32,000+

That's how many words I've written for POS, so far. A third of that word count is spread across the first two parts of the story; the rest is the last Londonderry section, where I'm establishing ends that need to be set up in the beginning. And I'm fighting this one subplot's movement towards a "Hollywood" moment. It's coming from a character who's established himself as a boyhood friend of Brendan's -- a Protestant living in The Fountain area of The Bogside -- but now is is a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. He's nudging for a final confrontation between him and Brendan and I do NOT like it. Helps that Brendan thinks the idea stupid, too. But it's still there -- my easy way into emotional catharsis and one I fear I'll jump at if I get too desperate to get done.

Going through the whole last section, I can see where I'm really just over half done with this part. I still need to get Brendan into Northern Ireland from America and situate him in a condition that was growing calmer but is now exploding, again, thanks to the hunger strikes by IRA prisoners in The Maze. Then I need to link a few other chapters I've written. Last night I got his interrogation by the RUC and its aftermath done, for now. It feels a bit quick, but I can take care of that in the rewrite.

I started writing early, while mom was puttering around in her closet...and it was good that I did. We had a small crisis concerning her new glasses that took up a few hours. She and I had discussed her getting transitional lenses for them, just like the ones she currently has. I thought she had it down so yesterday, while she got everything set up at the Eyemasters in North Star Mall, I used the mall's free WiFi to answer e-mails. She joined me when she was done and told me the glasses were due to be ready today, which surprised me but I shrugged it off. Big mistake. Because when we called to see if they were ready, it turned out Mom had ordered prescription sunglasses. She'd told the woman dealing with her she wanted tinting on them, said nothing about getting the "tint" just like the ones she had or even referred to "transitional lenses." Those would have taken ten days to get done properly. So they worked up her regular prescription, put them in her old frames and she now had a pair of glasses that were too dark to use indoors. They were able to remove most of the tint and she can see fine with them...but I should never have left her alone to do this. I'd have made sure she got what she wanted from the first moment.

Now she's insisting these glasses are fine and she wants to wait to get any others. Monday she has a doctor's appointment to find out the results of her bloodwork, CTs and mammogram. If that all turns out fine, I guess I'll get back to pushing her to get some other problems taken care of.

Then last night, Kelly got some new tools. He does apartment maintenance and his old tools had been damaged in a fire at his current job. The replacements arrived, yesterday, and he just had to show us how they worked and talk about how great they were. For hours.

Jesus, it's like dealing with children.