Wifflebrain

Setember 18

Busy, mind-draining day at work. The issue goes to press tomorrow, so it was non-stop working today, and most of tomorrow will be busy-busy as well. But we had dim-sum around lunchtime, so that somewhat eased the pain. I had to work about an hour and fifteen minutes late, which knocked me around a bit, psychologically. I came home feeling oddly dazed. Heather made some nice dinner, while I mostly read on the couch. Otherwise, I paid bills, played Diablo II, we watched Six-String Samurai, which was sufficiently strange. Heather went to bed earlyish, so I answered some long-overdue e-mail (though I didn't write to Mom yet, or to Blah, because I have to write them longer messages). A nice night, but I didn't feel as if I had my head together. I was occasionally snuggling Heather and telling her I hadn't given her enough love tonight-- all these jolts of great fondness going through me. She made me tea... she's wonderful. I'm so incredibly lucky to have her. And she has job interviews! Which is exciting. We are currently SINKs, but we look greatly forward to being DINKs (Double Income No Kids). That's just like being wealthy! Or near enough for us.

Heh. One of the jobs Heather is applying for is part-time, and it pays such that Heather would make more than I do while working half as many hours. Ah, well-- my work is a work of love. I could make better money at a great many endeavors, but I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing. Except writing full-time, which pays even less competitively than A Certain Magazine.

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Heather and I had vague plans to go to a One-Person-Show tomorrow night, but we seem to have slid away from that, which is fine with me, really. I have some writing to do tomorrow (under deadline, no less), and I need to revise our Bookstore Story so we can send it out (in order to slip under yet another deadline). So, I'll be occupied, and we plan to go to the good sandwich shop and get good sandwiches, and snuggle one another, and nuzzle in love. It's good to feel good, especially given the recent unpleasantness in our country, the sense of dislocation and fear and confusion that's been nearly palpable in the air. I don't know what I'd do without Heather. I'd be adrift. I'd be lost.

I love her so much.

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I got e-mail recently from an old high school friend, a guy I never thought of as a writer... I don't know if he wrote when we were in high school or not. We worked at the same crappy retail store, and that was the extent of our relationship, really, but he was a funny, sweet guy. He's doing grad school in fiction, now (the same university in N.C where Kelly Link went, actually). He tells me he write 3 or 4 hours a day, 6 days a week. And I think-- Mother of Pearly Mercy! If I wrote that much, that'd be 35,000 words a week! And, while I certainly wouldn't run out of things to *say*, I would be most sorely mentally drained, I think. Writing full-time appeals to me because I'd have lots of time to revise, and to work on poetry, and to do non-fiction, as well as writing fiction-- but really, two hours of writing rough-draft fiction a day is plenty for me, unless I'm really on a roll. But then, he didn't give me a breakdown, so maybe he spends a lot of time sharpening pencils or doing freewriting. Or maybe he's just hella prolific. At any rate, it's making me want to write more.

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Okay, I could go on, but sleep calls. Good night, and fare well.