Everyday I drive home past Gilman Drive, but my geek-mind insists it muct be Gill-Man (The Creature From Ther Black Lagoon) drive.

Well, if there was a gill-man Scrips would be in the front of the line to study him.

Not as quickly as I had hoped, but I am making progress on Cawdor.

The end is in sight and I can tick off on one hand the major points/events remain in the story-arc. I have one last major decisions — how much to reveal at the end — and that I will finalize when I get there.

After this, I will print a hardy copy of the entire first draft. Read and lightly edit it (heavy editing has been done as part of the writing process.) Correct it and then turn it over to my sweetie-wife for final proof-read. She’s terrific at spotting those errors that slip through.

Almost time to enlisted beta-readers for the manuscript.

We’ll see how people take to this unconventional approach to Macbeth

So, my friend Bear suggested I try the Comfortgel mask for my CPAP therapy. After much heartache with Apria healthcare it arrived yesterday.

I molded the mask top my face and last night I slept wearing it. Man that is a comfortable mask. IT took very little pressure to achieve a good seal and I was able to sleep much more soundly than I had with either of my other tgwo masks.

Of course the real test is in the long run, but I have high hopes for this mask making my nights, and my sweetie-wife’s nights, more restful.

In other 1980 news I got my new wall decoration today. It is a reprint of the movie poster for Xanadu, reduced to 11 X 17 inches and transferred to canvass. It looks great.

Xanadu is a horribly flawed movie, but one close to my heart. If for no other reason than its core philosophy…

Today Karma was decidedly mixed.

The first two hours of work were less than fun. I answer phones for a living, helping patients get access to medications. These patient do not always speak English. When they don’t we use a language line and the services of a translator. These calls are by their nature longer and more difficult, but they are also fairly rare. I can go a week or two without a single foreign-language call.

Two hours into my shift and 5/9’s of my calls were foreign language calls. Sigh. At least they were all patients I could help and whose lives are now going to be better than they were before.

The next swing was up when my new nasal mask for my CPAP therapy arrived and by a miracle it was the make and model I ordered. (And the right size.) I had a double whammy of good shipping karma when my blu-ray of the 1980 Flash Gordon arrived as well. Man that looks stunning in 1080p. Silly story, weak leading cast, but gorgeous design, and a wonderful supporting cast.

My karma took a hit when traffic turned nasty towards the end of the day and I knew I would have to take the slow route home over the all freeway route. It got worse when I got a call 4 minutes before end of shift and it was yet another foreign-language call. So with nasty traffic before me I was twenty minutes late leaving.

It is just over 2.3 miles from my work down Genesee blvd to the freeway I would be using. It took more than forty-five minutes to travel those 2.3 miles. I was very late picking up my sweetie-wife from her work.

Still the new mask seems much more comfortable, the blu-ray looks and sounds great, and tomorrow I get a poster of my favorite movie to hang in my office, so it’s not all bad is it?

Oh and I’m ready to edit another three chapters of Cawdor. Certainly this first draft will be finished within two weeks I think.

I did not get very many words down for Cawdor today. I can usually get about and hour and a half of writing completed at my day job between my two 15 minutes breaks and my hour lunch. Toasdy I got some writing done during my hour of lunch.

The first 15 minute break was entirely taken up by arguing on the telephone with Apria Healthcare. If you ever have a need for Durable Medical Equipment and have the option of anyone other than Apria, take it. Under no circumstances should you deal with Apria if you have a choice. I do not have a choice and so I am stuck. (Though in the future for small purchases I may just skip my insurance and buy the crap myself. Amazon is much better than Apria.)

The second 15 minute break was consumed with my Arthritis doctor and the appointment for tomorrow that they suddenly canceled.

In addition to all that, I had a horrid time getting to sleep Sunday night.

I am a stomach sleeper. I much prefer going to sleep on my belly, but now that I use a CPAP machine it would be better if I slept on my back, I can go to sleep on my back, but it’s a longer and tougher road to travel.

Last night I laid in bed on my back determined to stay on my back until I fell asleep. I started at 10:45 and about 11 pm I could feel myself actually transitioning to sleep. The phone rang. Of course with a mask on and a chin strap[ holding my jaw closed I could not be the one to answer it. My sweetie-wife did only to find it was a spanish language wrong number. People if you are going to use the phone late make damn sure you know the right number.

My decent in sleep disturbed, I had to start the whole process over again. I did not get to sleep until after midnight I think, and the morning came way way too soon.

So the D&D 3.5 game went well. Only one player died and it could have been many more than that as they were truly overmathed.

Toady I went out with a friend for shopping and lunch. Had good pizza at a local place with an all you can eat buffet. Afterwards I bought some books. (Changeless by Gail Carriger and Crusade & Maelstrom by Taylor Anderson.)

At frys’ I had an impulse buy of GalaxyQuest on Blu-ray and boy was this the right purchase.

I already owned GQ on DVD and I generally do not replace my DVD’s with Blu-ray’s unless there is additional content. The original GQ disc had little in the way of Bonus material, but the Blu-ray has much more.

The sweetie-wife and I have already watched two featurettes and laughed heartily.

Been spending today getting ready to run my 3.5 D&D game. (My collection of friends and I do not play 4 ed)

The bad guys are assembled and it is going to be a tough fight.

Who knows? The players might lose….

For some reason my fingers are in arthritis mode and have been hurting all afternoon. I had a lot of running around to do today and so I sadly missed my 1000 word minimum for writing.

Things have gone rather well today. 2000 more words written for Cawdor, voted without incident, funny stuff on Tv to watch and the news that there is serious speculation that there may be life on Titan. Now this is not evidence of life on Titan it is anomalous finding that life could explain, but more likely there is a strictly non-biologic process at work.

However for there to be even a serious suggestion of life on freakin’ Titan, that is wicked cool.

The book is steaming along nicely. I have completed about 290 pages of manuscript and I am charging towards the inevitable conclusion. The path has been far from inevitable. I have deviated wildly in the middle away from my outline. However that is precisely why I have an outline,

Instead of becoming lost and confused as to where my story was heading. I grew confident enough to walk away from the path because I knew what my goal was going to be. It has made the story stronger and I hope more enjoyable.

I still feel it’s a story few will like, but I am drawn deeply to it.