We are very fortunate to be riding out the storm so well that my one great annoyance with this hurricane is that the kids are home from school, just as I started hitting a rhythm of writing. I’ve started going to the main city library to write during the day and obviously that isn’t happening in the middle of a hurricane. Maybe not getting to the library is a First World problem, but that’s how I roll. Maybe I’m reaching too high, but I mapped out the next three years worth of writing and speaking creation tasks and have some good ideas of where MMSL is headed.

My other move is that Jennifer and I are joining a gym, mostly because I’m going stir crazy alone at home without a more social group to be part of. So more structured things to do and places to go. I need some new habits… and if they involve 930am Zumba with bored housewives, I’m okay with that. Shit, Jennifer wasn’t meant to read that.

Speaking of Jennifer, we’re continuing to work on empowering her a little more and have strung quite a few rounds of the tease and denial games back to back to back over the last month. We’ve had some confusing moments, but overall it’s been fun. Every marriage has ups and downs, and this feels like more of an upswing. It’s actually been extremely interesting to experience my feelings for her change the longer it goes between orgasms. Day 1 I like her, Day 2 I’m interested in her, Day 3 she’s amazing, Day 4 and beyond she’s the chosen one. I actually had an experience a couple weeks back where I was driving at night with Jennifer and having rolling flashbacks / deja vu that I was driving around with my first girlfriend. Basically a similar experience plus the same mental state, so both wonderful and very interesting from a neurological point of view.

And I broke down and got the damn Warcraft expansion. Rolled a Monk, pushed fairly hard up to the level cap hitting Level 90 on Tuesday, ran my Heroics for gear and 6 for 6 Bosses down in a Raidfinder run on Saturday. Pretty much third on healing. At this point there’s not a lot more to do with the character except wait for the weekly reset and get the total needed play time down to a 5-6 hours a week. Might look for a casual raid guild to do a couple of structured nights play. It’s more fun than watching TV that’s for sure.

Finally have the payday money for my Army retreat in my possession and while not broke, it’s our buffer… Jennifer all clingy tonight lol.  It’s also the next book production money and makes things a lot easier to do. This time around I’m trying the Createspace cover people and likely interior design as well. Kindle is 80% of sales, so the paperback is somewhat a vanity thing, but I’m so used to wanting to hold a book that I think I need it for myself. Things to get done sooner rather than later though. Jennifer finished her round of editing the Rules book tonight, so have something to plow ahead on tomorrow.

It’s been a totally strange experience finishing up nursing and suddenly turning into a full time writer person. You would think that it would have been a completely easy transition. It’s not been nearly as easy as I thought. I’m getting there though. One of the things that I’ve really learned over the last few years is that your shot doesn’t have to be pretty, you just need to get the ball to go through the hoop. Don’t wait forever for the perfect moment to take your shot… it never comes.

This is one of those shaggy dog posts where I wander around and finally make a point tying it all together…

We’ve got the big storm rolling in tonight, through Monday and into Tuesday. Hopefully no power outages… school has already been cancelled for the next two days and the kids are home. Teenagers + power outrage + trapped inside = bad tempered pouting and frankly the kids don’t handle it any better than I do lol.

Anyway…

I’ve been having endless thoughts about this totally inane Italian court case against scientists supposedly predicting an earthquake wouldn’t happen in Italy. It would all be laughable except they were all found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to six years’ jail time. Apparently the phrase “We don’t think there will be a serious earthquake but you obviously can never rule it out.” was taken to mean, “Stay in your shitty homes constructed in medieval times, L’Aquia has been completely leveled three times in it’s history by earthquakes, and well you know how things come in threes.”

Having grown up in Wellington, New Zealand, I’m totally familiar with earthquakes and have felt several dozen strong enough to be noticeable. The entire city population is completely aware of earthquakes and what causes them. There’s always a middle school trip to see the seismic center measuring them off Victoria University. You can just stand there and watch the little needle twitching it’s jagged line on the scrolling paper in real time. The earthquakes never really stop. Wellington building codes are extremely strict for a major population center, “high rise” means six stories tall… and those buildings sit on massive coiled springs acting as shock absorbers. The greatest shock to Wellingtonians was that the big one in fact hit two hundred miles south in Christchurch a few years back on a fault line no one knew about.

What causes earthquakes is well understood by science, but obviously we are a long way off from any hope of predictive modeling for when major quakes hit. Even then, I’m thinking it’s going to be like weather forecasting… only fairly accurate.

What concerns me most though is that the entire city of a western nation is so scientifically illiterate, about their primary natural disaster concern, that they could demand what amounts to human sacrifices to appease their sense of vengeance against natural forces. If that doesn’t scare the shit out of you, I don’t know what will. That’s really really really bad. It’s not that far off throwing virgins into the volcano, which frankly is a waste of virgins.

I’m usually a pretty positive guy about civilization, but the truth is civilization can go backward scientifically. Realistically there could have been a man on the moon by say about the 16th Century…  but there wasn’t…  because we went backwards.

So anyway, as much as we all joke about weather forecasters having the ultimate bullshit job in the universe, for the most part they are reasonably accurate in short term prediction thanks to all the computer modeling. A hurricane 500 miles across is coming, we’re going to get the wind side of it as opposed to the rain side of it. Zeus played no part in making it because he only makes the nice days, it’s not punishment for sin unless it’s a country where people aren’t white. For what it’s worth, I find that all deeply comforting that we have the knowledge it’s coming and what to do about it. You just stock up on supplies, nail stuff down and ride it out as best you can.

Last year all of Connecticut was essentially without power for an average of about a week after the 2011 storm. The culprit was far too many untrimmed trees acting in a unison of Arborgeddon taking down power lines in one massive swoop. Which is to say we humans screwed it up. This year the trees are trimmed and already 1000 linemen have been brought in from Ohio in readiness. People learned a lot of lessons from last year and we’re as ready as we’re going to be.

So…

Thanks to science, plenty of things are “fairly predictable” but it’s all a little like golf in that you’re expecting to drive the ball somewhere near the pin and not hit a hole-in-one every time. Good enough is good enough.

You and your relationship are also “fairly predictable” too. Once you understand how dopamine, oxyticin, vasopressin, testosterone et al work, a lot of things in your relationship and sex life become a lot clearer. I can’t give you a guarantee of exactly how things will play out, but storms in your relationship are fairly predictable too. The good news is that you can do things to be ready for them and when the bad stuff happens, instead of your whole life pancaking down like bad Italian construction, you can ride it out with minimal damage and maybe something to bond over. Some people find MMSL too late to save their relationship… even then, it helps you prepare for the next one.

So anyway… yay science and human effort.

Too Long Didn’t Read…

Life has been hectic. We’re through TCETSNBO finally, and all went well. Jennifer got to collect a community service award tonight… I can’t say where because that would expose her workplace unfortunately, but I am proud of her. Eldest has been having progressively less fun at her haunted house job, but only one more weekend to go… but the semi-random midnightish pickups aren’t over much fun.  Everyone has been sick at least once over the last month. Jennifer terribly so for a good four days.

I’ve been finally writing more steadily on the stuff worth money, and now Jennifer’s work crazies have settled she’s getting to read and edit the “little rule book hopefully suitable for Christmas giftage.”

Jennifer and I have been butting heads a little as well. Not fighting fighting as in “I hate this shit, why I am with you?!” but more in the how do we do things now that I’m not working a regular job and am writing full time. The whole family is calmer for it as I’ve been able to help out far more.

We’re also experimenting with far more of the sexual teasing games and have had some amazingly good sexual experiences, some unexpected hurt feelings, a much increased number of footrubs for Jennifer, total confusion, a couple of new sexual things, moderate Tumblr addiction and more frequent washing of the bedding.

Anyway, that’s it. Life goes on. We’re a good couple together and MMSL isn’t an act we’re performing, but that doesn’t mean we don’t struggle with things once in a while too. We’re in a reconnecting phase or something. 18th wedding anniversary next month. That’s a freaking long time, half our lives have been together.