So, yesterday, it was sunny and warm, for values of warm that factor in March and Maine, and we called in one of our Rolling Days Off.
Now, what with one thing and another, I haven’t been driving much for the last, eh, year? Two years. Around town stuff — out to Unity Pond, or to Solon, but not what you’d call a Good Drive. Or not what I’d call a Good Drive. Understand, I like to drive, and it’s been a Point of Faith with me since I earned my ticket to fly that I could drive anywhere, any time, no problem. You wanna go to Mars? Fine, I’ll drive you to Mars; strap in.
For the first part of my treatment, I’d been driving myself to the Cancer Center — about 130 mile round trip — but then about half-way through the course, Radiation Fatigue set in, and Steve had to step up to be my chauffeur (cue the Beatles).
Now, the thing they don’t tell you about Radiation Fatigue, aside that “some” people experience it, is that — it hangs around after you’ve gotten done, received your graduation certificate from your ray-gunners, AND rung the bell. It hangs around for a long time.
Most usually, it manifests as a sudden, freewheeling Wall of Exhaustion — and I mean this exactly; you’ll be doing something — washing the dishes, reading, writing, driving — and BAM! you’re done. Now. You can barely hold your head up. There’s no predicting how, when, or why this will happen.
So, long story short, given the above, I haven’t been driving much. And, all other things being more or less back to normal — the other thing they don’t necessarily tell you about cancer recovery is that it takes a lot longer than you think — I decided to see if I couldn’t get my driving mojo back.
Frequent readers of this blog will recall that I recently bought a car — Tinsori the Honda. Tinsori is the back-up car. Our primary ride is a very nice Touring Subaru Forester with all kinds of safety features onboard, and it was the Forester that I drove out yesterday, Steve riding shotgun, all the way down to the ocean and back.
That’s a 200-mile round trip — no big deal — and I got to take a long walk on the beach, and we ate supper at one of our favorite restaurants; took another small on-foot tour of the town, stopped for ice cream on the way home, and!
It was fine. It was better than fine. No Wall of Exhaustion, not even on the horizon. So, I’m calling this a Modest Victory, and hope to repeat it — soon — and eventually arrive at a point where Steve doesn’t need to ride shotgun.
In Other News: I’ve completed my editorial pass through Section Two of Salvage Right, and Steve has it to read for continuity and general sense. In the meantime, I will be moving on to Section Three, continuing with the Write the Scenes You Know Method, with which I’m pretty well pleased. It means writing a lot of bridges, and sometimes having to frog, if the scene doesn’t wind up fitting exactly where it seemed to fit, but that’s all perfectly doable in the editing pass.
For those counting along at home, Salvage Right now stands at 64,656 words, or approximately half-done.
Here, have a snippet:
“One of the crew of Bechimo who may have valuable insight into my work. As you heard, we will speak in depth after the present task is completed, and I have slept.”
“Oh, you remembered sleep,” M Traven said, in a tone of broad enlightenment.
“If I had not, you would have reminded me,” Seignur Veeoni said, rising and moving toward the antechamber.