How not to ask for an autograph; a new regime.

View 724 Thursday, May 24, 2012

I have just spent nearly an hour doing something I will never do again. I got a request: could he send a book to be autographed. I foolishly said yes. Foolish because I ought to have written up a set of conditions and attached it to that letter. I didn’t. Presently there arrived a USPS “Bubblepack”, somewhat damaged, sent book rate, with some instructions written on the outside as if that were a postcard. Inside were Mote and Gripping Hand, and an envelope with three (3) $1.05 (I didn’t know we have $1.05 stamps) stamps and one (1) one cent stamp. The postage on the bubble wrap was marked $3.31, applied by a post office; apparently my correspondent had weighed it himself and concluded that $3.16 was enough, but when he went to send it it cost more. Well, all right, I suppose. I can stand losing $0.15. Actually I just added a “forever” stamp and had done with it.

But there was no self addressed stamped return container. I was apparently expected to use the used bubble wrap. To do that I had to copy the return address on some kind of label; then cover the address with that label and cover the return address with my own labels; use Scotch tape to repair the tears in the bubblewrap package; use more tape to seal the package after I had opened it; and, I discovered, find some glue to put my labels on with because the sticky goodies had sort of expired on them, and I ran out of Scotch tape almost immediately on starting.

Had I known it was going to take so long I’d have donated the books to the LASFS library and given no more thought to it – and the next time someone sends me books without a stamped and addressed return package I’m gong to. Fair warning. I don’t mind signing books, and I don’t mind putting them into the return package, but I am not going to be copying the addresses onto labels and repairing the container the books came in. Not again.  I ended up resorting to glue to get some of the labels on and the repairs done. Of course I tend to be compulsive about finishing a task once I take it on, but I warn you, I can abandon one. Now tomorrow I’ll have to walk down to the Post Office to mail this thing, and show it to the clerk so that my face and the package will be on the surveillance tape.

One reason I went through with this nonsense was that Niven came over and I had him sign the books before we hiked up the hill. Got a lot of work done on the new novel although I had to confess that  most of my progress lately has been notes and plot points, not text, and we are way behind. Discussed this a bit with Larry, who pointed out that it’s pretty standard with writers to slow down when we get to be damned near 80. We never retire, but we do expect to be able to take some time off. I thought about that, agreed with him, and resolved to put in a couple of hours a day in front of the fiction machine up in the Monk’s Cell where there are no games and little of interest to do. Somerset Maugham used to go out on his veranda after breakfast with his box of writing paper – he wrote in pen and ink – and write W. Somerset Maugham — W. Somerset Maugham — W. Somerset Maugham – over and over until he was so bored that he had no choice but to write something. I suspect I need some sort of drastic rules like that to get this book going again. It’s not that I’ve lost interest in the book, far from it, it’s likely to be the most important thing we have done yet; but finding the energy and directing it to the specific task seems to be more difficult than I thought. It’s probably a quirk of age.

Anyway, we made it up the hill, most of the way, turning back after the second big curve in the fire road because Larry was getting a sore calf. For the record, he’s younger than me. And I’d have gone all the way.  Sable was more than willing. She clearly remembers that the last time we were up on the hill she actually caught a gopher, and she was looking forward to doing that again – she showed excitement at the exact spot where she got that gopher when we passed it on the way up and coming back down too. But it was a pretty exhausting hike.

Anyway starting tomorrow it’s a new regime. I’ll also try to keep this place up.  And there’s mail. It’s a great life if you don’t weaken…

Tonight at LASFS I had a discussion with my friend who has an autistic son. The news is good. All is well, and the lad is doing some work at a college level. That’s not the usual or the expectable outcome for such cases. As it happens, while I was looking for something else I came across http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/2008/Q3/view528.html#Tuesday; about two screens down on that is a lengthy comment of mine on autism that I see no need to revise. If that subject interests you, that’s a place to find it.

And I found this from July 2008; it seems to apply still to my situation:

1215: Yesterday was a strenuous day. I went out for my walk in the morning, and got a phone call from Paul Schindler, my former BYTE editor (he founded the on-line edition of BYTE as we did an early this week in tech show which, had CMP continued BYTE and the tech show, would have evolved into podcasts and such). Paul had told me he would be in LA yesterday and we had a lunch appointment, which I remembered but hadn’t marked down. All turned out well, Roberta and I finished our walk (we had to go to the bank) and met Paul back at the house. Went to the salad joint (Good Earth in Studio City) and that was good. I am always glad to see Paul, which doesn’t happen often enough.

But it did tire me out a bit, and I discovered I had medical appointment at 4 PM: a bone density test. So out to Kaiser, back to the house, and by then it had been a very strenuous day. Got to bed at 11 PM, but it was a bad night. Woke up every hour until 8 AM when I should have got up, but I slept in until 0930. Whereupon Roberta bullied me into getting ready for a walk and we were out by 10 or so. I was ready to go back to bed. Plus my arthritis was killing me. It took sheer will power to keep walking — but things got better as I went, and by the time we came back home with two or three stops for strenuous stretching, I felt pretty darned good. Which means that I can’t completely trust the signals: I clearly didn’t need more sleep, I needed the exercise; and indeed half way through our 2 miles I felt good enough that I did the arm lifts I abandoned a month ago.

So I’m a bit tired but not out of energy. And I need to rethink the regime. Yes, I must get enough sleep and rest, but I can’t just trust the signals any more. Given enough rest, I need to force myself to do the exercises. What’s good to know is that a strenuous Monday does not automatically require an all day sleep on Tuesday.