I am achy and slow moving this morning. I was on my feet from 7:30am to 7:30pm yesterday. We did an 90 min workshop and an hour long show in addition to standing all day at the booth talking to people and answering questions. This morning there are two more 90 min workshops and Bob wants to stand at the booth until 5pm today and then drive back to Asheville. I'll let you know if i survive. I think mostly right now i just need to wake up my muscles. They are a bit reluctant to move right now.

After a long day we did have a really nice dinner at an Indian restaurant here in Hampton, VA with some very pleasant company. The dinner conversation was very complex and interesting. I hope i still have some brain power left for today. Tomorrow i'll probably be a mush puddle, but at least i'll be home.~w

Everything ran late yesterday. That meant that by the time i made it up to my hotel room it was 11pm and i was feeling rather run down. Now it's morning again and i'm trying to find my awake and chipper face to put on before going downstairs to find out about our display table. If we have one (which according to our contract we should) we'll have to set that up, then we have some time to rehearse before our 2:15pm workshop, our show isn't until 7pm. Basically we'll have a lot of the day to stand around and wait for people to wander by our booth. If it's a busy conference that won't get too old, but otherwise it might just be a long day. Okay, time to down some more coffee and get moving...~w

So i'm packing at the last minute to go to Virginia this weekend. Figures, i've done it a few times by now, but i was lollygagging again this morning and and just finishing packing up.

My dream last night was not so fun. Someone was trying to kidnap me because they thought i was close to some high official and would be worth something in trying to stop the bombing. I escaped, but was having a hard time contacting anyone without giving my location away to the kidnappers. I felt like a rabbit, in a hurry to get somewhere, but not safe anywhere. I'm not sure what that was all about.

Anyway, i need to skiddaddle. More from the road soon.~w

I'm trying not to lollygag as bad today, still cold mornings make it hard to get out of bed. Even the cat overslept this morning which is rather unusual. Maybe because she was in my dream with me. Sound weird? Probably is, but i was having a dream this morning where my cat was sniffing around and scoping out this house (yes, she's a cat even if she acts like a dog sometimes). All i can really remember was that i basically stayed out on the porch of this house and that as we were driving away i was asking questions and determined that people came there to find spirits who were lost. There was a man whose age was not important (i kept asking, they kept avoiding the answer and finally i said is that something i'm not suppose to know, and they said yes), but they told me he was a pastor looking for his congregation that had been lost in some disaster. There was more to it, but the details were funny. Something about the importance of being native to america or not or something as well.

My mind is a whole jumble of ideas these days i guess. So dreaming about that mess is my excuse for running nearly as late today. I must be off...~w

The word of the day is most appropriately "lollygag." That exactly what i've been doing this morning and it's not getting me anywhere very fast. I ran away from the office yesterday to work at home on researching some upgrades for the Poetry Alive! website and wait for the plumber. The plumber did come and not only fixed the broken pipe, but finished repairing the problem that i'd been working on too! I did a little happy dance last night around my clean and fixed home. Now if i could just do something about the yard... That will have to wait a few weeks.

This weekend i go to Hampton, VA for the Virginia Association of Teachers of English conference and next weekend i'm going to The Lake Eden Arts Festival. Today a friend is coming up from Greenville to do a poetry reading on campus, but before i can get to the fun stuff i suppose i should get my work done.

Oh, but before i go...the tapas bar was closed on monday so we had a pizza party instead and then much fun playing video games and pool in the back room afterwards.~w

Well, almost. The house is clean and the painting is done. The sink is more broken than before and my friends decided as we were standing in line that they didn't want to see Burning Spear so bad after all. But, i have a call into a plumber and we had a lovely time out just chatting last night. So, i feel like i accomplished quite a bit even though i now need to take time from work to come out to the house and meet the plumber if i want my sink working again. You see, the plunger thingy i could fix. I could see where all the pieces joined together and there were directions on the package of the replacement part as well. What i hadn't counted on was that the drain pipe that exits through the wall would come apart in my hand while i was unscrewing a pipe from it. Pipes aren't supposed to do that. I suppose it's better that it did that now rather than later when a bunch of water is gushing through it from the sink and i'm not watching it. The good news is that it should be covered by my American Home Shield policy. I think i'll have the plumber finish the replacement that i started cuz i just don't want to mess with the thing anymore.

Today is a friend's birthday and i'm looking forward to a festive dinner at the local tapas bar tonight.~w

Already this morning i've removed the bathroom cabinet doors and the shelves from the hall. The wallpaper behind the shelves has been removed and everything is clean and ready to paint. Now i just need a paintbrush. I have paint and rollers, but my smaller brushes have bit the dust and this work is too tight for rollers. Hopefully by the end of today i will have newly painted shelves and cabinet as well as a sink whose plunger works once again (need to get the part from the same store as the paintbrush). The plan is to have the work done in the early afternoon and relax the rest of the day before going to see Burning Spear tonight. Why am i being so obsessive you wonder? Could be my nights are booked until i leave town on Thursday and then i leave town for 3 days (and will have someone housesitting to feed the kitty). When i get home next weekend, i don't want to have to do more than a load of laundry. I'm sure by the time i get around to housework again there'll be a new layer of dust over everything. At least it won't be dust on top of dust.~w