Oil and Binges
June 21
8:16 a.m.
Yawn. Sorry, y'all east-coast-checking-my-journal-at-5-a.m.-Pacific-Time-types, that I didn't get an entry posted last night. I intended to, but then the Tales From the Crypt with Slash came on, and I couldn't miss that, you know? And after that it was bedtime, since I planned to get up terribly early today.
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My money woes were slightly ameliorated yesterday when the state of California decided I didn't owe them as much money as I thought I did. They gave me a tiny fraction of my money back, but given the current pitiful state of my bank account, the check they sent me represented an amount equal to roughly half my previous total assets. Pathetic, y'all. I've been a big dumb spendthrift.
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The oil light in my car came on this morning, but only for a second-- just a flash of red, and then it went out and didn't come back on. No funny noises, no smoke, and I should be at least a month away from needing an oil change... My knowledge of cars is limited to knowing where to put gas and oil and antifreeze in, so do any of you have any insight into this strange idiot-light behavior? Just an electrical glitch? Foreshadowing of a horrible breakdown?
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I spent a bit of time yesterday afternoon learning keyboard shortcuts, so now I'm getting by pretty much without touching my mouse. That, and the better chair set-up, is helping my hands immensely. No crunchy sounds in my wrists last night, and no particular pain, unlike the night before. I even worked with my jo staff in the front yard a bit yesterday, and my hands didn't get cranky. So, yay! I just have to remember to keep being careful, taking breaks, and so on.
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Last night I revised "Little Gods of Grief," based on some comments given to me by Mike and Heather. They agreed that it works pretty well for the most part, and only had micro-tweaks to suggest-- they didn't see the need for any fundamental changes. Which is good, since I'm pretty happy with it. It's probably the prettiest 5300 words of prose I've ever written, and I think that prettiness serves a function... style following the needs of the work, and so on. I got "Little Gods" ready to go in the mail, along with another story. That was about it for last night's productivity. Otherwise, I read The Prestige (still a bit left before I finish it), and ate grilled cheese sandwiches, and read one of the local free papers, and talked to sweet lovely wonderful Heather (who is coming to visit me today! Hurray!), and ate a cookie, and chatted online with Meg, and started reading a cool Walter Jon Williams story called "Wall, Stone, Craft," and read a couple of short stories that I'm going to critique for friends/writing group, and watched TV with Scott.
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A few of you have asked in e-mail about Meg, and, in brief: She's doing well. She left today to visit New York City. She's checking out some housing possibilities (one of which is really sweet, and I hope it works out for her), visiting Columbia, getting her reading list, visiting the site of her probable placement (a parenting organization headquartered in the same building in Harlem where the Clintons live)... she seems excited and enthusiastic and good.
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Have y'all heard about this crazy 3-day Novel Competition? I tell you... I'm tempted. It could be fun. They seem to have a preference for li-fi, but I can handle that-- or at least limit myself to an acceptable level of weirdness. Moreover, the novel manuscripts they receive are usually around 100 pages double-spaced, and that's nothing. I would have trouble writing 100,000 words in three days, but 25,000 to 30,000 words? C'mon! Easy!
Easy if I had an outline, anyway, and outlines are allowed.
Maybe I'll do it, for a lark. Sometimes I get ideas for stories that would fall into that length range, but I usually don't write them, because they're unsellable-- too long for magazines, too short for book publishers. So. It could be fun. And really, the actual writing shouldn't take more than fifteen hours of work or so, and spread over three days that's no big thing.
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I came into work absurdly early this morning, because I want to leave at 3. I have an errand or two to run after I escape, and then, with luck, I'll find my lover waiting for me on my porch, her hat shading her face, her face lighting up when she sees me.
And, for now, that's all. I'm going to descend into the data mines now.
