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August 16, 2005

Day 6-7: In Which Our Hero Plots Rebellion

UMBRA is now up to a beefy 12,700 words, an improvement of 4200 words between yesterday and today--and this despite a world-class headache rampaging around in my bonce, practicing its best Gene Krupa drum solos and otherwise kicking up a nasty stink.

I'm now in the middle of chapter 5, and our android protagonist, suspicious of his handlers back home, and feeling increasingly like a real person, and full of grave misgivings about his crazy suicide mission (to say nothing of not liking the idea of, er, dying), has just lied to his handlers about what's going with him at the moment. The next day or so will see him arrive at the point where he'll have to carry out his mission.

He's also started to wonder if he's not actually an android at all, but a real human being who, for whatever reason, has been brainwashed into thinking he's a machine. How could he find out for sure? Should he try to perform his mission anyway? And has the killer who tried to put him out of commission earlier given up, or will he/she keep trying to kill him--or has the killer's plan already succeeded beyond all expectation? Hmmm.

* * *

Michelle and I today had the distinct pleasure of meeting up with an old university chum of mine, Shaun Salmon. It was a real delight chatting away, finding out about his life these days (he's a successful graphic designer and cartoonist) and telling him about all the improbable stuff going on with Michelle and me.

* * *

Last, spare a thought for our pooch, Pixel. This past Sunday she had to have surgery to remove a couple of worrisome lumps (no I have no idea what the lumps were worried about) we didn't like the look of. The surgery proceeded without a problem, and Pix came home later that day, wearing a big plastic cone around her head to keep her from gnawing at the nasty stitched-up wounds. Pixel, I should explain, is a very boisterous, active sort of dog, and she wasn't pleased with the cone situation. All the same she seemed to be coping with it pretty well--until tonight. Earlier this evening I discovered that somehow she'd managed to tear the cone to the point where it couldn't be fixed, and had to come off. She could not have been more delighted to get rid of the thing. As of right now, 10pm Tuesday evening, she's snoozing, cone-free, on the couch.

The other thing that's amazing about Pixel is that after only a day of being unable to get comfortable because of the stitches and general surgery-related discomfort (once the pain-killing injection wore off), today she's been running and jumping and hooning about as if nothing was wrong. She's an amazing pooch.

Later we'll be getting the pathology results from the lumps. One we've been told was harmless, but the other looked nasty even to us. Here's hoping for a good result.

Posted by adrian at August 16, 2005 10:05 PM

Comments

Give Pixel many hugs and scratches in places that like to be scratched, from Sue and I. Casey and Finnigan have their paws cross that all lumps turn out to be benign.

Posted by: Charlie [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 17, 2005 12:13 AM

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