A Dynamo Christmas

The first draft is wrapped. The second pass is coming along. Those pre-Christmas tattoos and piercing have all been needled. The house is clean and the fridge is full. I am very, *very* tired.

Tomorrow, the mighty members of Clan Dynamo shall descend upon our humble home. Papa Dynamo will be full of Christmas Cheer, and this year little brother SamBam Dynamo has decided to forego his traditional Christmas Hangover. I'm going to miss that green-gray color.

Black sheep of the family Angus Dynamo will be there, along with the Mysterious Reason he's a black sheep. It's entirely possible the Mysterious Reason will be full of a different kind of Christmas Cheer altogether, and may be found wrestling the cops on the lawn. If we're lucky, Elderly Great Aunt Agatha Dynamo will lift a car.

Not a large car, mind you. She *is* a startlingly old woman. A Toyota Starlet perhaps, or a Volkswagon Passat.

In the Dynamo Christmas Tradition, I shall be called up on to play some variety of sport involving nets and rackets.

I shall, of course, be humiliated.

Any member of Clan Dynamo, handed a racket, becomes inhumanly fast. Staggeringly, blindingly, Keanu-Reeves-in-The-Matrix-you-know-the-first-one-at-the-end-where-he's-all-like-whoa!-and-we're-all-like-DUDE!-and-he's-really-quick?--Yeah-like-THAT-fast!

I've been 'practicing' against the Tiny Dynamo. It's like facing a cloud of leprechuans. In fact, I'm pretty sure she has some sort of quantum tunneling effect going on. Like, she's *potentially* anywhere and therefore is *partially* everywhere. Until the ball comes near her. Then she's very, VERY definitely in the one place. I have scars.

This year, I'm giving the Tiny Dynamo a Christmas present that just might give me an edge.

Wait til she unwraps her new racket.

It's cast-iron.

Just a Quick One Then

92,000 words

Little bit of lost time in there. The Tiny Dynamo and I went on a mini-break to sunny, beautiful and amazing Kaikoura.

Seriously, when not underwater, it's an awesome place to spend a couple of days. You can go out whale-watching (they come close enough to touch sometimes!) , swim with dolphins and seals, do bush walks full of rare native bird life, and the views are stunning.

Except, of course, when it's rolling gray mist in every direction.

So we had a bad tourist lunch at what used to be a nice place, had good beer at a South Island pub chain and lost a couple of bucks playing the pokies. Video slot machines are okay and all, but I don't see the I-played-them-so much-I-lost-my-home thing.

Instead of staying over, we came back home.

The loudest sound in the house was our teeth gnashing.

I'll blog again for real soon, but today I've got lunch and (shudder) more tennis at Castle Dynamo. At least many, many members of Clan Dynamo will be there. I might stand a chance against some of the more elderly ones.

Who'm I kidding? They're all so small and darty. Great, great uncle Horace Dynamo, with his walker and oxygen mask, would beat me...

Second Honeymoons

77,ooo words (and every one a joy)

I've been suffering through the hard times waiting for this. The Sudoku Moment has been fully unravelled, and I'm once again as excited as a little kid. Tension's really high, things are happening, and I get to be the first one to read about em!

Yesterday I got write to the end of the rewritten chapters and stood with my toes hanging out over the edge of the new stuff. The Tiny Dynamo was at work, and I had the house to myself.

Oops. Temporary block.

Ah well, I hopped on Old Coppertop (my much-battered elderly mountain bike) and rode the 10k into town. I'm not the sort who can exercise for the hell of it. Elliptical trainers, stationary bikes and treadmills all make me think of hampster wheels, and just, you know, riding the hell around strikes me as more or less pointless.

So I 'invent' errands. This one involved how very, very badly I needed to repurchase my favorite Social Distortion album. I've had maybe four or five copies of the damn thing, but every time I lend it out of my sight, it's gone again. I don't mind, not really, but it *does* mean I keep buying the same few things over and over and over again. It's all just stuff.

Except I couldn't just buy that album. No, I saw an old Love and Rockets that some girl spirited away in the wee hours one morning and had to have that as well. And then there was some new stuff: Chixdiggit, Deisel Boy and one I didn't have by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. If you haven't checked those guys out yet, they're great fun.

Exercise is expensive.

By the time I got home, I knew where I was going and, ass safely and firmly wedged in Lazy Boy (how'd they know to name it after me?), I went there.

Except there's still more there to go to, and I wrote til I fell down last night. So it's back up early for more of the good stuff. Ooh yeahhhhh... Straight in the vein, baby.

I have to get back to it, because the Tiny Dynamo won't tolerate being a writer's widow today. The sun's out, and I've been threatened with tennis. My lanky reach really should put me at an advantage, but the Dynamo is so damn small and darty.

It's like playing against a cloud of leprechauns!