Incoherent Thoughts

Today may be short on coherence -- and I'm using the literal meaning about things holding together rather than the more figurative meaning about making sense.

It started when I woke up with a bit of a sinus headache, and then they decided to do road work on the street outside my house. I'm not sure what, exactly, they're doing, but it involved cutting into the concrete with loud power tools that went on forever and made all the bones in my face vibrate, which did not help the sinuses. It seems to have stopped, and the heavy equipment is no longer there, so maybe I can relax. (Hmm, five minutes after they left, and the headache has already eased up.)

Meanwhile, not too long ago, a motorcade went down the road, escorting a house.

Seriously -- there were at least four motorcycle officers and several squad cars, with lights flashing. I was expecting a limo with diplomatic flags (though I'm not sure why, in this neighborhood, unless a visiting dignitary is a Dallas Cowboys fan). But a house? I wonder where the house was going.

Speaking of the neighborhood, that new lawyer show, The Deep End, that starts tonight on ABC is filmed just down the street, even though it takes place in LA. I doubt I'll be watching because I really hate lawyer shows and I'm not into the "hot young things hook up while advancing their careers" genre. Still, it would be fun to spot obvious local sites masquerading as LA. I haven't yet had any celebrity sightings in the general area, but I haven't been looking for them, either. I'm used to seeing pro athletes in the grocery store, but I generally don't pay that much attention to other patrons in Kroger or Target unless they're in my way or annoying me, or unless they ask me for help or advice.

I got a fair amount done yesterday, though I got somewhat tripped up by research. I'd written the scene one way, based on my own general knowledge and things I've heard about that general place/time, with my characters making a choice that I thought made sense. But then in looking at a reference, I found that I'd made some possibly incorrect assumptions and that there was another option the characters probably should have chosen that would have made more sense. That meant I had to rethink the whole scene and figure out a different way for the main event in that scene to happen. I figured it out and started writing. But I had a nagging doubt, something that seemed wrong, so I looked it up in a primary source, and it turns out that while the one option was true, in general, it actually wasn't true for that specific time and location. Which meant my original assumption was correct, and I hadn't needed to change the way the scene went.

I'm not sure what the moral of that story is, other than that my instincts can be good when I'm dealing with a subject I know a lot about and that you should always check the specifics instead of just going with generalized information.

Ah, apparently mountain cedar pollen levels are high in this area (there's even an Allergy Alert). That would explain the sinus headache. I went for a walk yesterday, which might not have been the smartest thing to do. I guess I'll stay indoors today. That should mean more writing!