Sorry for being so quiet on the blog of late – there hasn’t been anything that felt blogworthy enough to merit a whole post. But lots of little things have been afoot, so I figure I owe folks a little update:

The Ponytail: May it rest in peace. In a ziplock bag in that box of random memorabilia that, someday, my kids are going to go through and say “Eeeeeeeeew – gross!” But judging from the pictures I’ve sifted through, I hadn’t had a real haircut since some time in early 2008, and you know? It was time.

I’m still getting used to the change in my morning routine. I keep getting about two minutes into a shower and realizing: hey, I’m done here. I don’t need to do the whole slather-on-the-conditioner, comb everything out, rinse, comb, etc. Two weeks in, it still feels positively liberating.

Antarctica (a.k.a. “The Ice”): Y’all know that I was trying to land a McMurdo position for this season to help me gather material for the book, and that fell through. And that I applied for an NSF grant for next year to gather material for the book, and that that fell through, too. Right?

Well, as it all shakes out, I will be getting to deploy this year. But not quite to “the ice” as we generally think of it. Scott over at USAP IT needed someone for the Ocean Observatories Initiative on the N. B. Palmer this year. Good news: it’s at the height of the Antarctic summer. Bad news: it’s December through early January, so I’ll be away for Christmas, Hanukkah, New Years and – most importantly – Miranda’s winter break. Good news: (if I’m reading things correctly) the research is going to consist of deploying undersea “robot gliders” to sample ocean conditions. Bad news: we’re going to be doing it smack dab in the middle of the Drake Passage, bobbing around in open ocean for the entire month. The final good news that tipped me into saying “yes” was that I’ll be deploying with Valerie and Barry (sorry – different Barry), both of whom I adore working with. So, it’ll be fine.

image source: http://oceanobservatories.org/infrastructure/southern-ocean/

Writing: this is what I’ve been spending most of my time on. I’m freakin’ sick and tired of the damned novel. It’s a pain in the @$@#! and, when it’s done, it’s not even going to be a very good novel (trust me, I’ve read it). But I’ve promised myself I’m going to finish the damned thing and, well, you know how stubborn I am.

I am, however, letting myself dabble back in short stories, which I really do love writing. You’ll remember from a previous post that I’m now using Patreon to ask people to patronize my commitment to write and post (at least) one new short story each month. You can have a look at my Patreon page over here.

But you don’t have to be a patron to read my stuff. If you like, you can just zoot over to my author page at Medium.com to see what I’ve been up to. You can even subscribe to it and get notified when new stories get posted.

Note: Folks who’ve been paying attention may recall that when I first announced this short story initiative, I was putting things up on Writers Cafe. A few weeks of the blinky life insurance and cheap airline flight ads on Writers Cafe pretty much drove me mad. I’d been using Medium.com for my non-fiction and figured that there was no reason not to throw my fiction up there, too. Next story is scheduled to go up on Thursday, so get on the bus and subscribe, okay?

So there ya go. There are all sorts of other little things happening: Jeremy’s blossomed into a full-on artisan, knitting metal rings to make gorgeous chain mail jewelry, blowing spectacular ornamental glass flowers, and spending a couple of evenings a week hammering out wrought iron at a neighbor’s backyard blacksmith shop. Is this a great neighborhood or what?

Devon and I will be headed off to visit Miranda for Parents Weekend next week, and I’ll probably get another blog post out of that. Then there’ll be Colorado for USAP orientation at the end of the month, and plenty of other stuff, including Devon’s upcoming trip (without me!) to the Galapagos. So, you know, I’ll keep you posted.