Anna’s business
October 29th 2002 -
Anna’s business
Anna’s closing up shop on Thursday, as the Hilton have finally gotten around to renovating the hotel and surrounding arcade. Energetic Healing has had a run of almost two years, and even now is going OK (though business slowed down severely when Anna stopped advertising a couple of months ago). She’s going to take a two week vacation and then get back into it with a vengence, I suspect. I’m very glad she’s taking that vacation, though. She was going quite mad with the stress of it all, you know.
A Lotus blossoms in the Monastery Garden
I haven’t done very much thinking about the story yet, partly because I feel that it’s kind-of cheating to write anything down in advance, partly because I’m still not certain that it’s going to carry 50k words, partly because I’m just plain nervous about my ability to write ten pages per day for the next month. It’ll be slightly easier with Anna on holidays – less stress – but I don’t know how well I can “just write”, because I’ve never really done it before except for streams of consciousness rubbish. The more I think about it, the more I realise that I’ve been drawing on “The Name of the Rose”, in themes, and even kinda in the title. So I’ll have to avoid that. ALBITMG was originally going to be a murder mystery with a rather weird setting, but now I’m beginning to get more interested in the setting for its own sake.
Sugar
I’m in an odd state at the moment. If I stopped the no-sugar, no-dairy thing at *right this minute* I wouldn’t take a can of coke or a chocolate if it was offered to me. I just don’t feel like it. And that’s a rare thing.
Greek
Recently I have been arguing with shop-keepers on my way to work, having evidently given up on asking a woman out to dinner (thank goodness). I am learning the Greek art of bartering, which is that every time the shop keeper tells me a price (“Mu Hrostate theca-tria tholaria”) I suggest a price one dollar less (“Sas Hrostau tho-theca tholaria”). The shopkeeper will then generally agree with me (“Endaxi. Tho-theca tholaria”), and then, for fucks sake, I viciously undercut him (“Ohi, signomi. Sas Hrostau endeca tholaria”). And so it goes. I’m glad I’m driving, ’cause otherwise the shopkeeper would probably beat me savagely, and I haven’t learned the greek word for “help!” yet.