In Which I Bitch

December 10

Shittiest Monday ever, yo, though the evening is shaping up to be a bit better.

(Well, perhaps not the shittiest Monday ever-- but the worst in a while)

But, to go back in time: had a lovely weekend. Date with Heather on Friday. Saturday night was a blast, hanging out at the Albatross for Ken Wharton's book launch party, lots of writerly types there. Sunday seems, in retrospect, to have been composed mostly of doing laundry. I'm reading Perdido Street Station, which is rapidly climbing my personal charts-- I suspect it will end being one of my favorite books ever. This weekend I sent out stories (well, a few of them are still in envelopes, waiting to be mailed). Once I get those envelopes to the Post Office, I'll have 29 stories in circulation. Whee. I also revised a story I drafted in February, called "Romanticore." I'm going to scrub-and-polish it a bit more, but it should be in the mail pretty soon, too. I did some Xmas shopping over the weekend, wrapped some gifts... I have several packages to send, to my Dad, my mom, brother and sister, to Scott. Those will go out in the mail tomorrow.

So today I stayed home, because I feel crappy. I feared at first that I'd gotten the flu, but if so, it's a fairly mild strain. There was a night last week when I slept for 15 hours, presumably because my body was fighting some wintry illness. My momily's theory is that I've been sick for the past year, and haven't really gotten well at all-- that the illness is just going to ground briefly, to reappear weeks later. Maybe she's right. Maybe it's just a terribly persistent cold. I dunno. Anyway, there were a couple of advantages to staying home today. UPS misrouted one of Heather's gifts, sending it to Pennsylvania. They finally managed to get it back in California, but the stupid UPS people changed the designation of the package so that I have to sign for it. Normally, they just leave packages on the porch, which is fine for our purposes. But I suppose they wanted to make sure I got the package, since they so persistently lost it before. Anyway, they were supposed to come back sometime today for the third and final delivery attempt. Good deal-- I'd be home anyway, and I could sign for the package, no harm done.

The bastards never came. And around 2, when I wanted to go somewhere, have some tea or get some lunch, I started getting serious cabin fever, but I was waiting for the package. Grr.

I also had to call another place, a company that screwed up another gift order. This is Heather's big gift, the one I'm most excited about giving to her. I ordered three things from the company, and they sent one, but seemed to be laboring under the misapprehension that they'd sent all three. This isn't a case of lost packages, either; there was one tracking number, and one box, and one thing in it. So I called their customer service department, where they expressed bewilderment, and had me call the sales department. They also expressed bewilderment (though their bewilderment was mostly in regards to why the customer service department had me call the sales department). They said they would "research the problem" and call me back.

They never called back. By the time I tried to call them back, it was just a hair after 4 p.m., and they were closed (they're on mountain time, which I hadn't realized). Grr. Grr grr grr.

So I was trapped at home all day, feeling ill, and I didn't accomplish either of the things I'd hoped to accomplish.

On the plus side: I wrote 1100 words of Rangergirl, and outlined the next several chapters. It was sorta fun, a fun scene, but the writing was difficult-- I had trouble focusing on my computer screen for some reason (which problem persists as I write this, to a lesser degree).

I also read a few hundred pages of Perdido Street Station, and read the first couple of stories in Starlight 3. I sat on the porch and ate tortilla chips and scowled. I was in a shitty mood.

Still, I was physically feeling more-or-less okay this evening, just low-ebb energy-wise, so I went to Berkeley to work out with Heather. I figured I'd do stretching, if nothing else. But Heather was hungry and not feeling too well herself (maybe we have some illness-feedback-loop going on, I dunno), so we got some dinner at Jupiter (a bar in Berkeley) instead. I tried not to be cranky. Heather was in a silly mood, which cheered me somewhat.

Tully's, the corporate-coffee-shop at the top of the downtown Berkeley BART escalator, has the shittiest lattés in the East Bay. Bleah. But the atmosphere isn't bad.

Hmm. So, Heather and I came home. She's off seeing people and doing things, but she plans to return with the third of the Sopranos tapes, for our watching pleasure. I'll be immensely cheered, I think, to be sitting on the couch watching mobsters.

I plan to go to work tomorrow, unless I'm feeling apocalyptically ill. The cabin fever today was horrid; I'd rather be at work. I have to get up early, call stupid UPS, call the other stupid company, and go to the Post Office.

Moan, complain, bitch.

Oh, good stuff: it's a gift night! Hurray! I get another birthday gift. Heather's been giving me lovely stuff, action figures, yum. She also gave me an incredibly wonderful heavy blue terrycloth robe. I feel like an emperor when I wear this robe. It's gorgeous and comfy and warm.

So, you know. My life's not all that bad. There are bright segments.

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