Slugomancy

January 24

Friday

Strange Horizons rejected me with the dreaded "didn't grab us" -- about 3 months since first submission, 6 weeks since I fulfilled a rewrite request (which made it a better story, I think, so no loss). So it goes. The story hasn't been many places, and will probably sell elsewhere. Other editors are mostly ignoring me.

I had a long long day (spent over 9 hours at work, starting at 8:20 a.m.), and I'm tired and cranky, almost a TV-movie old-crusty-curmudgeon style of cranky, so if I get snarky or cynical, nobody pay any attention.

So Thursday was pretty lovely, after the work-part was done. It was Heather's 30th birthday, and I took her out for sushi (yum, though the restaurant was actually busy, which it's never been before, which I suppose is good since they'll stay open longer, but is bad because we had to sit at the bar, but it was good because they gave us free green tea ice cream because they felt bad for making us sit at the bar), and a muscle-ache-melting hot-tub session (I always have a moment of cognitive dissonance when I go into the hot tub place near our house; I mean, Jeez, it's in a business district in Oakland, but it's all exposed-to-the-sky and nice and stuff). Then home, and I pretty much fell right-damn to sleep. Heather got cool prezzies; DVDs, a computer game, bookage. I gave her a flippy vinyl skirt and an edition-of-one chapbook with a love poem written about her. Actually a good love poem, too; might sell it to a litzine or something.

Heather was beautiful, and we sat on the porch later and watched the slugs crawl around on the steps, and chatted, and I was living in the state of love, with a fine woman who's good to me, and I look forward to seeing her through a lifetime of birthdays to come.

Elsewise. I think I saw Jamie Kennedy of that horrid hidden-camera show "The Jamie Kennedy Experiment" in Berkeley. (I think it's horrid because it's so mean-spirited (at least Candid Camera, from back in the day, was more-or-less harmless), and because I'd be viciously annoyed to be the subject of such a program, and because I'm opposed to pretty much every kind of "reality tv" crap anyway) At least, it looked just like him, and he was talking to some cute young woman about cameramen accidentally hurting themselves and such, so it seemed like it was him. Since I didn't know for sure, though, I didn't go over to him and deliver le mot juste (which, in this case, is probably "Dude, you suck!" I guess that's three mots juste, but whatever). It reminded me of the time I failed to tell Keanu Reeves that he blows. Though I still contend that I would have, if he'd come into the diner. I was just that drunk. I'd link to the entry about that, but I can't remember when it happened, and I've realized that my memories of Santa Cruz are hard to place in time, because the weather is so generally homogenous -- normally I key memories to it being cold, snowy, hot, etc. In Santa Cruz it's always the same, though sometimes it's wetter than other times...

I'm writing a story about a harpy, and it's really good. For the past month I've been despairing of being able to write a good story, because most of my ideas seemed trite and stupid, and the few cool ideas I have are disconnected and go nowhere. But then I got this idea about a harpy, and what do you know, more and more cool scenes kept coming to mind. So I've been writing them down, and shuffling their order. I think it's a story with very little connective tissue and only oblique explanations, all cool scenes and things-implied, but that's okay. I like it that way.

Somebody who donated to Strange Horizons asked for a copy of Floodwater as his gift! (You, too, could buy a copy of Floodwater. We would not be displeased.) Whoo! And somebody in Germany asked for the strange alternating-word collab Greg and I did, "Inclement Weather". It's good to be desired.

My normal indifference to the Superbowl is now tempered by annoyance and fear, because, well, I live in Oakland. Whether the Raiders win or lose, there will probably be blood on my street Sunday night. We've got a wedding in the morning, and then we're staying inside...

January 25

Saturday

Heather came home last night, and I hung out with her, so I didn't finish this. La. Now I will.

The house is now officially too-full. There's a baby-swing in the dining room, so now there's a walkway about 7 inches wide in there. Normally when I'm overwhelmed by clutter, I flee to my rather Spartan room for relief, but Holly got a new bed, so the futon she'd been using (which belongs to me) is now in my room in pieces; my previously clean room is now full of a futon mattress and bits-of-a-frame. Argh!

Things will normalize. There are rearrangements planned which should relieve some of the stress. I'm just easily overwhelmed right now. Perhaps it's the prospect of so much socializing this weekend. Neither of the social things -- baby shower, wedding -- are going to be unpleasant, and I want to go to both, I just get antsy when I have too many social responsibilities, especially when I'm in anti-social hide-away mode, as I seem to be this weekend. So it goes. We endure.

Still, I'm being productive. I started that story. I got a submission ready to send out. I'm working.

And now I have coffee, and suspect that, after drinking it, my outlook will improve.

Words written since February 1, 2002: 208,200

Words written since last entry:
1,000

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