Rush reaction! Last Tuesday, Luis and I saw Rush! He came to the office with me and worked so we’d be able to travel to dinner and the show together, which was pretty great. I went into the show as someone who likes a lot of their songs but I didn’t have high expectations like I might’ve had for a band I’m a huge fan of, if that makes sense. So I came out really enjoying it. Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson are funny and they played so many of their big hits. Their touring drummer, Anika Nilles, was also very cool. They did a nice tribute to Neil Peart, their original drummer who sadly passed away in 2020, with songs and videos and recordings of him talking.
After a well-timed intermission, they played all of the songs from their album Moving Pictures. Oh, and the third song they played for the night was my favorite, Subdivisions. It’s pretty impressive that Neil Peart wrote the song lyrics to most if not all of their songs. It’s not often that drummers write the lyrics. I’m glad we finally saw Rush. I’d been putting off seeing them for a long time, because I wasn’t too familiar with their music, but my dad is a big fan. He was there at the show, too, and took a picture of us from where he was seated in a section below us. He was clearly glad we went. 😄
Guardians of the Galaxy escape room. We had another successful at-home escape room party on Halloween. Luis did a great job of creating several puzzles, and I helped by hiding clues and pieces around our house. Our friends were impressed. I made sure they knew that Luis did it all. He even drew several rock musicians, and created a cool programmed video of the characters escaping the Collector, that’s controlled by a keyboard playing notes and a Disney Infinity pad.
Luis is so talented. 🥰
As the hosts of the escape room, we dressed like Peter Quill and Rocket Raccoon. We even answered the door for the trick-or-treaters this year, instead of leaving the bowl of candy outside and hiding from them. It was a fun and cute Halloween. I wish it could’ve been longer. Speaking of wishing things could be longer…
The annual darkening. Daylight Saving Time has ended and we’re back in the time of Dark Too Early. I love autumn, but I hate when it’s dark at 5pm. My motivation goes way down when the sun is gone. I’m looking forward to March.
This happens every year, and I hate it every year.
I like it when it’s lighter in the morning, but I wish we could have both and I’d choose the longer sunlight in the evenings over the mornings every time, because I don’t mind it being dark when it’s early. It allows me to sleep until the alarm, in fact. But when it looks like it’s midnight at 6pm, I feel like crying. I know we can’t control the sun, but I can still complain about it.
When the power went out. On Monday, I came into work and, about an hour in, the power went out in the entire block. Fortunately, there was enough sunlight coming in through the windows, plus some auxiliary light, so I wasn’t in complete darkness. But I was left without power in the office for roughly three hours. My lunch was the cold slice of pizza I’d brought in. Normally I’d heat it up in the microwave. I wondered if I’d be able to do anything, or if I’d be sent home at a certain point. The heat was off, so I was chilly, and lonely, and nervous. I read a little of Burr and wrote into a notebook for a while to pass the time, since I couldn’t do any work.
I had to use my phone’s flashlight when I went to the bathroom. And I noticed everyone else leaving the building. The elevators still worked somehow, so they were taking them, but the elevators were pitch black so I thought I’d take the stairs if I ended up leaving. Elevators make me anxious even when the lights are on.
The power finally came back right at the end of my lunch break. I’m glad it came back, so I didn’t have to spend a full eight hours in cold darkness by myself.
The finish line of my novel is in view. I have a difficult time writing in the evenings sometimes, mainly because I want to spend time doing things with Luis. But I push myself, and I’ve been making up the difference by writing more while I’m at work. Currently I am at around 75K words of my novel. He was working a lot last night, so we had our laptops in the living room together and it gave me some time to write without feeling guilty, since he was also busily doing something.
I’m so close to finishing my novel draft, I can almost taste it. What would that actually taste like? Paper and ink? Anyway, it feels good to be almost done with it so I can take a break and give it some thought when I don’t have the blinking cursor in front of me. I wonder how much of this draft will survive into the next rounds of revision. I can tell it’s mostly a skeleton of what I want this story to be, but gotta start with something.
💀


