Someone switched the dryer setting to High heat. My dad’s clothes must have been cooking. I turned the heat down, but who knows how long it was on High.
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Wash clothes in cold/cold water, unless it’s a load of dirty jeans. In that case, wash the jeans in warm/cold water with some baking soda and vinegar. If there’s any grease or waxy/tarry substances, add a can of Coke to break up the binding agents.
Wash white towels in hot/cold water with either some bleach or some baking soda and vinegar.
I dry on low heat with a fabric softener sheet. (There was a horrible instance where I let a hotel launder my clothes, and they melted the designs on a bunch of tee shirts. I was so mad. I wash my own clothes.) Or if I’ve got a wrinkled shirt, I’ll either spritz it with water before tossing it in the dryer or add a damp towel. It’s great for when you don’t have the time to iron. Throw wrinkled clothes in the dryer while taking a shower and getting ready.
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Today has been one of those days when there was a lot of stuff I could do, but I just didn’t have the energy. I’ve added pages to my writing, but it’s like two pages to ATR, one to Tuesday, one to Jazz, and a bunch of fic stuff that’s turning into a flaming garbage bag of emotion that I’m not sure I want to share with anyone.
The funny thing is that I always feel like I’m being super constructive when I’m wasting time. I have to remind myself to stop screwing around and just write. Unless the research is really necessary to forming the story, put a placeholder (I use —-0000—- for typed words, or [] for handwritten pages) and keep going.
I let myself get bogged down overthinking scenes sometimes. Then I get distracted and drift off into other things. It’s ridiculous.
I’m constantly writing, but sometimes there’s no coherence in what I produce.
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EXCERPT– “Tuesday Night: Part Four”
They were squatting in a small two bedroom apartment. Wordlessly they shared the master bedroom, huddled around each other on the queen-sized bed. The door to the second room stayed firmly shut, the child’s single bed with its cartoon sheets undisturbed.
Tony hadn’t let himself dwell on the rust-colored stains on the playmat or the drag marks on the carpet. Definitely didn’t focus on the small size of the fingers that had made those marks, desperate and clawing.
There wasn’t a lot of food in the kitchen, but they had ration bars in their pockets and they made do. The last thing they wanted was to be wandering the city streets scavenging, not when the hive mind seemed to have changed tactics.
Drones had taken to the streets in roving packs. They hadn’t quite gotten to the point of doing building-by-building searches, but Tony figured it was only a matter of time. The hive mind was adapting.
They’d watched as a family of four was run out into the middle of the street. The woman had bucked and screamed as her husband was pressed facedown on the ground. The angle was bad, keeping Tony from seeing the details, but within moments the man was up, helping to hold down the two terrified children, then his wife.
Fifteen minutes later, the drone pack had four new members. They slunk off into the dusk in search of prey, gliding together as though they shared one spine. It had been a chilling display, one he couldn’t look away from.
“I feel like I’m trapped in a horror movie,” he said. They had fallen into whispers since leaving Triangle Park. It felt strange to be so afraid all the time, but Tony thought that he had forgotten any other way to be.
“There’s a reason why I don’t like horror movies.” Seth turned off the burner and carried the pot of ramen to their nest of couch cushions and blankets. He settled opposite Tony in a crosslegged position.
/EXCERPT
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