Like Blake Said...

"The essentials to happiness are something to love, something to do, and something to hope for."

November 10

Kristin Livdahl, the only Ratbastard I've never met, has started a journal; la!

Sweet Heather is currently sitting naked on the chair in the corner of my garret, beneath the print of Escher's "Reptiles", reading my quantum physics voodoo love story, and everything here is very cozy and warm and altogether yum-lovely. Here's the story of our weekend:

Friday night we watched Dick, and frolicked, and around midnight decided to go get sushi -- why not? So we went to Koryo (or Koriyo; Heather and I are dis-re-membering, though we've been there lots of times, you'd think we'd remember) just down the street, and drank green tea, and had fabulous sushi, and eavesdropped on people, and chatted. A great, great night.

Saturday we rose and puttered about the house a bit, and eventually ran errands. We went up to Telegraph Ave. to pick up the engagement ring... only to find that it wasn't finished. Again. Even though, last week, they'd assured me that it would absolutely, definitely, without a doubt be ready this time. The jewelers got really defensive and cranky when I calmly expressed my displeasure, too; if we hadn't invested so much time in this already, I'd tell them to take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut. I'm not so much bothered that it's been a month since we put down the deposit -- it's a custom job, I understand. I'm bothered because they told me it would take a week, and each week since they've told me it would take another week. Sigh. They assure us it will be done within the week. Same old song...

To cheer ourselves up, we went for coffee at Cafe Milano, and sat in the window. I read Dark Terrors 6 a bit (Jay Lake's story was marvelous!), and made some notes toward a review. Then we went to Office Depot and bought some speakers for our computers and a nice big bookshelf (on sale for half price -- whoo!). We drove home through the slow, horrid traffic, hauled our new purchases inside, made a grocery list, and headed for the supermarket (das übermarket!), where we bought beer and lots of food. We came home and made... da dum... sandwiches. On still-hot-from-the-oven French bread. So incredibly good. And we drank chocolate stout. Droolworthy. We rounded out the evening with a double-feature DVD fest -- Unforgiven (mmm, I love that movie) and Can't Hardly Wait (because we wanted to see some good-natured meringue after the bleakness of the Eastwood flick). Nice, nice, nice.

Sometime during the day, I attempted to drive my car again, and determined that the problem seems to be the brakes -- the brake on the rear left wheel is braking rather unpredictably, very much of its own volition. Depressing, but I have some money on a credit card to pay for repairs, if they turn out to be expensive. So it goes.

Today I rose, called the brake place, they were closed, I sighed. I put together the new bookshelf, which is attractive, cherry-finished, and huge, with shelves deep enough to accommodate even our biggest coffee-table books. Heather helped me set it up in the living room, and we promptly filled it with some of the books that have been piling up on all sides lately. It looks very nice, and has upped the coziness quotient of our home considerably. We went to the tiny weird laundromat (ha! they have a website! www.dahouseofsuds.com! Why do they need a website?! Here's a quote, verbatim, from one of their pages: "No need for you to do your towels, we will come pick them wash them with a quality detergent, dry/fold and delivery the towels to you.") and washed clothes. I read "Junk DNA" by Rucker & Sterling in the January Asimov's; it was cute and fun. Also read the Mick Garris story in Dark Terrors, "A Hollywood Ending", the sequel to "A Life in the Cinema" and "Starfucker", two of my favorite stories. Good stuff. We toddled home, and I revised for a while (only about 30 pages left to go on revising the book! I still have to type all the changes, of course, but finishing by the end of the month is beginning to seem not just possible but probable), and Heather took the GRE practice test (and did well; my girl's a smart one!). I cooked dinner -- just pasta, and wine, and bread & butter, with broiled chicken for me, and we watched Angel... and now here we are, up in my attic, cozy.

It's been a wonderful weekend, despite the occasional bumps.

Tomorrow we'll rise early and take my car to the shop, where they'll doubtless tell me that my car has been a rolling deathtrap for weeks and that I'm lucky to be alive, because that's what mechanics always tell me.

Hell. I already know I'm lucky. To be alive, and to have the life I do.

Words written since February 1, 2002: 176,100

Words written since last entry:
My revision is mighty.

You could, I suppose, send me your good wishes, and take mine in return.

Or a jetpack.

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

You can give us money, and tell us how you'd like us to spend it -- on car repairs, grad school applications, Flytrap, teeth, merriment. We won't use it for evil, is all. If you want to give us money and have us give it in turn to the homeless guy in Berkeley who always says "Good luck!" when we give him change, well, we can do that.