The semester is winding down here at the end of my fifth year of teaching as an adjunct instructor of history at Longview Community College. I am, as always, surprised to find that I am still around. I never expected to last as long as I have. However, if things change in the Social Sciences Division as projected, next year could well be my last.

Time will tell, I suppose.

In the meantime, the pool season is spooling up and I am on deck for a second year as a lifeguard. My summer employer’s social media policy is fairly stringent and as a result, I can not reveal much about what I will be doing yet. I do have a new batch of challenges set before me and I expect this to be the equivalent of a full time job for the next three months. During that time I will, of course, try to swim as much as humanly possible.

I suppose that is my only real demand from this job that I can state on the net. I made some choices which didn’t make a lot of people happy. The list of reasons for those choices is a fairly long one which includes one basic requirement.

I want to stay near the water. I want to be swimming as much as possible. I want to build on what I accomplished last year fitness wise and of course, I want to become a better lifeguard. If I can get these needs met, in addition to moving forward on the writing front, then I will be relatively happy with my choices.

The Writing Front

I’ve got all of the material back from most of my beta readers concerning A Restoration of Faith. This story was supposed to head out ten days ago but May has been a real bastard of a month in many respects. Still, I think a couple of rewrites should be sufficient to bring it up to speed.

I will, I think, be consulting with an expert in art history I know for some guidance on an ongoing problem I’m having with some descriptions of the building I am using.

Knock on wood, this project will go out on June 1st.

I have two other projects on tap, one closer to readiness than the other. When I talked it over with Terri at Longview, she was fairly impressed with the concept. So we’ll see how that goes.

Research Project Number – 06/Axis of Time – 04
Stalin’s Hammer by John Birmingham

John’s first ebook for the Axis of Time trilogy is moving forward. The loss of the internet seems to have held him up a bit but I suspect by the end of the month at the latest it will be off to the editors. I can promise readers a fairly entertaining read from what I have seen thus far.

Other Fronts

I will be helping Trinity move into her own place next Friday. Apparently no one else will be providing any assistance, which is typical. I may send a request for support out to the Longview Community to see if we can get a few volunteers to help out. In turn we’ll feed them.

Our relationship status?

For the record, I am a notoriously difficult person to live with on a full time basis. I can handle being around any given person for a maximum of four hours, maybe eight on a really good day. Otherwise, I prefer long periods alone. The less alone time I get, the less time I have to recharge, the more cranky and irritable I get.

We’ve had our troubles, however I think a place of her own will help settle some of those issues out. We’ll try to rebuild from there.

If only it wasn’t in Blue Springs, Missouri.

For the record, I used to think pretty fondly of the town. People I work with still live there and the person who became President James Kipper in the Disappearance/Without Warning Trilogy makes his home there when he is not deployed with the Army National Guard. I find myself in Blue Springs regularly for lifeguard training so I am familiar with the town.

Still, a lot of bad history is out there. To be there makes me edgy, always on watch, keyed up and waiting for something awful to happen. Perhaps the only exception to that rule is when I am at lifeguard training, mainly because no one would be stupid enough to try something in front of fifty to a hundred plus witnesses in an enclosed environment.

At least I hope.

On a more cheerful note, we’ve finally got the barbecue grill set up on a proper brick paver platform in the front yard. We’ll be grilling up some flesh and veggies tonight I do believe.

In the meantime, I have study guides to send out, material to grade and quizzes to build.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
Kansas City, Missouri