Friends assure me that Mercury is in retrograde. I - and ...

Friends assure me that Mercury is in retrograde. I - and many of my friends - have been experiencing random adversity lately: getting their car crashed into (they were unhurt, miraculously), or me having a large piece of stucco fall off my house, or two friends getting "Tidy Up Or Else" notices from their respective dwelling-places. School today involved the Media Center not having equipment I needed, and when I phoned them they said, Oh, yes, it's in the room next to your office (only we forgot to inform you of this...) - and when I went all the way across campus and checked, there it wasn't. Evidently they'd forgotten to inform anyone else that that's why it was there, so someone took it away and locked it up again... and other small, vexing things. I was very glad to get home unhurt.

The condensed, accelerated PACE program class is finishing up, so I'll have more time to work - thank goodness, since I am now behind schedule on Asher/Ysidro # 7, and there are a couple of short stories and a fantasy novel that I ALSO want to work on. And, I've been counting the hours since last Monday until I can take off an afternoon and paint. I was tickled to death that Big Finish Productions - the people who do the Dr. Who audio adventures - did audio downloads of the Carnaki the Ghost-Finder stories by William Hope Hodgson, stories that I thought I was the only person in the world who knew about them or liked them. (When I paint and listen to stories, they have to be stories that I'm already familiar with... or else Dr. Who audio adventures, which I find very soothing. I have about a dozen of my favorite Sherlock Holmes, and six H.P. Lovecraft faves, as well as the Carnaki stories and The Canterville Ghost - a pattern of supernatural Ripping Yarns.)

I generally find I write better, after I've done an afternoon of painting.