The Congenial Slug

Hello, dear ones. Another workday of making nearly endless, tedious corrections, but now I'm nearly done with the manual, so that's good.

Yesterday I received goodies in the mail; Mary Anne's book Torn Shapes of Desire (which I intended as a holiday gift for an aspiring erotica writer of my acquaintance, but I may keep this copy for myself), and Still, a CD by Jodie Manross. Jodie used to play in Boone when I lived there; she plays mostly in Knoxville, now. I'm listening to the CD, sweet guitar and Jodie's big, beautiful voice. Takes me back to '97 and '98, sitting upstairs in Beanstalk listening to the band, drinking a french vanilla espresso smoothie, Amily looking at me with her big blue eyes, Sarah jittering and fidgeting and rolling her eyes... Good times. Worth remembering.

I got my contract and payment from Strange Horizons yesterday, too, so that's happy-making. I did my finances today, wrote checks to pay bills and stuff, and I'm rather better off financially than I thought I was. I'd been worrying about money a bit. Not that I'm in danger of starving or being evicted (or even giving up net access), but I want to do some traveling next year, to N.C. for Amily's wedding, and to WisCon, and I wasn't sure I'd have the money. I think I will, now, as long as I'm reasonably frugal in the interim.

I had a nice long talk with Scott last night, about lots of things... intelligence, knowledge, introspection, my online journal, memory, how well we know each other... Very nice. I didn't get to bed until 2:30 a.m., and 7:30 came awfully early today, but I got up and around all right. The talk was well worth it.

This evening I made a conscious effort to take care of some necessary things-- paying bills, doing laundry, stuff like that. I have a tendency to put that stuff off until the last minute. Usually not beyond the last minute; my bills get paid on time, though sometimes my housemates have to nudge me once or twice or three times to get me to write a check. I tend to glaze over details like that, periodically realizing that things are building to critical mass, and then dealing with bills and errands and necessities in a rush before going back to my cheerful drifting stupor. I'm sort of a slob, really, though I think I'm cluttered rather than filthy. My room is filled by piles of clothes (some folded, some in need of washing), manuscripts in assorted stages of revision, mail I need to answer, financial statements, back issues of Analog, boxes Mom sent me that I haven't quite unpacked... I can always find anything I need, and it's not like my floor's covered, but I'm not about to be written up in House Beautiful. I sleep on a futon, and I seldom make it up (seldom enough that, when I did make it up last week, Scott commented on the fact in surprise-- "That's unusual for you, isn't it?"). I seldom give any thought to interior design. I have a pretty nice desk, but I also have brushed-chrome lamps along side my baroque and monstrous cherub lamps. Cheap bookshelves. A box with a blue towel over it for a bedside table. I just don't think about this stuff very much, you know? I like having a good environment, but I'm not very conscious of my room most of the time. When I'm in here I'm usually either sleeping or surfing the net or writing, none of which lead me to pay much attention to my surroundings. I want to be able to reach my dictionary easily, and my stereo, and my crackers or chips or whatever, but otherwise I don't much care what things look like. I have some beloved pictures and objects around, but there's definitely no sense of integration. I'm no more capable of doing interior design than I am of composing a symphony for a full orchestra. My brain just doesn't work that way.

My laissez-faire approach is only problematic occasionally, when it interferes with my housemates. Left to my own devices I clean intermittently or not at all. As a child and teenager I had to vacuum the house every day after school, a hated chore that has instilled in me a deep loathing for vacuuming, so much so that I had an arrangement when I lived with D. whereby he would always vacuum and I would always do the dishes (because he had a similar hatred for that chore). I take the occasional swipe at cleaning the toilet bowl, and scoop my hair out of the drain, and keep the kitchen sink reasonably clear of dishes... but I'm erratic and I lose interest easily. I'm probably a pretty crappy housemate when it comes to chores; I just don't think much about that stuff. I take out the trash when it occurs to me that I should, and I generally try and keep our common areas clear of my clutter, but I doubt I do a very good job.

It's a good thing I'm so wonderful to live with in so many other ways. :) At least I'm a congenial slug.

Tonight I worked on revising Genius. Man, the six pages I did tonight were crap in their original form! Uninspired, boring, clunky prose, very much me trying to get from dull Point A to the much more interesting Point B. So I rewrote them totally (which is why only 6 pages got done), and I hope I managed to breathe some life into them, and integrate them more smoothly into the whole of the novel.

See, I'm not a slug when it comes to writing. I'm meticulous. But there's no cross-application. The same way I can never stick to an exercise regime, even though I can stick to a writing schedule. I totally lack willpower with the one, but not with the other.

Ah, the mysteries of the mind.