Nerdliness
Yesterday was another Ceej-and-David-day. We headed up to the Los Trancos refuge up on Page Mill Drive and hiked for a couple of hours. It's not quite as nice as Monte Bello across the street from it, but it's still quite nice. We saw a nice babbling stream, and also a lengthy watershed which was seeping the water creating the stream. And we saw many lizards, and even a pretty blue bird in the parking lot as we were heading out. The day was warm and sunny, and it was a nice walk.
We were all hungry (okay, CJ was ravenous) afterwards and so we went to get tasty burritos in Mountain View, thereby negating most of the physical benefit of the hike! I must admit that Mountain View is looking more and more attractive as a place to move to: Centrally located (a big plus where finding cat-sitters for vacations is concerned), near several friends, a decent downtown area and surrounding environs, etc. But I will definitely look for places elsewhere on the peninsula to get a good feel for what's out there, and try to do some driving around, too.
I also pointed out that while I think CJ is very accurately represented by her journal (not as simple as it sounds; many people come across very differently in print than in person), David is not well-represented, in the sense that he's only occasionally mentioned and rarely in any detail. I have a very different feel for him as a person than I did before I met him. They said that every time CJ writes about David in detail, he shouts at her; they seem to feel that they perceive her/his/their life very differently. I suggested that perhaps David should write annotations to CJ's journal, and she said they've thought of that. I think it would be very amusing. But I'll believe it when I see it!
In a similar vein, I got the latest mailing of the APA today, and gave it a quick ego-scan. One member, responding to my lengthy piece about my move to California in February, noted that she feels I tend to keep a distance from my writing when writing about my life, that although I describe things in some detail, it's hard to actually place me there, as a real person in the middle of things. She felt that describing my thoughts and feelings as the movers were emptying my apartment - remembering things that had happened associated with each piece of furniture, and places in the rooms - made it all much more concrete and believable. Something I'll have to ruminate on. I do often have trouble making things immediate in my writing; I want to analyze everything to death. Largely because that's how my mind operates: I analyze everything. It seems like when I just act, things go wrong.
I clearly have a lot of work to do in term of managing my forces in the early game. I've gotten a few pointers from friends, and have ruminated about it for a bit, but mainly I just need to practice. Perfection through repetition.
And through getting my butt kicked.
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