I spent the entire day yesterday at my desk, working on “Novitiate” — the new erotic short story — and so nothing new has occurred since I blogged here yesterday morning.

I did not even have time to watch the rest of the Ronnie Wood documentary, Somebody Up There Likes Me (and if I don’t get to it here soon, I will miss my window and won’t be able to watch it without paying for it again).

I was writing clear through last night, right up until it was time to do yoga and then collapse in bed.

I’m only at 6000 words in the new story, but I’m finding that I have to keep going over and over and over these first 7 pages, because after that, it’s going to become extremely complicated. (It goes from 2 primary characters up to 15, and all of them are having sex at one point or another, so that’s gonna get kind of complicated.) So those first 7 pages have to lay some sort of believable groundwork for the remaining insanity.

I’m still really loving the story, though. And I am learning more about it  every moment that I work on it — meaning, it reveals itself to me, more and more, as I continue to streamline these first few pages. I’m finding it so interesting. And so different from what I thought it was first trying to be.

I think I mentioned a few days ago that now the editors don’t really want “Half-Moon Bride” in this story collection. They want to offer it as a stand-alone short story (eBook only). I will let them make the final decision. But the more I work on “Novitiate,” the more I think that “Half-Moon Bride” doesn’t really fit with the other stories that will be in this collection.  So perhaps it is best sold on its own.

Other than that microscopic world of mine…

The petunias are still blooming. It’s amazing. 5 months now, and no end in sight. I’m guessing they will keep right on blooming up until the first frost. But it is so weird to see the porches of all my neighbors and all that autumnal stuff going on there, for as far as the eye can see. And even though I cleared off my front porch and my back stoop, my kitchen porch is still a riot of blooming colors because I concentrated all the flower boxes there. And I really feel like I’m in some sort of time warp here — or “season” warp. (And, God knows, that in my mind, I’m always thinking it’s still summer, so it doesn’t help when everything in and around my house only encourages my misinterpretation  of the entire world.)

I can’t emphasize enough how different my life got when I moved into this house (going on 3 years now). It’s all good, but it’s all strange. I really, really do love living here, I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life,  but my life has gotten more and more dissociated. And even though I’m sort of accustomed to being in a dissociated mental state (for a variety of reasons), when my house starts joining me in that, it gets really difficult to explain.

You know, when I first walked through this house, I felt so much happiness in every room. I really did. And I just knew that people had been really happy here. (The house is now 119 years old — when it was first built, there was no electricity, no central heat, and no running water. Two bathrooms were eventually added on, many decades apart. And the well outside was covered up, and the fireplaces that were in every room were eventually covered up.) I still believe that people were happy here — and I still believe really strongly that at least one spirit connected to building this house is actively around here.

But I was reading recently, in a metaphysical type book, that what we perceive about a place is our own future happiness. We are perceiving the happiness of our future selves. Which I think could be true, too. I’m certainly incredibly happy here. But I do think it’s a bit of both.

Anyway, that said. Come visit!! I need help cleaning out the barn…

All righty. I’m going to get moving here. Maybe watch the rest of the Ronnie Wood documentary. Or maybe work on the new story, or maybe sit and stare and drink my coffee for a while. We shall see. (Smart money is on the latter, I think.)

Thanks for visiting, gang. I hope you have a great Monday unfolding before you, wherever you are in the world. I’m still in a More of the Monkees frame of mind around here, so I leave you with another great song off that album, one that still brought tears to my eyes this morning, even 53 years later… “Sometime in the Morning” (1967). Listen, relax, ponder, and enjoy. I love you guys, See ya!