Stuff to Post While I Gear Up To Write Some More II

An amplified voice and roaring cheers hit the glass. I open the window to let them in. The football game everyone but me has gone to is underway. Cheers and whistles, game calls, the band brass drifting over trees and houses. Somewhere a dog barks, and in between a motorcycle goes buzzing by. I love the sounds of America.

We built our house in an open lot in the middle of the block, far from the roads but just an almond orchard away from the high school. The location has served us very well. We can walk up to the school for meetings and events (the children always drive). Parents like letting their kids stay here, because we're so near the school. Post-game fireworks can be watched from our driveway.

The football team went 10-0 and is now in Sac-Joaquin Section Division III playoffs against a team from way down in Vallejo, over an hour's drive. No idea how it's going. Tempted to take my Burning Man bike and turn all the colorful lights on and ride up to see. All the cool kids are up there.

That's a difference from my hometown. Not that I knew the cool kids, or even who they were, but I never heard about them going to the football games. I only did when we had a pep band. That was fun. We were good, too. At an away game once we were so dismissive of the opposing band the eight of us marched around to their side of the field and played the Mickey Mouse theme song. Got in trouble for that.

* * *

My kid Skzx started a club at school. It's all about camping. Tomorrow early they're going to Dillon Beach for a couple nights. Parents too. The 19 year old, Sk8r, and I will have the house to ourselves. Might not see each other much, or at all.

I've got four days' writing to catch up on. That means six to do -- ten thousand words -- by Sunday. I'm not a fast writer. I don't want to spend the whole damn weekend at it. But a goal is a goal and frankly, my kids will take me for a weenie if I don't make it.

* * *

Another writing place. My other grandfather's old desk. Backed up to the headboard (bed's not against any walls). Can see the TV from there, and open a curtain to the outside, and have tea and ice cream, and stack books. Doesn't work out as well as the typewriter table upstairs.


Progress chart, kind of showing my behindness.