Tuesday got weird

Not quite a day that dropped out of time, but close.

I had multiple appointments that day: taking dogs to the groomer with TYG; donating blood; and my biannual eye checkup. As I’d allowed for one day off in my September schedule, that seemed like a good day to take it. I got up and read in the morning, then we took the dogs in. 90 minutes after that I was at the Red Cross … where 30 minutes after arrival, the check-in process hadn’t even started. Given how long donating takes, it was obvious I couldn’t get it done in time to pick up the dogs and reach the eye doctor so I left. I rescheduled for next week.

Then we got the pups. As usual Plushie looked even fluffier and cuter than before. Trixie doesn’t change much.

Then off for my eyes. I’d picked a time late in the day in the assumption it would be a work day and that would eat up the least amount of work time. Apparently whatever delays and walk-ins they were dealing with had come home to roost because it took a couple of hours (mostly waiting) to get through everything. I made the next appointment for early morning — I’ll see if that goes smoother.

I had a productive work week, though less of that was my own stuff than I’d planned. The Local Reporter had an urgent need for extra articles so I wound up doing three: one on plans for 164 acres of government-owned land, the Carrboro community’s opposition to paid downtown parking, and discussions of both abortion rights and tree removal. The latter had probably one of the strongest opening lines I’ve ever used: “I am a member of the community who will require an abortion if I become pregnant or else I will bleed out and die.” (also one of the most horrific things to hear, even though I know, in the abstract, such things are true).

That sucked up way more time than I’d planned to spend on newspaper work (though I get paid for all of it, of course). With one day off on top of that, I got nothing done on Southern Discomfort but I did get quite a bit of rewriting done on Jekyll and Hyde. The silent-film chapter is now in much better shape, plus I rewatched the March and Tracy versions from 1932 and 1941, thinking about how they look in context of the subgenre overall. I’ll have some thoughts probably next week.

Over at Atomic Junk Shop I wrote about an odd bit of nostalgia from 1969, and some DC stories from the same era, including a failed attempt to give DC its first black superhero (art by Nick Cardy).

And that was my week. A little frustrating, a little productive. Oh, and my eyes are in great shape, so yay.

#SFWApro. Cover by Irwin Hasen; all rights to images remain with current holders.