"There was dressed-up alligators"
July 28
It's a Sunday, fun day, don't have to run day.
Some random things:
Interesting article about domestic abuse in Buffy.
I really dig this Ugly Casanova CD. It's rocking my small little world.
Congratulations Scott on getting your Master's!
I had a morning of strange productivity -- strange because I tend to waste Sundays. I cleaned my room, filed some of the many papers piled around my room, paid bills, and answered all my e-mail, as well as some Star*Line submissions. I attempted to call my old girlfriend Adrienne, because we haven't talked for a while, but she was off gallivanting; maybe I'll talk to her next week. I got sick of being in the house after all that productiveness, and convinced Heather to go out with me (she updated her journal today, by the way). We went to a café in Berkeley. I read "A Colder War" by Charles Stross, and liked it a lot. Also read LCRW #10. Marvelous stuff! Chris Barzak's story "Born at the Edge of an Adjective" was probably my favorite -- it reminded me of James Blaylock's "Unidentified Objects", it had that same sort of poetic, sad otherworldliness, that sense of missed opportunities. Beautiful. Stephen Bratman's "The Fat Suit" was also very good, as was Greg's "People Stuff" (which I read a while back, actually, at work) and Jeffrey Ford's "What's Sure to Come". LCRW makes me want to do a 'zine. Maybe when I'm finished with my novel, I'll think about doing that... could be fun.
I'm now reading The Years of Rice and Salt (which I started, oh, weeks ago, but I got repeatedly distracted; I think I'm going to read it straight through, now, though).
I did about 1100 words of Rangergirl today, la. It was a nice scene; one of my antagonists has now passed wholly and utterly beyond any hope of redemption.
After we got bored of the café, we went to get ice cream sundaes, and then headed home. But wait! We weren't done! We went to Home Despot (or Agent Orange as we called it at Lowes, where I worked as a copywriter; Home Despot is Lowes' only competitor) to buy a "female aerator" for the faucet. That is, the thing that screws onto the end of the faucet and strains out the larger minerals and imperfections. It is not, as its name suggests, something used to aerate females. Our old one broke, and all the little filter screens fell out. I'd planned to buy a cactus, too, but we got there too close to closing time, and they'd wheeled all the pallets of plants from outside the garden center inside, parking them directly in front of the cacti and succulents, making them totally inaccessible. Pout. All is well, though; Heather bought me a venus flytrap! (well, actually, the cashier randomly gave it to us for free, being too lazy to enter the price and a description by hand; he simply freebagged it when the scanner couldn't read the UPC. Still, it's the thought that counts.) It's terribly cute, lots of little toothed mouths the size of dimes. I like it. Hope it finds plenty to eat in my room.
Then we came home, and Heather worked in the garden (she bought some flowers while we were out), and I read, and lolled about. We had dinner, watched television; a normal, nice evening home. But I feel I had a full and productive day. A good weekend, really. The best I've had in quite a while.
Oh, one bit of writing news I forgot to report; a rejection from Space and Time. The editor had the same complaint about the story that all editors have, which is that my protagonist is an idiot. True. The character is an idiot, and through his stupidity he brings about a great catastrophe -- which is, I think, often the way catastrophes happen. I intended him to be an idiot. But apparently it makes for a bad story. Ah, well. This story's been around and around the block, so I think I'll trunk it. So it goes.
Words written since February 1, 2002: 125,950
Words written since last entry: 1,100
No, really, what do you want?
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