Riprap

June 27

[If this feels like it was written in bits and pieces over several days, that's because it was. I make no promises of internal coherence. But I noticed that I'd written enough for it to be worth the trouble of posting it, so here it is!]

It's raining good news! First, that racist ultra-conservative fundy bastard Strom Thurmond is finally dead! Second, Night Shade Books wants to publish Nick's awesome novel Move Under Ground! (They do such beautiful books. They've published some of my favorites, like Things That Never Happen by M. John Harrison.) Third, Sandra at Chizine accepted two of my poems, "Courting Costs" and "Broken, Entered", which I submitted about a year ago! I'd long ago given up on the submission, of course, and hadn't expected to hear back at all, and had, in fact, forgotten about the submission entirely. So, an unexpected treat. She wanted to buy "Destination" too, but I sold that to Asimov's a while back. Once it's published there, though, Chizine wants to reprint it, which is nice.

I got my contract from Prime a couple of days ago. Here's the upshot: the more copies you people buy, the more money I get. Got it? And I get more money, naturally, if you buy the hardcover. Do you support me getting money? If I get money, I go to conventions, where you can tell me what you think of me to my face. What an opportunity!

I'm telling you. Little Gods. A perfect gift. Purchasing details to come.

***

My boss treated us to crazy Vietnamese food today. Mmm, sticky pork buns. Mmm, unidentified deep-fried meat on a bed of noodles. Mmm, sausage. Mmm, egg rolls. Sometimes my job is quite nice.

***

I haven't updated this week because of the heat. I haven't been able to think about much else. It's been a hard few of days, long, weather pressing down. I scrubbed blood off a redwood deck with a coarse-bristled brush. I swept up small sharp stones with a pushbroom until I grew dizzy with the heat. I cleaned out charcoal grills in the breeze and got coated with soot in consequence. I lugged many, many heavy boxes. I fixed a misaligned sliding screen door and became entranced for a while with pushing it back, and forth, and back. Trying to work in my garret, even after midnight, it's so brutally hot, so close, I just keep sweating, even in my summer robe. Whenever a part of my body touches another part of my body, I become so uncomfortable from the stickiness.

Hard to believe I used to live in the South. But in the South, people have air conditioning. Houses are insulated to keep in the cool. We bought a fan yesterday, but it was an effort. The first store was sold out. We bought a fan at the second store, took it home, and found that it was missing several pieces. We returned it and got another fan and, finally, got it working. Life became slightly better in an oscillating fashion.

***

There's not a lot to write about. I've been going to work. We've been looking at apartments in the evenings, and will continue to do so, I suppose, until we find a place we like. I'm reading Light, which is wonderful, but so far I don't see why it won the Tiptree, since it doesn't seem especially gender-role-exploratory. I'm only about halfway done, though.

I proofread Star*Line 26.3. I've been working on my Afterword. I vaguely remember what it's like to write fiction. I'll get back into that this weekend, I think, in a revising-Rangergirl capacity. And a collaborating with Greg capacity. Though I have to write reviews, too.

***

We're going to look at 4 apartments tomorrow. It's a whirlwind tour! But we've gotten pretty good, this past week, at finding places we'd like, neighborhoods we'd like to live in, and so forth. All four places are good prospects, though a couple of them are likely to be a bit small. If they're sufficiently adorable and well-located, though, we might be able to compress ourselves accordingly. Wish us luck. We'd like to find something before the end of the month, though we realize this is a feeble and mad dream. Yet still we dream it.

Words written since February 1, 2003: 69,950

Words written since last entry:
1,700

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