Props

March 14

My friend Scott Nicholson made the Stoker Preliminary Ballot with his story collection Thank You For The Flowers! Yay Scott! Wish him well, and buy his book, and if you're an HWA member, think about giving him your vote!

My own story "Werewolves and Princesses" made the top three in the Electronic Runes poll. Not an honor in the same league as Scott's nomination, but a little niceness nonetheless-- it means people read my story, and liked it, and that's what matters most in this whole writing thing. Moreover, I wasn't even aware of this poll, so I got votes without ballot-box stuffing, bribery, or self-promotion!

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Thanks to all of you who wrote regarding my new plan to go to grad school. I really think it's going to be the right thing for me.

Mary Anne talks about the pain of being separated from loved ones... and she certainly has a point. I've been away from Meg for just over 7 months now, and it kills me, sometimes. If I didn't have Lynne and Scott and Karen and (more recently) Timprov and Marissa, I'd go crazy-- the hunger for connection can be extreme, sometimes.

I'm not prepared to extend the period of my separation from Meg. We've got a lot of stuff to figure out, but when I go to grad school, she's going with me-- just as I'll move with her when she goes to get her Master's (whether that happens this fall or next fall). This might mean I have to put off getting my degree for a little while, but that's okay. I have plenty to do in the meantime. There are some annoyingly large gaps in my knowledge of poetry that I'd like to fill, and I want to become more familiar with what's going on now in the field. I'm also interested in what, if any, has been done in terms of looking at Slam Poetry from an academic standpoint... so there's plenty of stuff to keep me occupied until such a time as I can actually enroll in a degree-granting program.

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Me and Meg have been watching The Sopranos--the whole first season has been released on videotape, so we've been renting them. I caught a couple of episodes on HBO when I dogsat for my friend Joanne in Boone, but in the normal course of my life I don't have access to premium cable (and it's a good thing-- there are enough time-sinks in my life already), so the series is mostly new to me. And it's lovely. The show's got everything. And by "everything" I mean violence, humor, and frequent nudity.

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Me and Meg trekked up to Hayward last night to have dinner with Timprov and M'ris at La Maison (surely the most original name any French restaurant has ever had). They were out of venison sausage, which made me sad, but the prawns and scallops were yummy. Me and Meg didn't stay long after dinner-- not because the company isn't wonderful (if it's not obvious that I love hanging out with T. and M'ris, y'all haven't been reading this journal very closely), but because alone-time is at a real premium for us. We came home, rented another Sopranos tape, made ice cream, and snuggled in on the couch.

I wouldn't mind doing something similar every night.

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I've altered my schedule this week... and I sorta like it. I get up around 6:15, get to work at 7, and come home at 3. The earliness of rising doesn't bother me so much, and the day really does seem to go by more quickly-- I'm not sure why. I wonder if I could convince them to let me keep this schedule for the remainder of my time at the company...

Then again, I do enjoy staying up until 1 a.m., which isn't terribly feasible with this schedule. So maybe I'll just cheerfully revert next week.

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That's enough for now. Hope you're all having a fine and fabulous day.