just so I don't get accused of blogging once a month...

...I'm writing this, a sort of throwaway post where I tell what I have (and have not) been up to during my long absence.

To summarize:

READING
I finished A Clockwork Orange and am actually somewhat ahead of schedule with my reading-one-chapter-of-Moby-Dick-per-day scheme. (In case you're wondering, I just finished Chapter 42, "The Whiteness of the Whale.") I was originally going to leap full-tilt into At the Earth's Core, but I've thought better of it. I think I'll persevere and finish with Melville's white whale before I tackle anything else. Ahab's duel with his mortal enemy makes for such engrossing reading that I'm concerned I might dilute the impact of the work if I committed adultery with Edgar Rice Burroughs in the meantime.

Now that I've implanted that lovely image in your head, let's move on to

WRITING
Nothing new on the nonfiction front, and the novel remains untouched somewhere in the closet, like a wooden idol some former pagan ashamedly hid from the missionary who converted him. On the short story front, however, I'm making inroads to success. I'm almost, almost done with "Aptitude." I just need to segue into the denouement. To do that, I need a meteor shower. Nothing's worse for a greenhorn mechanic on his first run to the Outer Planets than micrometeorites punching into his starship's hull at 20,000 miles per hour, particularly when he's at the center of a diabolical plot to steal military-grade technology and black-suited agents have been making attempts on his life the whole fraggin' voyage.

Moreover, I need to decide what I'm going to do with one of the characters. He deserves a more prominent role, but up to this point he's been an amalgamation of man-behind-the-curtain/deus ex machina, lurking behind the scenes and protecting the protagonist from above (literally at times) like some kind of fleshly guardian angel, only dropping down to the mortal plane when things get really hectic. I'd like him to be more of the prickly mentor type. Perhaps I can arrange for his fifteen minutes of fame during that meteor shower, huh?

WORKING
I'm done with the café. Seriously. My hours have been cut back to just eight per weekend, four on Saturday and four on Sunday. So I'm working two days for the price of one. Not cool. I feel my time would be better spent looking for (and getting) a bartender's position someplace, so I can start building experience for those pubs in Australia. So I handed in my two weeks' notice last Saturday. My final day will be the 26th of February. It was fun while it lasted, sort of. At least I got some freshly barbecued Sunday afternoon tri-tip out of the deal.

FLYING
Not happening as often as I'd like, but it'll do. I have over 150 hours now, well on my way to the 250 required for a commercial license. Unfortunately we've been working a lot of short weeks lately. The Air Guard has been doing proficiency checkrides since the New Year started, meaning we come in at 7:30 and get done at ten or twelve o'clock. Looks like things might pick up soon...rumors of chase contracts for Grey Eagles (and perhaps even Reapers) keep trickling down the grapevine. But even so, I've decided that there's no way I'll rack up enough hours (or cabbage) to get my instrument rating, let alone my commercial license, before Miss H and I leave to go overseas again. Oh well. I'll just rack up as many hours as I can and finish my flying education when I get back. At least I'm not sick of flying Mooneys yet. On the contrary, I like it more and more. A Mooney is the GTO of the air, with the added advantage of being fuel-efficient. Apparently Mooneys can be safely ditched, too, which is yet another point in their favor.

And the secret's out, so I might as well tell you what I'm planning to do with Miss H on the day we've allotted to celebrate Valentine's Day, the 21st of February (she had both class and babysitting to do on the 14th, so we decided to pick a different day for our private celebration). I'm flying her to Big Bear City for breakfast. It's less than an hour away by plane and not even that far by car. I've been up there quite a few times. Sounds like there's a marvelous little restaurant at the Big Bear Airport (for those aviators hearty enough to brave the approach over tall pine trees, and the departure over the lake). We're going to try it out. I've taken Miss H flying before, but we didn't actually go anyplace. We just sort of flapped about like a dirty great albatross. Now we have a destination in mind, you see. And a delicious breakfast waiting for us there. It's going to be grand. One of the many advantages to being a pilot is well, not to brag or anything, but your date ideas knock all the other schmucks' out of the ballpark.

And on that note, things with Miss H and I are going very well. We had a ball for her birthday (the 13th): I helped her out with her babysitting, then we went to her house and baked some chocolate-chip cookies. We prepared some finger food and had a picnic dinner at the park. We listened to oldies on the radio and watched the sun set over the San Gabriel Mountains. She gave me an extremely romantic gift and a card that nearly brought tears to my manly eyes. Then we went to see The King's Speech (magnificent film). We laughed at Geoffrey Rush's take on Caliban, listened gravely to King George's war address, and then went home all fulfilled and satisfied and romantic and whatnot.

"Anyone who can shout vowels out an open window can learn to deliver a speech."

JOB-HUNTING/DAYDREAMING
Also not progressing as far as I'd like. Case in point, I'm sitting here blogging at you when, by rights, I should be out pounding the pavement. I'm trying to (a) find a place to tend bar in the High Desert, as I mentioned earlier; (b) locate an ESL teaching position overseas, possibly Spain or Poland, or even Chile; and (c) finally, not to any particular point or purpose, I'm looking at aviation jobs in Alaska and Australia. Just fantasizing, you know. Lately I've become hooked on the Discovery Channel's new show Flying Wild Alaska. It's a drug. What Jim Tweto and the Era crew do is exactly what I've been hoping to do when I finally get up there. That is, fly any kind of cargo anywhere in Alaska, anytime of day in any kind of weather in every kind of airplane. I've gotten confirmation that my dream can be made real, now. I'd had some notion about what I wanted to do when I got to the Great North, but I'd never actually known whether it was feasible, or even possible. Now I have proof-positive. Jim Tweto started out with one plane and a lot of dreams. Now he's the owner of a multimillion-dollar aviation enterprise, a linchpin of the Alaskan economy, upon whom hundreds of people in the bush depend on for their very survival.

It's like Bob Dylan sang: "And every one o' them words rang true and glowed like burnin' coals/a-pourin' offa every page like it was written on my soul." Somebody took the dreams I had bound up in my head, feverishly imagined, fervently clung to, desperately feared for, and stuck 'em on the boob tube in documentary format. If I wasn't so joyous at having my life's ambitions reaffirmed I'd probably sue for copyright.

Well, now I know I can do what I want to do. It's a nice feeling.

I don't believe in horoscopes. But I get a kick out of them regardless. Sometimes they can be just about spot-on. The old philosophers have decreed that February is a lucky month for those born in the Year of the Tiger, like yours truly. It's certainly seemed that way. My fantasies became materially possible; the Jeep's been fixed after two months' downtime; the weather's still blessedly cool; I'm racking up flight-hours hand over fist; I have a girl with whom things seem to be working out pretty well; and everything in the world seems new and shiny and potential, somehow. I haven't seen things from this angle in a long while.

It's a pleasure to do so again.

the triple whammy

I'm over being sick, if you'd care to know.

Ten days of antibiotics have finally put me to rights.

I'm back at work (both the flying and the godawful café) and am rotten glad of it. Except for the dish-washing part.

But, as you may have noticed, I still haven't been writing.

Why?

Well, I've been focusing on...other stuff.

No, really.

My other writing, for one thing. You know, science fiction? Short stories? That rot? I haven't touched the finished novel yet (you're shocked, I know).

But I've been beating hell out of my short fiction.

I was originally going to scrub the slapdash ending I'd given to "Low Places" and work on another one, but I think I'll let it stand. If it gets rejected by F&SF...then, maybe, I'll do something about it. But I think it's worth sending it in and seeing what the editor thinks.

Hmmm, what was I going to say next? I don't quite remember. I'm celebrating my return to booze, you see. I went without alcohol for two weeks while I was sick, and a further 10 days while I was on antibiotics. Liquor has a way of interfering with the bacteria-killing bad-assitude of amoxicillin, or so I've read. I'm working on a vodka-and-soda, a golden apple, a rum gimlet, and some sacrilegious hodgepodge of blackberry brandy, cherry brandy, blueberry vodka and Midori. My coherency ain't what it should be right now. Bear with me.

I'm also working on a new story, which has already surpassed 14,200 words and, unlike the seven stories preceding it, actually has a plot. "Aptitude" is a soft sci-fi story about a space cadet in over his head on his first posting. I've had immense fun writing it. I get to play in my newborn world with the wildest abandon. Case in point, my premise is that humanity ships its lower-class passengers and bulk-rate cargo to the solar boundaries using humongous, run-down starships, replete with massive internal combustion engines which drive electric motors which, in turn, route power to the thrust-propulsion engines. I've also gotten the chance to speculate on the future of firearms. Apart from such flights of fancy as the Beretta 2513 (or whatever fanciful model year I chose to give it) I've thrown in such doozies as antediluvian 20th-century elephant guns.

Have I mentioned how much I love being a writer?

Them's the writing updates. I'll have to tell you sometime about how I'm doing with Moby-Dick. That's a story in itself (Herman Melville thought whales were fishes, apparently). I finished A Clockwork Orange, and I'll have to mention something about it, too. It's a worthwhile read.

On the aviation front...I have now officially flown into (and out of) an international airport. Ontario International (KONT), Ontario, California. I've flown out of there plenty of times on Southwest jets, but never manually piloted an airplane in there. It's quite the story. Just finding the airport amongst all the SoCal smog was a trick in itself. And I had to make sure not to stray into the path of the Boeing 737 taking off on Runway 26R next to us. Couldn't dawdle about on the taxiways, either.

I'll tell you about it sometime.

I just wanted to let you know that further scribblings might be delayed or postponed during the month of February. It's a big month. The 14th is, as you know, Valentine's Day. That's going to be a big day for Miss H and I. Her birthday also happens to be the 13th. (I know, right? What a coincidence. Makes me feel like a heel. I get away with a girlfriend whose birthday is absurdly easy to remember.) And the 17th is our six-month anniversary. Well, no. "Anniversary" isn't the right word. "Monthiversary" is more like it. (Anybody know the Latin word for "month"? I'll pay you 30 bucks if you can come up with it before February 17.)

But you get the idea. That's a triple whammy. Birthdays, holidays, and monthiversaries. We've cooked up a special celebration day (the 20th, thus far) to avoid the crowds on Valentine's Day weekend, but I'm still planning on doing something special for the actual days-of. Haven't quite figured out what, yet (especially since she'll be starting classes at Riverside Community College on Valentine's Day) but I'll think of something. Wish me luck.

At any rate, the celebrations, salutations, libations, affectations and defibrillations will probably occupy much of my blogging-time for the duration of February's midsection. I'll still find time to write, obviously; it's just that I may let the blog slack off again. If I do, please indulge me. I'll be showering affection on my most marvelous girlfriend, who deserves all the happiness and joy in this world (or any other), not some poor hapless fool like me. I need to show her how much I appreciate her. No offense, but you, my faithful minions, will likely get bumped down to second fiddle during that time. I knew you'd understand.

Okay, so that's where we stand. I hope you have a superb St. Valentine's Day, devoid of massacres, and if you happen to live someplace where the weather is nasty this time of year, I wish you sunny skies and warmer temps posthaste.

That is all. Breckinridge.