Earlier

To squeeze fourteen more hours of writing into the schedule, I'm getting up an hour earlier each day for the next two weeks and starting the day at 4:30 am. Not a terrible hardship, as I hate to sleep anyway. It also gives me two full hours of blissful silence before I have to shift into mom mode and wake the kiddies.

The sun doesn't rise here until 7 am or thereabouts, so I have an extra hour of porch time for hand writing and reading, and the moon and stars to enjoy. It's pleasant to walk around the yard and look down at the valley without slapping on the sunglasses first. My sensitivity to sunlight has increased to the point of where I literally cannot step foot outside during the day without my sunglasses (unless I want a vicious migraine, of course.)

When I got up this morning, I thought of Stephen King's novel Thinner, and wondered what sort of curse a ticked-off gypsy might drop on my head. Earlier wouldn't work. Later, where I'd sleep more and more until I never woke up, would be, or Lazier, where I'd sit around and gradually become incapable of doing anything but sitting around. You think about stuff like this at 4:30 am, then you call the attorney and make sure your living will doesn't need any updating. You're positive it still says 'Pull the plug on me, babe,' right?

But not to worry. My trusted manservant Alfred will take care of everything, including the unpublished manuscript funeral pyre and ceremoniously scattering my ashes all over my mother's livingroom rug...