The Melancholy Shore of Acheron
February 7
10:40 a.m.
Home, sick. When I woke up I just thought I was cranky, that I hadn't slept enough; then I thought that my cold had gotten a bit worse, but was still manageable; then the nausea hit, and I sat on the couch with my arms wrapped around myself for about fifteen minutes. As it was then 15 minutes past nine, I called in sick. Bleah. I made peppermint tea, which is helping, though now I have a headache... I'll pop some ibuprofen in a moment.
So what've I done with my morning? I sat on the couch and watched The Sopranos on DVD, then got restless and read a bit of Dreamside. Now I'm here... I don't feel like doing anything, and I'm easily bored, and I'm physically ill.
Ah, well. Yesterday was lovely, today not so much. That's just balance in the world, I guess...
1:26 p.m.
I had been feeling better; I was even thinking of going out, maybe getting some food, or some tea at a coffee shop. Then I stood up, and went downstairs, and just moving brought back headache and nausea. So no excursions for me. I hate this; I get a day off work, and I'm too sick to enjoy it. Of course, the only reason I have the day off is because I'm sick, but logic has no place in my litany of whines.
I always feel like an awful shirker when I don't go to work on a day when I'm supposed to, regardless of the reason; it's another sub-logical response. So I decided I should do something productive, something to generate revenue, to make myself feel better. I got a few poems together and submitted them to Asimov's (which I should've done about six weeks ago; I just hadn't gotten around to it). I got to thinking about all my non-speculative poems, and how I haven't really sent them anywhere in a while, so I sent half a dozen of them to the New Yorker. Hubris, I know, but it's an e-mail sub, so it doesn't even cost me a stamp to waste my time... they only respond to acceptances, too, so there's never any bad news! Hurray! (You wait six weeks, and if you haven't heard anything, they rejected you. For poetry, anyway; dunno how they do it for fiction).
Hmm... Maelstrom is dead; too bad. I sold "Mantis Dance" there, my first ever fiction sale... I'll always think fondly of Dave because of that. He's started a new 'zine, this one online and dedicated mostly to reviews, though he'll publish fiction and non-fiction, too. It's SFreader.com.
I was going to try to write, but my brain isn't firing on all cylinders... I get so useless when I'm sick! I can handle administrative tasks, but creative stuff is a no-go...
3:27 p.m.
I talked to Heather on the phone a bit ago... her orders were to sit on the couch, drink tea, and watch Buffy. I watched Sopranos instead, but otherwise...
The plan tonight is to hang out with Mary Anne, which will be nice... haven't had a chance to sit down and talk with her in months. Maybe I'll be interested in eating dinner by the time we get together with her. I had some lunch, but mostly I ate because I felt I should, not because I had a real appetite; on the bright side, it didn't seem to aggravate my nausea... so either I'm getting better, or the peppermint tea is working its wonders (after today I think my blood is going to be about 1/8th peppermint, based on how much of the stuff I've been drinking. And I don't even like mint).
1:05 a.m.
Must sleep soon. But first I'll finish this.
I felt better in the afternoon. Heather got home, then Mary Anne came over. We went out to dinner. My appetite wasn't as rapacious as usual, but I ate, and enjoyed it, pretty much. A good evening, though I was tired and at low-ebb.
Other stuff... got two rejections from Asimov's, one a response time of 3 months and 1 week, one just a shade under 2 months. Both personal rejections! One read "Let me see more when you have it, though, of course", and the other said "There is some nice stuff here, but it's not really for us, and so I'm going to pass on it... I like your style, though, and I'm sure we'll click on something other than poetry sooner or later, so keep trying."
Color me encouraged.
Just a bit ago I wrote another thousand words of the Train story. It's still not done, though the end is very clear, now, and more elegant than I'd expected it to be. It'll need some fairly heavy revision, but it's all cosmetic stuff; giving more details, more character reactions, more setting textures. That stuff's wallpaper, though; the important thing is that the structure is sound, the foundations are solid. I think they are, in this one.
And that's enough for now.
February Solitary Short-Story Dare
Total words written: 7,350
Words written today: 1,000
Stories written this month: "Henchman Blues"
A model train. That'd be sweet.
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