In which I'm sucked into a book and rant about a key.

I think of nothing but the book. Blame it on Davies and on Cook.

Dang, it's late. Give me easy access to a book I've waited months to read, and suddenly it's three and a half hours later. A Writer's Tale by Russell T Davies and Benjamin Cook came out in the UK in September, at which time some fascinating excerpts appeared online and in the UK press. In theory it was supposed to reach the US version of Amazon in late November, but it was delayed. I don't remember exactly when it finally came, but within a day John was reading it too. It got to be a pain to keep track of where I was in the book and where John had set it down last, so left it in John's care. Yesterday he said, "I thought you were finished with it." No, John. I was a little over 100 pages into this 500 page book!

So today he finally finished it, and tonight I assumed custody, found my place and started reading. That's why it's 2 AM at this moment. I was supposed to go grocery shopping, but I wanted to read a little more first about the rewriting of early Series Four Doctor Who scripts. Then it was 11:45 PM and Safeway was closing in 15 minutes, and I didn't want to go to the store and so I didn't.

This is the way a really good book is for me. The fact that I still haven't finished reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell after at least a month, more likely two months, says less about the book's page count than its ability to hold my interest. Oh, it's amusing, cleverly written and original, but I don't actually like the characters much, and for me that's just about fatal. This non-fiction tome I'm reading now, on the other hand, is full of engaging characters. Not only is it laced with chunks of Doctor Who script in various stages of completion, but the screenwriter and the journalist whose emails form the bulk of the book also become characters, sometimes outrageous but eminently likable.

But the book isn't the only reason I still haven't made the rounds of the Robins or studied accounting or washed my hair and gone to bed. There was an annual meeting at St. Michael's today, and I was briefly on the hook as a possible vestry member before slipping away because people sensibly voted for someone else. After church I spent a few hours trying to tweak the church's online presence some more, which included starting a Facebook group for St. Michael's. Then I wrote up the entry on the Round Robin blog, for which I tried to incite the dogs to joyous behavior on camera, because the topic is abut joy and happiness. That didn't work out too well, and it wasn't fair to delay any further the thing that was really making the dogs happy: an imminent trip to the dog park. So off we went.

The cat in our yard went this way! Let go of the leashes!

When we got back, there was a cat in the front yard, which the dogs noticed about the time I was turning off the car and gathering up their leashes. Of course they wanted to chase it, and I had a bit of a struggle keeping hold of them (and foolishly attempting the picture above). But they didn't get away, and I got them into the house without further incident. Except...

Half an hour laster, I set off to go buy dinner, and I couldn't find my key! No, that's not a typo. It's just one key, on one of those fobs that lock and unlock the car. I used that key to drive home, so it absolutely, positively must be here somewhere. But I've searched my desk, the counter, the floor, the bathroom, the couch, the front room, the car, and the front yard. With flashlight. Repeatedly. I haven't found it. The best I can figure is I lost hold of it while trying to keep the dogs from chasing the cat. Let that be a lesson to me. What kind of lesson, I've no idea. We'll see whether it turns up readily by daylight, and where. It's even possible that the key got hooked to Cayenne's or Pepper's collar, and was then dropped in the back yard.

2:27. I'd better get the hair washed and go to bed. I have to work in the morning. Probably.

Tomorrow night: the Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot, news on my key and my job, and my comments to Round Robin blog entries. See you then!

Karen

Update (copied from Twitter via Facebook): Guessed wrong. I'm unemployed again after all. Should make for interesting form-filling on the unemployment claims website.