Sixteen hours from leaving the hotel this morning to arriving at my apartment tonight.

I think I might be dead, but I don’t have enough energy to check. I’ll let you know in the morning.

Good night.

I has it.

I did take pictures around campus, but they’re not online yet, so I can’t post them. I don’t think I took a picture of a single person all week, so if you’re hoping to get something like that, you’re going to be disappointed. But there are some cool photos.

My brain crossed the “fried” threshold yesterday afternoon at about 3:30, and most of my conversations since then have been punctuated with odd pauses and nonsensical words (more than usual, I mean) as I try to figure out which words I’m supposed to use to convey basic thoughts like “I’m going back to my room now.” It’s rather an amazing thing to see scores of writers reduced to babbling lack-wits who can’t hold a coherent conversation. Also fodder for lots of laughs, though that may be because we’re all punchy, too.

Almost everything is packed for my flights home tomorrow. I’ll be at the airport early, but that never matters much. I’ll be reading there just like I’d be reading here, and who knows? Maybe I can get on standby for an earlier flight.

I’ll take most of tomorrow off from any kind of writing work (I might take time at the airport to compile some of the comments from my workshop critique earlier this week) and then start in on hard-core revisions of the manuscript on Tuesday.

That’s the plan, Stan.

For now, I’m finishing the packing, watching the end of a Dirty Jobs episode, and get me some good sleep before a day of travel.

I’ve been amazingly remiss in taking any pictures at all while I’ve been here at Seton Hill. I’ll try to remedy that tomorrow, at least a little bit. So far, I’ve talked about The Lies of Locke Lamora, been briefed on all the things I’ll have to get done before graduation, taken modules on critiquing methods and various trends and expectations in romance publishing (good info, even if I’m working on fantasy stuff at the moment), gone to thesis defenses and teaching sessions, and in general had a lovely time with my fellow WPFers.

I also met with my mentor, and we talked about what needs to happen in order for my thesis novel to be finished (to my satisfaction) in time for graduation. It’s a lot, but I’m up to it.

And I’ve got what I think is a good idea for my own teaching module in January. I think I’ll talk to Lee before I head home this time around to see if I can lock in on that and have one less thing to worry about later in the term.

Now it’s time to head to sleep – tomorrow my piece gets a workshop critique, the afternoon module should be lots of fun, and then more thesis readings at night. I’m looking forward to it.

I’ve been quiet for the last few days getting ready for our leap-frog trips. The house is clean, my desk is clean, my critiques are done, my bags are packed, and I’m all set to leave the house at 3:30 in the morning. Whee! I’m so excited. I’ve got work to do on the planes, and the weather is supposed to be nice all the way from Denver to Chicago to Pittsburgh, so if there’s a delay it’s the airline’s fault.

I’ll do my best to check in here and there during residency. The weather’s supposed to be nice in Greensburg, so perhaps I’ll get some pictures of Seton Hill’s beautiful campus.

Have a great week! I know I will.

It’s been a pretty boring week, as long as you take out the mild panic building about all the things I’ve put off until the last minute before I leave for residency, and the moderate panic Matt’s been tossing around as he gets ready for his upcoming week of leading camp for the 5th and 6th graders at the church, followed by another week of helping with the camp for the 7th-12th graders. Mmm summer camp.

I was sick for a while (seem to be mostly better now, aside from still wanting to sleep extra) and the dog’s tummy got all upset at her and so we had a few days of finding gifts in various corners of the house instead of out in the grass where they belong, and of the dog not eating at all. But she’s finally back to normal, and we’re very glad.

I feel mildly bad that I don’t have much of anything interesting to say here – I should really be reading The Lies of Locke Lamora (Scott Lynch), which is the required text for this residency and which I have to have finished by Wednesday morning at the latest, and which is really stinkin’ long (but good, so far) – but I thought I should let you all know that we’re kicking here in Colorado, just doing it mostly away from the blogosphere.

And now, to make up for the decided lack of entertainment these past few weeks, I give you a lovely example of public service:

I’ll try to update more next week!

The pictures have been hung, and there is much rejoicing. It’s nice to find that I still really like the pieces we bought a year ago and waited until now to have matted and framed. Also nice to find that a year in a tube hasn’t done them any appreciable damage.

So, for reference, here’s a rather mild version of my office wall before:

Since that picture was taken, I’d added a bunch of photos I ripped out of calendars, both big and small. Most of them were saved because they evoke some sort of landscape or architecture or feeling that I wanted to remember for future writing use. I’ve decided that I can keep them in the filing cabinet instead of on the wall.

So I took down most of the crazy in favor of the pretty:

The ladies now gracing my walls are done by Emile Bellet. I like his colors and I’ve always rather liked the impressionists, so it seemed a natural choice for my working space. I’m really happy with them.

You might also notice the difference in the desk’s height – it’s been lifted so I can stand and work, which has been really nice.

And yes, the trophy on the desk is a writing trophy. I won it in the 7th grade. Sometimes all you need is the reminder of past greatness to spur you into the future.

Sorry for disappearing this week. Somewhere between pushing myself to finish the manuscript, cleaning and packing before we went to Ohio, the busy weekend, and then the horrid return trip, I came down with some kind of compound head cold cum fatigue blast. Even while we were in Ohio, I took big naps every day – two or three hours each, and they didn’t make it hard to sleep normal hours at night. That should have tipped me off in a big way.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t until I was back home that I conceded defeat to the sickness-gremlin. I’ve continued the mega-nap trend, which really takes up huge chunks of productive time during the days. My brain seems to be working better during my waking hours now, but the fatigue is hanging on. I don’t even have the extra energy to be witty about it.

If all goes well, we’ll be hanging up the newly framed art in the office today, so I’ll post pictures when that happens. Whee! Pretty art!

Otherwise, I just need to get all my books read and critiques finished before residency in a week and a half. Woo residency!

We’re home.

It’s 6pm, Denver time, and I’ve been up for 17 hours.

Airline score:
US Airways – Negative 26.7 bajillion
Midwest Airlines – Way more than that.

My brain can’t compute anything complex at the moment, but aside from being a little late (maybe 20 minutes?) nothing went wrong as soon as we shook the USAir dust from our feet. And we even got warm cookies, which is darn hard to beat.

Especially after the total idiocy we experienced in the predawn hours today.

I’m ready to collapse.

Just popping in to say that Ohio is humid. Really, really humid. Like, we tell people in Colorado about Real Humidity, but after a while of living without it, you lose the visceral understanding that comes with living in it. For the record, I much prefer Colorado when Ohio has this kind of weather. On the other hand, there is a deep, pervasive green smell here that Colorado never quite produces, and that’s quite nice.

In the “Fun Things We’ve Done In Ohio” category, we’ve had a very nice time visiting with family in from all over the country, and tonight I got to talk with what seems like a Who’s Who from my formative years. My brother is now officially the Reverend Nathan Wright (woohoo!), and my nephew is still the cutest little boy ever. Also, I’ve slept more than I thought possible, and eaten an impressive amount of food as well.

Oh yeah, and Friday night we spent 11pm-1am up in the rafters above the garage, drilling holes in the plasterboard ceiling and shoveling soaked insulation into buckets so the whole ceiling wouldn’t collapse. It seems water froze in one of the air conditioner’s condensation drainage pipes there and a big section of PVC pipe exploded and had probably been leaking for several weeks. Fun times, that. At least we were here to do the climbing around in the crawlspace – I don’t particularly want to think about Mom and Dad trying that on their own.

The lesson? Always support the full length of PVC pipes when they’re exposed to heat and cold. Good to know.

One more day here, and then we’re back to Colorado. It’ll be good to be home.

I’ve been quiet this week – that’s in part because my brain got just a bit fried on Saturday when I finished the novel’s rough draft, and I’ve been doing as little as possible since then in an effort to let it recuperate. 

Yesterday was our three year wedding anniversary. (Woohoo! Go us!) I spent most of it cleaning and doing laundry, and packing for our trip to Ohio this weekend. Model wife, eh? If only. 

At any rate, I’m working half a day today and then going home for last-minute packing and heading out to the airport. I hate taking evening flights headed east, but flying when we are saved us $200 each, so that’s the trade-off. At least it’s a direct flight today.

We’ll be in Ohio over the weekend – on Sunday my brother will be ordained and installed as the associate pastor of a church in Cincinnati, so it’s turned into something of a whole-family event. Speaking of Nathan’s new church, the senior pastor there keeps a great blog, so head on over and say ‘Hi’ to Russell Smith if you’re so inclined. 

And for those of you who miss Shiloh’s antics, here’s another of her favorite activities:

Notice that she uses the laser dot to get going and stay motivated, but once she’s running, she doesn’t bother with trying to catch it. She’s too smart for that. Or so she’d like us to think.

I’ll try to post over the weekend, but if I don’t, have a lovely couple of days without me!