Ill Morning
April 25
9:04 a.m.
Whee, cough, whee.
Good morning, darlings (yeah, morning. I know. I don't write in the morning, except maybe sometimes on Sunday. But here I am). I'm home sick. I picked up a cold this weekend, and it was bothering me a bit yesterday, but not too bad. I woke up this morning feeling a good bit worse, though. Not orders of magnitude worse, but worse. So I debated whether or not to go to work, and finally decided I'd be better off staying home and plying myself with tea and resting. But I'm not really tired, so around 8:20 I sat down at the computer. I can be sick and productive! Ha!
Except I really do feel kind of crappy, and it's hard to be enthusiastic about work in such a state. So, instead of work, here's some journal for you.
I was a Good Kid last night. I paid a bill, and read slush, responding to all but two submissions. I submitted some poetry, and wrote a new, rather long poem. No fiction, but a bit of revision. I had this whole great plan to divide my evening into segments-- I wanted to see if having a more firm schedule would help me be more productive. So I scheduled X amount of time for this task, and Y amount of time for that task, and so on. It worked pretty well up until about 10 o'clock (I had stuff scheduled from 6 until midnight), but then I sat down in the living room with Scott and Lynne and ate popcorn and drank tea and listened to them heatedly discuss physics education research. The scheduling thing was a moderate success, but I think I tried to do too much in one night. I don't have to work on every project-- reading slush, writing poetry, fiction, typing handwritten edits, doing revisions-- in one night. I'm still learning lessons about scheduling and discipline. I get a lot done, usually, but I tend to binge. It would be nice (especially if I ever have the opportunity to write full-time (or even significantly part-time)) to have more of a useful working rhythm. Maybe I just don't work that way-- it's possible. But it's also possible that I just have bad habits which can be broken.
Hmm. Music is annoying me this morning. So far Modest Mouse and Aimee Mann have both made me cranky (it's entirely internal, because I'm feeling ick). But I have to have music, because the undestroyed house next door is being sawed-and-hammered-on very loudly. Let me pick through my CD's...
This seems to be working. Belly, Star. Mmm. I haven't listened to this in ages. I love Tanya Donnelly. I wish she'd do another solo album. Love Songs for Underdogs was so good, even if it did sink without a trace when it came out. Maybe I'll listen to that next.
I wish I had some lemon chamomile tea. Pout.
This is a fun entry, huh?
Let's see. Content. I read The Fifth Elephant by Pratchett, and it was pretty good. Not as funny as most Discworld books are, but a fairly good and twisty story with some satisfying moments. I expect to finish Wilhelm's Margaret and I today, then there's the Trickster book, and I've had an urge to re-read Nin's Henry and June (which I saw used at Bookshop, and may try to snag today, if I feel up to going out). I've got a couple of poetry books I haven't finished, and last week I bought an erotica anthology (Skin Deep)that contains one of Heather's stories, and I should read some of the other stories therein (especially since I do still want to write the erotica story I had an idea for-- I'd try to work on that today, but it's hard to write sensually when you're full of phlegm. Trust me on this). Also I borrowed Steve Brust's Jhereg from Timprov and M'ris. So. Much bookish goodness in my life. Maybe I'll get some reading done today.
Hmm. I think I won't post this one yet. Maybe I'll be moved to add further tidbits of wit and insight throughout the day.
*
10:19 a.m.
This is going to be a long sick day. The noise from next door is annoying as hell. I haven't accomplished much yet this morning, either. I printed out a few poems and figured out where to send them, but actually writing cover letters and addressing envelopes seems too difficult. Besides, then I'd have to go to the PO, because I don't have any stamps. I have e-mail I could be writing, but my brain is unfocused. I should do something mindless, like typing corrections. Hmm. We'll try that. After I wander vaguely online for a bit longer.
Is it too early to eat lunch yet?
(I eat when I'm bored or restless)
*
11:57 a.m.
A bit better now, physically and otherwise. I was sorely frustrated for a little while this morning. I changed the toner in my printer and in the process spilled clouds of poisonous powdered ink on my floor. There may be worse things than scrubbing your floor when you have a cold and a bad headache and hammers are pounding next door and the smell of cleaner is making your head twist... but it's still pretty bad. After changing the toner, my cranky printer refused to make any neat printouts-- blurs, smudges. So I had to go through the whole cleaning routine, cleaning contact points, and the LED, and running a cleaning page, until it finally started to work. I was just about ready to weep with frustration by the time I cleaned the right thing, and a decent-quality page came out.
I praise the good little things, but in a weakened state I can be quite undone by the bad little things.
I looked at the large number of stories I need to get back into circulation, and at the five stories I need to revise and start sending out, and felt horribly daunted. So I've decided to take it a little at a time-- send one thing out every day until I clear my backlog. I'm actually sending out two stories and a batch of poems this afternoon, so I'm ahead of my (self-imposed schedule), which permits me to feel a warm glow of accomplishment. I'll work on revising a little each day, too-- I think I can clean up either "Birch Stakes" or "Three Bites" today, possibly both if I feel ambitious.
*
1:58 p.m.
I went for a walk, to the post office and the bookstore. Bought Henry and June. I've been thinking about journal writing a lot lately, and Nin's journals... well. Let's just say that, when I think of my journals as compared to hers, I am acutely aware of the distance between myself and genius.
The walk was nice-- the weather was exquisite, neither too warm nor too cool-- but it wore me out a bit, honestly. I guess I do need to rest. So this afternoon, I'll rest, just read and maybe write if the mood strikes me.
That assumes I can do anything without being driven crazy by the clamor from next door. You know, I've seen large buildings erected in startlingly, almost miraculously, short periods of time. So why is it that a crew of nine, working six days a week, fails to make any discernible progress in rebuilding a one-story, modestly-sized house?
*
This is getting a bit long, so I'll go ahead and post it, and perhaps another will come along later tonight...
