Julie's Web Journal

I spent Friday with some writer and artist friends who were down for AKon. We went up to Perth Street and to Sam Moon. Along the way I managed to lock my keys in the car and had to get rescued. Thanks, Chris! 

For those who don't live in the area, Perth Street is a little area off of Harry Hines (yep, named after a real person) chock full of wholesale and off-price fabric stores. Most of the places are warehouses that are not air conditioned, so it made for an interesting afternoon. We all sweat together. Sam Moon is a local store (now a chain) that carries handbags and jewelry at discount prices. I've picked up brands there that I've found in stores. And no, they're not fakes.

Paul and I went out to a nice dinner Friday night, then spent Saturday taking care of a few things around the house. Both toilets needed to have their guts replaced. We went out for lunch and stopped at a couple of thrift stores and hit some paydirt. I found two candle holders to Steampunk up. Well, now it's down to one. I discovered one of them was an actual antique - made between 1851 and 1879! Pictures to come.

I spent the day polishing the candle holders (one was brass and the antique was silverplate) along with another brass candelabrum that was in storage in the garage. The latter item was made in the 1960s, when people kept spotless houses, but bought crap with fake dirt embedded in it to show their taste. Between the fake dirt/patina and the real grunge, it took some time to get clean. 

Yesterday I cleaned up from all the cleaning. Went to bed early...and didn't sleep well at all. May just have to give up and take something tonight. After several weeks of no hot flashes, I've had them every night this week. Ah, the joys of getting old. However, this beats the period of several months where I had one almost every night. 

I've also been reading. Finished George Mann's The Osiris Ritual and read John Scalzi's Fuzzy Nation. I enjoyed both, particularly Fuzzy Nation. Last night I sat the book aside and thought, "damn, why can't I pull off this sort of plotting?" I turned out the light and a light in the brain went on. I had a huge breakthrough on Stalled Novel #1 and sat up taking notes on my tablet for a while. No, I didn't steal anything from Scalzi. What I did do was think about the background of one of the characters. It made me realize that my main character didn't have enough backstory. I spent some time filling that out. The new backstory lead to a plot revelation that's finally (I hope) going to tie it all together. And maybe that had something to do with my fitful sleep last night. My brain was probably going in overdrive. 

So all in all, it was a productive, busy weekend. I have other work to catch up on this week, not to mention a truckload of laundry.

I'll try to post candle holder pictures later today. But first, I'm going to find some coffee. And see if I can uncover a clean spot on the desk. Well, a girl can dream.