Vacated

October 22

10:20 a.m.

Hee. Hee hee. I'm vacated. Vacant. Vacuous. On vacation!

Which means, naturally enough, that I got up at 9 a.m., showered, and started working... but I'm working for me, not for, you know, the man. Of course, in my case "the man" is a SF/fantasy magazine publisher, so I don't rightly have anything to complain about, but still... this is very pleasant, this being home on a Tuesday morning, and getting paid for it, no less. I've never had a real grown-up job with vacation time before -- or, at least, I've never worked at such a job long enough to actually take advantage of said vacation time. This rules.

I said farewell to poor Heather, who has to work today and tomorrow, and then clomped upstairs, tried to listen to the radio, winced at insipid morning-show people, and put on a Neutral Milk Hotel CD. Then I worked on the collab, since after some discussion Nick and I decided that having our hero climb a giant penis/beanstalk might put off some editors -- and since I had an equally funny alternate idea, and no particular attachment to penis-scaling, I rewrote the scene. I actually like it better, now; the new scene connects better to the rest of the narrative. Then I called my student loan company and started the consolidation process, which will take a couple of months to go through -- but once it does, I'll have significantly lower monthly payments and a lower interest rate. I'll probably keep paying as much as I usually do, though, since anything I pay over the minimum goes toward the principal. Yay, modicum of financial planning!

Now I have to pay a parking ticket (with my customary "Fascism" written in the memo line...), and answer some e-mail, then dress and amble up to Berkeley for lunch with a friend. After that I'll probably revise the afternoon away.

Mmm.

Vacation.

11:55 P.M

Whoo. I had a nice lunch in Berkeley with Susan, at a cheap Indian place with good naan. I spilled curry on myself; I am Tim Currypants (not to be confused with Tim Curry). She returned to work and I wandered a bit, going into bookstores and comic shops. Bought a couple of issues of Optic Nerve -- wonder if they've sold more of those since the article about Tomine came out last week? I had coffee at a café, which was deserted at this time of day -- but I wound up sitting beside some old guy who wanted desperately to talk to strangers about how he earned his MBA. Somewhat distracting. I came back home in mid-afternoon, read A Scattering of Jades for a while, and took a nap. Didn't work on revising my novel a bit, which is too bad, but so it goes. Revision is the only thing I have on the agenda tomorrow. I plan to go to a bar, hog a booth, eat food, drink beer, and revise. I may change my plans en route, but that's what sounds good to me now....

Watched Buffy with my darling tonight, and had super-garlicky pasta for dinner, and played some video games, and generally had a nice time. Nick sent back the collab ("Blind Date"), which is now done but for line-editing! Soon I'll send it out, and our fame will spread far and wide.

Words written since February 1, 2002: 176,100

Words written since last entry:
200

Send palindromes!

Tim Pratt
P.O. Box 13222
Berkeley, CA 94712-4222

Spare change? For, um, goat food? Or dental work, or a 'zine?