When you have to run away from home and you really don’t want to do so - it is confusing.

I have been living my own fairy tale romance since August last, and all was going along splendidly – all right I could easily and happily live without the ex-wife who refers to me as “her”, and is far less than cordial? (I’m snickering here) Other than that – when my sweet love called me last August, as I sat writing in Morocco, I had no idea how my life would change; how I would return to the past and live out my future as the wife of my true love, and have two wonderful step-children added to my life and the joy my own child gives me.

Then Houston and the summer? Summer, really? Can you call this humid, constant, unrelenting, heat that actually makes you shorter when you walk out in it summer? Air so thick that when you attempt to breathe in it’s like taking wet cotton fibers through your trachea to your lungs and then pushing it back OUT again! I’m creating macramé’ down there! Apparently for me it is more that little hideaway that Dante described for those less – nice. But hey, I’m nice! So what gives? Love my lovely readers, that’s what, love. I would live in the middle of the Gobi desert (been there done that) if that were the only way I could live my life in the arms of my love (yes, Q it’s sappy, but it’s true!).

However J. would like me to last longer than one season (it’s the cute and adorable factor I’m certain of it) and has thus decreed that I quit this city built on a swamp. Why people? Why build a city here? I’m sure they had their reasons… she said. But for my migraine-head, and me set to go off at anything over eighty degrees it has been hell. I’ve spent more days down with a h/a than up, and I cannot write long enough to get on the road – Ian and the rest of you writers know what I mean. It’s not writer’s block or any such thing, but that time you need in the world you are creating. The interaction you must have with your characters one on one. The mind set that you must inhabit in order to know what is going to come next, or as many times happens, just keep up with where your characters are going – even when you had no bloody idea that was the destination. And what’s the hero doing with THAT woman? Wait a minute that's not the hero and who is she? If you see my drift…

And so I am packing Angus and myself for a separation of six weeks. Albeit there will be conjugal visits; I have been promised. This is best I think, lest I begin to chew the furniture. I am, as you might imagine so conflicted. At first I was only sad to be leaving, but now I begin to feel the tingling in my fingers, and that stirring in the back of my head waiting to burst forth with the last part of the book, the articles promised, and yes – the next book as well. That, for a writer, is like a low-lying constant orgasmic state let me tell you. Granted we are looking at a great deal of blood on the keyboard here, but joyful nonetheless. I read something the other day, like you do, where Dorothy Parker (pithy extraordinaire’) when asked if she liked to write said, “I like having written.” Oh yes love, I hear that. We all love having written.

My aims are two fold: solitude and a drop in temperatures low enough to break this cycle of pain. Denver is the destination. While still warm there I understand the air is different in that you can’t actually wring the moisture out of it with your hands. I am staying in what looks to be a lovely old Victorian B&B. The cities’ most populated and busy areas are away, and yet close enough to walk, and in the case of heavy cat litter have a car to drive me, to everything I should need. I’m very pleased. And they have a TEA ROOM. Sold.

Expect to see the current excerpts edited and polished, and some new material making its way to the blog for you to read, and please feedback.

I must mention two of my lovely readers. Ian, upon whom you all know I have a cyber-crush, wrote me two inspiring and caring notes to speed me along. And my friend to the North, “Nobody Important” made an incredible offer to help out. So as in my Oscar speech (best original script based on a book of course) I would like to publically say thank you and reaffirming my belief that the world abounds with people of the most excellent joie de vivre and splendid character.

Finishing the cleaning off of my desk, a task worthy of Hercules, should be done this morning. Then to the packing – oh? Did I mention the a/c on the third floor died yesterday afternoon, it was Saturday, and while you can now fry eggs on the ironing board – they don’t come out on the weekend (I imagine him saying as he sits with the ribbons from the window a/c blowing his hair as he sips on his beer). Grrrr. WE all engaged in some of the most creative sleep positions last night and then they all got up with me at four a.m. – go figure.

The travails continue, as I must go to the third floor today to PACK! There’s no not doing that, and in Houston there IS no down time from the heat. I have been getting up at four a.m. hoping for it to be cool enough even for a walk with no joy; can you can only imagine how my packing will go. I’m thinking to use that old adage: whatever you forgot to pack is what credit cards are for my dear.” The large case will be taken up with the paraphernalia of Angus, like traveling with a toddler. I’m packing up a couple of boxes of things I shall need when the weather (soon please) begins to cool. I shall have them addressed and ready for J. to take to FedEx. With the way the airlines charge for airfares these days it’s the only logical way.

We’ve had me to the doctor, and Angus to the vet, so we are good to go. He has his tent, I have my laptop. He has his toys, I have my books. Wish us luck please. I shall be here. I’m taking my camera to show you some of the beauty of Colorado as it changes seasons.
Ciao