I will have another story ready soon. I will. I promise!

Maybe even more than one...

Although one that I've almost finished I'm wondering whether to rewrite. I've set most of my stories in the male point-of-view lately, including this one. It seemed best when I started, but at this point I'm wondering if it would be better told by the woman.

Dale wants me to travel with him to Vancouver, probably mid-month. I'll probably be visiting a few times before the end of phase one.

So I guess I have a couple of weeks to be sure I understand what's going on. I've spent most of this week in meetings with one of Ken, Dale or Andy. I've rewritten Mel's project schedule based on Ken's phase one requirements, but showing a production-quality phase two in September. That's still only a subset of what Ken has in mind for the final product, but it meets this customer's requirements, and will give us something we can start marketing.

Charles's play starts next weekend. It runs for a couple of weekends only. We're going to go to the opening with Yolanda and Laurel. I'm missing my dance lessons; with luck, after this is over, Charles will get back to teaching, but Yolanda tells me not to get my hopes up, at least in the near term.

 

I hope y'all saw my message on the BBS about the PBS dance championship special tonight. I'm looking forward to it.

Valentine's day is a week away, and we have no plans yet. Plus I was wanting to write another Valentine's story... I've managed two out of three years so far, but I guess this year I'll be passing. Unless inspiration strikes in the next few days... I guess I have a weekend yet.

Brian is still technically staying with Lee, but he hasn't been home in days. I'm starting to think - of course - that it's time he moved back in. It scares me a little, though. I don't want for things to go wrong this time.

 

Well, I wasn't disappointed... the ballroom dancing special was wonderful. Even Brian was fascinated by it. A little intimidated, too, I think... it wasn't what I expected, though, it wasn't a championship itself, it was dances and production numbers by the champions. And damn, they were good.

And I want one of those dresses that changes color from yellow to black...

I could have done without the narration, to be honest. I thought the dances spoke for themselves. The A&E "Dance Sport" shows are better, the commentary is much less strained.

This didn't feel like a February day. Temperature in the low seventies, wind at 30-35 mph. They say we may have storms coming in tonight, but I don't see any sign of them yet.

 

Last night's play was a strange experience. I don't know that any of us understood it, and I didn't like it, but that doesn't mean it wasn't good, I guess. If I understood it, perhaps I'd know, but I still don't think I'd like it. Quite a few people left before the end, which is always a bad sign.

Charles was very good as a dysfunctional yuppie-type. The lead / writer was less convincing as an equally dysfunctional artist, and I don't know what purpose the women served in the play at all.

Laurel, who does in general seem to understand such things, as an occasional actress herself, seemed as much in the dark as me, so I didn't get any explanation from her. It's probably a telling point that none of us extended an invitation for drinks or coffee, and Brian and I took our leave of the twins as soon as we were out of the theatre.

This job isn't working out like I expected, in the sense that I was going to ease into it slowly. I don't think it's going to work being responsible for both the software group and the project at once. God only knows what they did before Ken gave it to me, but even at this early stage I'm finding that it's close to full-time.

Of course, a lot of that is learning, too, but a lot isn't. And now I'm privy to Ken's secret plans... this is going to be an exciting few months. Or years, probably, if it goes well.

Special treat for journal readers (well, I hope it's a treat :-) I've put a new story online. I haven't fixed up my stories page yet... not sure if I'm going to change the title, so I don't think I'm going to add it until I've decided.

In the meantime, just from the journal, you can find it as Wedding Reception. Oh, it's the one I referred to earlier this month. I've decided to leave it in the guy's POV. I think it works better for this story.

The background, by the way, was sent to me by a reader. I home he meant for me to use it. He sent it twice, and didn't respond to my questions about it... so if you recognize the background as yours, please let me know if this is really what you intended :-)

 

We avoided storms, but the heat wave ended after Thursday, and we've had a pretty cold weekend. Other than grocery shopping, I've been home all weekend. But I've had a chance to work on another story...

 

I've made my recommendations to Terry. I want Mary to be lead on the project, rather than Mel, and I'm recommending Jon, one of the current leads for my job. I'd considered recommending Mary. She could do the work, and all of the leads claim to hate the thought of management, but the new project needs her experience. And Jon may protest, but I know he'll be good.

I talked to Mary and Mel about it yesterday, and they seem to think they can work together. Mel may be disappointed that he didn't get to be lead on the project, but he recognizes that he doesn't have the experience that Mary does.

We're not doing much for Valentine's day in the end. There's a party at the Jupiter on Friday that we're going to with the twins which has a Valentine's theme, but for now we're just going out for dinner tonight.

 

I sprang a surprise on Brian last night. I suggested it was time to bring his belongings back from Lee's place and abandon thoughts of looking for a new place. He agreed immediately, obviously he's been thinking about it, and held my hand.

After we'd eaten, we drove to a nearby park and sat on rocks beside a creek in the dark. It was raining lightly, and foggy - it was foggy all day yesterday - so my overcoat was soaked by we left, but it felt so good just to sit there in the dark with him. And when whe got home it felt pretty good for us to help each other out of our wet clothes...

Today we've had intermittent thunder and constant rain. Brian's Range Rover seems to have sprung a leak around the sun roof. Chinese water torture for the driver, about a drop landing in my hair every two or three minutes. Distracting.