Dispatches, thoughts, and miscellanea from writer Jon Konrath

Stone-cold radiators and the threat of a transit strike

I’m in an all-day meeting today and we broke for lunch at 11:00, so here I am, updating early and eating Wendy’s.

I went to bed early last night and woke up at about 3AM, my room freezing. I got up and found all of the radiators stone-cold, and the hot water somewhat lukewarm. This immediately launched me into a severe panic attack, with visions of spending the next week bathing in my kitchen sink with hot water from the stove and running the spaceheater for a tiny amount of warmth. I don’t know how I managed to fall back asleep, especially since the last two nights were filled with insomnia and looking at the clock every hour and hoping I would get in a few minutes before the alarm went off. But I did fall asleep, and at 6:00, I heard the creaking of water in the pipes and when I felt the radiator, it was slowly getting warm again. So the hour from 6:00 to 7:00 was the most wonderful sleep in the world.

The threat of a transit strike still looms over the city. I won’t go into the details, because I’m sick of repeating them, but you can look them up anywhere. Basically, if the union and the MTA don’t agree to a new contract by Sunday, the trains won’t run on Monday. I talked to my boss, and have a contingency plan: I will burn a CD of all of my Framemaker files on Friday, and if there are no trains on Monday, I stay home until there are trains. It actually wouldn’t be that bad, not having to ride the train in the morning and battle the cold; I could sit at home and listen to music and eat peanut butter and jelly every day and get work done in retreat. It would add an extra two hours to my day. And I normally don’t have meetings anyway. So we’ll see what happens.

Still working on the book, slowly. It’s above 60,000 words and my goal is 70-75K. The writing needs a lot of editing, though. I feel like I’ve said this over and over again, so maybe I should stop saying it.

I watched the movie Dark City the other night, at least part of it, and it’s nowhere near as good as I remembered. The scenery didn’t look as stunning as I’d remembered, and the plot was so forced that it seemed silly. I’ve heard the movie is much better if you turn the sound off until the first appearance of Kiefer Sutherland, but I haven’t tried it.

OK, gotta finish eating.