more description, but I slipped a little in there. Anyway, the laptop locks up. I can't even get it to reboot. I have to hold down the on/off button until it shuts off, then I reboot. I expected everything to be fine--I've done this maneuver before--they're not fine.
The toll? I lost all my internet cookies and all my browser settings. I still haven't managed to recreate them so that things look the way I like them to look. I've also had to remember passwords that I haven't had to type in months. Several PDF files are corrupted. But this is all minor compared to the kicker.
I go to open chapter 4 to finish working on it and THE WHOLE THING IS CORRUPTED! I can't get it to open at first, and when I finally do open it--IT'S BLANK. Twenty-two pages are GONE!
Fortunately, I'd backed up my work--something I sheepishly confess that I don't do daily. I was lucky, though, and I had the chapter--minus all the changes I'd made on Sunday--saved. I reloaded that, then tried to recreate what I'd done. The original version was better, but I'm happy to have any kind of version. If I'd had to rewrite all those pages, I think I would have cried.
MN Weather Report: 64 degrees. Thunderstorms.
