This is why I hate travel.
As I was on my way up to Massachusetts to drop off the Complaint Department and the GRD, the Moby Smurfberry began to overheat. (Fortunately, just down the block). So I turned around and came home, called my Mom to have her send
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
thecoughlin to pick up the fur-bearing members of the household, called my garage, called Triple A... at least the tow truck guy was cute.Sigh.
What an inconvenience.
Ah well, at least I have a ride to the airport tomorrow. And it's not like I was going to need the car this week anyway, though I was going to loan it to my mom.
La.
Hopefully, we're talking thermostat or hose here and not head gasket, huh?
- Location:not a studebaker
- Mood:
aggravated, but amused - Music:Tears For Fears - Mad World
Today's bounty includes tiny teeny baaaaby carrots, which are made of deliciousness. I think the radishes may be a loss: they should be cooked by now, and though they are still tiny, they are woody and bitter. They're sure as hell not water-stressed: here in the Temperate Rain Forest* of Central Connecticut, we haven't had a dry day in two weeks. I suspect that the opposite happened, and they didn't get enough sun, because the tops are huge.
Ah well, I'll try again in the autumn.
I also got some more arugula, sorrel, green onions, lettuces, beet greens and a couple of tiny tiny beets, and one radish from the sunnier edge of the patch that was actually edible. The broccoli is nearly there, and the collards need to be eaten before they become leather. I should just get out there and harvest them... I'll do it today when I pull up the radishes. Maybe there's a couple more good ones in there somewhere. The slugs really like the tops, anyway.
So today I will be eating salad, and steamed carrot and beet greens, and collards. My blood is iron-rich! Nom nom. (Actually, I have been craving iron and protein lately, which I suspect is not unrelated to the fact that I went up five pounds on my bench press yesterday. Also, purple hair makes you run faster: I took a second off my mile.)
Yesterday I wrote 758 words on The Steles of the Sky. I'm still waiting for the edited MS of Chill to arrive: that should be here today.
Did not take the dog for a run today. My butt still hurts from the gym yesterday and I have to recover enough to climb tonight. Ouchy.
*apparently our New Normal climate is likely to be milder and wetter. Great for mushrooms, anyway....
- Mood:
sleepy - Music:NPR Morning Edition
I should probably also do some weeding. And clean the catbox.
That's the unrelenting glamor of the literary life, right there. That, and cat vomit.
- Mood:
relaxed - Music:NPR- Morning Edition
ashacat at the gym. I feel like such a jock, Or I would, if I could do more than seven push-ups. La.I went out climbing at Ragged Mountain yesterday with TBRE and The Jeff and some guys from the gym. Basically, I sucked. We went after work and there's a forty-minute drive and a twenty-minute hike in, so we weren't rigged until six, and it got too dark to climb around eight thirty. Everything rigged was way too hard for me, and I spent most of the night belaying. I am really disappointed to have missed a climbing night. Really, even in despite of not really loving climbing outdoors (though Wolf Rock has proven to me that I do, in fact, kind of enjoy climbing on granite: it's fucking traprock I hate with a fucking passion, and o hai there I live in Connecticut, Land Of Traprock) I'm starting to think it's just not worth it to me to go outside on school nights. Because I wind up feeling like I haven't done a damned thing except sit in dirt and get eaten by bugs for three hours.
Ahem. I guess I'm venting.
However, the company was awesome, and the day was beautiful, so it was a win in other ways, even if I don't feel like I got any exercise. (And I won't get to climb again until next week, because TBRE and The Jeff are in Vermont this weekend for a caving thing, so no chance of Friday or Sunday climbing--unless I steal
cristalia and make her come bouldering on Friday.)Speaking of which, I may be a little absent for a bit. Page proofs for By the Mountain Bound have landed, and as of 2:00 PM this afternoon, so will
cristalia, who I am picking up at the Hartford Train Station. Plan then is thai food and Evil Sexy Leonard Cohen at the beautiful Palace Theatre in beautiful Waterbury Connecticut. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! *faints*I will have to be restrained from throwing fedoras at the stage. Not that they're reach: we're in the nosebleed seats.
Then Friday is my mom's birthday, which means
cristalia gets to come shopping with us, and then, Saturday, we get to take cristalia to Manhattan for the first time, which I am really looking forward to.And then next week
stillsostrange and her boy land, and there will be further mandatory fun. (Seriously, if you want a minivacation in Southern New England, this is the time of year to do it--unless you can make it here in October.) *g*So, um. Be good while I am gone.
- Mood:
exhausted just thinking about it - Music: (WNPR - Live Stream)
Drink this tea.
Take the GRD for a run.
Go to pet store and buy stuff (bring the GRD).
Go to hardware store and buy a bucket for planting tomatoes and thyme and oregano.
Sweep and possibly wash floor.
Mail back Bone & Jewel Creatures page proofs
Work on A Reckoning of Men.
Go climb.
There, that sounds like a day.
- Mood:
ambitious - Music:Gram Rabbit - Land of Jail
Anyway.
I have reclaimed the Moby Smurfberry, and am only $652.19 poorer, which is something of a relief. Also a relief, you know, that I have gotten paid, and so can afford to have it repaired. I got lucky, and the break was behind the catalytic converter. Thank you, Moby Smurfberry!
I kind of lost this last week to post-con exhaustion, but I did manage to talk to the Clarion West people about my flights, and it looks like I will be attending the Locus Awards in Seattle the week before I teach. Also, I will be available to hang around with Seattle Peeps the week of June 28-July 3rd.
(
cmpriest, pick a goth club nite or two! inaurolillium and glinda_w, I am planning on at least one day being yours. Likewise, kijjohnson. marykaykare, I am assuming we will find time to hang out? Also, I need to talk to you about schedules and so forth, and if your offer of crash space is still open and for what days, so I can make other arrangements if/where necessary. (I do not wish to be a burden to anyone!) scarlettina, we also need to schedule some time to bond over chocolate sundaes or something.)Also, I just paid my money and send in my programming request for Worldcon, so it looks like barring catastrophe I will be going. 0.0 The foodstuff of Montreal quiver in fear.
Whew.
Also, I really need to get back to regular productive work. I'm starting to have that sinking sense of "failing to justify my carbon footprint" again. It's awful and I hate it. Also, I suck at being unemployed. I need to write some of these books. Also, I really wish "Smile" would unpack itself. A lot. Thank you.
Okay, Monday I need to send back the page proofs for Bone & Jewel Creatures. I can't wait to see that one in print.
In other exciting news, my wonderful agent has tracked down some long-owed money, which will be helping defray the costs of the expedition to Montreal. Yay!
Honeydew, 2009:
Revise Chill
Write A Reckoning of Men (with
truepenny)Write Grail
Write "Smile" (Bone Garden) (started)
Write "On Safari in R'lyeh and Carcosa with Gun and Camera."
Sell something. Preferably One-Eyed Jack and a fat fantasy to be named later.
Shadow Unit season 3
- Mood:
cheerful - Music:Vienna Teng - Grandmother Song
Alas, it's over already, and I'm trying to get up the energy to shower, dress, and take the dog out. Also trying to decide if I am going to make it to t'ai chi today, and climbing outside, which was the plan. (Actually, it was the plan for Friday, and then Saturday, and now today, and it seems like more and more people keep accreting to the party, which makes me feel less like going. Because I'm self-conscious about sucking in front of even more people, yeah, and also because I'm an introvert and large groups are tiring and I am seriously overpeopled these days.
I should go, to both. I need the exercise and it's good for me.)
There's a great post on Making Light today relating Britain's Got Talent to slushpile reading. If you're one of the would-be writers around, I suggest it might make good reading: it reveals something about the editorial process that Algis Budrys (accidentally) taught me when I was a baby writer. It was an epiphany to learn that the editor was really, despite appearances, on my side.
Still no writing brain available, but that's mostly okay, as any deadlines are also far in the future. Finished the Greg Bear books last night; should probably try to finish the Pterry sometime soon. Reading fiction is pretty much work, these days, but at least it's mostly pleasant work.
This is more or less recharge time, and I need recharge time. I'm forgiven: I just need to convince the guilt monkey that I'm forgiven, and that normal people aren't really expected to operate at 150% 24/7/52. Tomorrow, I should get some admin stuff done, like sending in my passport to be renewed, since I got the photos done, and signing some signature sheets I really need to sign.
For those of you following Shadow Unit on your mobile electronic reading devices, the mighty Arachne Jericho has updated her fan-produced e-reader bootleg. And, of course, there will be a new episode on May 3, Emma Bull's "The Sin Eater." And, of course, rolling content until then, including another vignette in the "Tales of the Monster Zoo" series sometime today or tonight.
Blah blah blah donation-supported internet content licensed by creative commons, blah blah blah. Also, a seriously cool fan community, involving an awful lot of talk about food.
- Mood:
crabby - Music:Alabama 3 - Bullet Proof
Winamp has decided it's the '80s. Tom Petty, Sheena Easton, and Sting. Not that any of that is a bad thing...
So far this morning, I have managed to get a lot of necessary housekeeping done (cleaned floors, brushed dog, did dishes, started cooking chicken soup out of leftovers* and pureeing the somewhat overripe strawberries with a little lime juice so I can hand my sick roomie a bowl of soup and a strawberry margarita when she walks in the door), and also done some plotting for Shadow Unit. If I were virtuous, I would be working on "Smile," but I think I may still be in post-novel-draft braindeath. And there's no point in pushing that.
*chicken bones from the freezer, the wilting rosemary that needed to be used up, some chopped onions, a carrot, two half-tomatoes, a handful of long-grain brown and wild rice, two cloves of garlic, a bay leaf, a few ounces of leftover shiraz, some fresh oregano, half a red sweet pepper, a long thin green chile, some diced cucumber that was sitting around and I hope the BRE didn't have plans for, sliced fresh ginger, half a package of mushrooms. There is now room in the fridge, and I am pretty sure I qualify as the best wife ever today, without even being in a romantic relationship.
One thing about yesterday's climbing that I wanted to write down somewhere was how I got up onto the 5.7+. It starts off with a big roof about three feet off the ground, which fortunately has really good hands above it--but that means your first foothold is at waist level. So what you have to do is get on the hands, right-foot all the way out, and then switch the left hand to a sort of 45-degree-angle mantel at waist level and use the opposition between right foot and left hand (and a right-handed pull) to lift yourself off your left foot. Then you can raise your left foot way up, and get it on a little ledge off left.
At this point, you are doing a split. I don't do splits. Ahem. But the hands were good enough that I could pull myself up out of it, even though my inner thighs and hip joints may never be the same. 0.o
I am getting better at this. And a hell of a lot stronger. And thank you, yoga, for the flexibility to make that move.
Meanwhile, the GRD has discovered that he can get on the sofa when I'm not already on it. We had a little argument over whether I was going to get any of the sofa, just now, but I won and now he's decided that it's nicer to use me as a pillow than have the whole sofa to himself. Dogs with lots of pack drive are so nice: they want to do what you want to do, and all they ask in return is to get to hang around wherever you happen to be.
- Location:the boys upstairs wanna see how much you'll pay for what you used to get for free
- Mood: relaxed
- Music:Sheena Easton - Modern Girl
Theoretically, Ace could pretty easily clear a baby gate, as he did the front steps in one hop from a standing start yesterday. (Apparently, he's feeling his oats, or whatever non-oat-eating-life forms feel when they feel it.) However, one of the very cool things about Briards is that they are boundary herders, which means its bred in their bones to respect and enforce man-made boundaries. (When doing the job they are designed for, they essentially function as living fences and gates.)
Just to give an example of how well this works, we were out in the back yard, which we share with the neighbors on the other side of the duplex, and the neighbor was grilling chicken on his side of the yard. Dog crack, right? The Briard walked to the invisible line that separates His Yard from the Other Yard, and did not cross it.
Now, Ace actually will wait quite patiently at the bottom of the stairs indefinitely, but it's a little too much temptation for any dog to expect him to stay downstairs without supervision (say, overnight) without a little reinforcement, especially when there are OMG KITTIES! upstairs.
Just now, he was sulking at me until I figured out he wanted me to go sit on the sofa so he could snuggle. Awww.
lap dog:
Also, Spring is coming:
In other news, on page 84 of the worst novel in the English language, and groveling forward. I keep wondering when the resignation is going to set in.
However, "Smile" finally started talking to me this morning, which is encouraging, even if it's really just my brain frantically trying to stop me from working on the novel. In a crowning irony, given how boring I usually find ghost stories (Beloved aside), of course "Smile" wants to be a ghost story.
Of course.
- Mood:
hopeful - Music:Neko Case on NPR
Actually, right now he's circling the living room and library with his giant red stuffed frog in his mouth (particularly hysterical: even funnier than the teddy bear) while my roomie packs up her stuff to go to w!rk. But a few minutes ago, while the tea was brewing, I decided to take a few minutes to stretch out the hell that is my lower back this morning (I'm sure this is the cat's fault, as she was sleeping on my head all night) and he came right over beside me and started demonstrating downward-facing dog, and upward-facing dog, and plank position.
I think his sun salutations are better than mine.
Good climbing night last night. I redpointed the orange 5.8 on the slab that I thrashed my way up last Wednesday (this means I climbed it without falls or breaks, but with previous experience), and I also re-sent two hard 5.7s, one overhung (on a negative pitch, as they say), that I'd done before. And I thrashed my way up a new unrated route on a slight positive pitch, which consensus is is probably a hard 5.7 or a 5.8.
I have, I think, shown improvement. Being lighter helps an awful lot. Also, my joints (including my unstable ankle, my weak wrist, my hinky elbow, my bum finger, and both complainy big toes) are complaining less. Tape works!
You know, NPR can stop telling me about the
In a moment here, I have to heat up some breakfast, then go upstairs and start work on the CEM. Other projects today: get to the gym, and also walk the giant dog, who did not get to go for a walk for the last two days due to humans overscheduling themselves. (He did get to play fetch in the back yard, so he was not entirely without exercise.)
Tomorrow is dog-grooming day. Oh noes! Can he really have been here for ten days already?
But right now, I'm going to read my internets.
- Mood:
hungry - Music:NPR - Morning Edition
In any case, the only think left to unpack are a few boxes of random phneh, and since I haven't any idea where most of that is going to live, well, I'll just have to sort that out over the next couple of days, I guess. I think I need a junk drawer. Or maybe a junk closet. Or maybe I need a big garbage bucket. *g*
In any case, so tired now.
Good mail today, as not only did the CEM for By the Mountain Bound arrive, but so did a royalty check for Blood & Iron--five whole dollars, and seventy-four cents. Which means it's sold through the advance, finally, which is excellent news. Also, it means royalty season is upon us, which means maybe another check or two will follow.
In other words, huzzah!
The dog did not get brushed and the floor did not get washed, but a great deal of other work happened. Tonight is going to that chat and then I'm going out dancing with
rikibeth, so now tomorrow's honeydew list looks like:brush dog
wash floor
write a scene or two of One-Eyed Jack & the Suicide King
start reviewing the By the Mountain Bound CEM
unpack a box
fill out customs forms for the lingering international booksale shipments (I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I had to unpack more boxes to find them, they're really really going out this week)
climb
Let's see how much of it I get done.
- Mood:
sore - Music:Neko Case - Hold On, Hold On (Album Version)
Still, WIKTORY!
Ace the Wonder Dog has been "helping." Unfortunately, he and the Complaint Department had a fairly serious altercation yesterday (no blood was spilled, but they sure scared me half to death) and so I'm having to keep them separated for the nonce, which means he's having to sleep in his crate. Alas! Well, if we cannot use our privileges responsibly, they will be taken away.
I think I've earned a beer. And hey, it's lunch time! But first, time to take the dog outside and throw his ball for him for fifteen minutes.
Tonight, by the way, at 7 pm EDT, I'll be participating in an IRC chat hosted by #AbsoluteWrite on StarChat, for anybody who still remembers how to IRC and wants to stop by and visit.
Other things I need to do, although possibly not today:
Brush the dog
Put books away
Wash the kitchen floor
- Mood: cheerful
- Music:Eurythmics - I Need A Man
I have filed my copy for Tor.com, blogged CM, and done some revision work on One-Eyed Jack. Also went to the gym and ran errands and picked up dog food and toys, because ETA on the giant ridiculous dog is currently Saturday. My virtupitude is astounding.
I am a good girl. (
tanaise, please take notice.) Also, the guys are in an out fixing the doorbell/lightswitch/upstairs bedroom power problem, and the cat says her feet are cold. And I have a lack-of-caffeine headache I should really do something about. Like detoxing.
Oh, probably not. I think self-medicating with a cup of tea is a far more likely outcome.
- Mood: headachy
- Music:Tom Waits - Closing Time
As of today, my allotted time for Moving Trauma is over (although next Monday is scheduled for more Moving Trauma, because I have to round up
netcurmudgeon and trek the wilds of Connecticut to Ikea.) Sadly, my cold has not quite given up the ghost. I really, really want to go work out and sit in the hot tub, but I think for the sake of my fellow monkeys, I'd better give it another day.So now I have a honeydew list again. For the month of March, it currently consists of:
review and sign contracts
mail books overseas
revise the harpy story
revise the mermaid story
write an essay for GSHW
write an essay for a secrit projekt
start revising One-Eyed Jack and the Suicide King, unless revisions for the books under contract show up, in which case, revise either Chill or The Sea thy Mistress or both.
continue work on A Reckoning of Men.
Shadow Unit stuff.
Oi. How did the month get a third over, already?
The good news is, the network printer is up and running. Once I get the office put together, we'll hook up the inkjet, too, and have color capability! Man, I really need to buy a scanner....
- Location:in the library, under a cat.
- Mood:
apathetic - Music:The Blind Boys Of Alabama - Demons
Alas, the office is the big job, as there are approximately 10^2^2 boxes of books and cds and dvds and just junk in there. And bookshelves need to be purchased and constructed.
Still, progress. And unpacking is so much better than packing. Because with unpacking, you work and work and there's a reward--the chaos and clutter get less and less. With packing, the more you work, the worse it gets. And that gets tiring fast....
Next step, securing some lunch and going over to finish cleaning the old place and get out of there.
La.
- Mood: exhausted
- Music:the buzz of the locksmith's drill
The unrelenting glamor of the writerly life.
Adorable godson presumes upon the presumptuous cat. The presumptuous cat is weird. She likes kids, and handles them much like a large dog would.
- Mood: exhausted
- Music:Andrew Bird - Skin Is, My
All the books to US destinations are mailed. Except the stack for my Dad (sorry, Dad) because the cobbler's kid... er, the writer's father... goes bare. Bear. Something.
Total postage: $98.13. I forgot to count how many envelopes.
The ones to Parts Foreign are packaged up, but they might get mailed after the move. I'm sorry, but I have to fill out these customs forms, you see, and I am not sure I have the anything to do it right now.
Current state of the Bear: wander around devastated apartment meeping softly. Pick up fragile or unwieldy object (that's all that remains unpacked). Meep softly. Look around for packing material. Put object back down. Shuffle off through piles of paper.
I did figure out how to pack the Hugo (reminds me of an absolutely adorable story about Louis Gossett Jr telling his house-sitter to abandon the place to a wildfire and get him or herself to safety--and then ringing back thirty seconds later with, "You think you could grab my Emmies on the way out?" Good man) and I left it with monkeys intact. (Usually, it wears a couple of monkeys for decoration, you see.)
So now I have a bunch of oil lamp shades, cups of pencils, cast-iron frypans, and the like. Also my knife block. And the plants. And the cookbooks and a cabinet of food and some geegaws and phneh.
And some keening and rocking.
Packing is worse than unpacking, because unpacking gets better the further you go--boxes go away, a comforting and pleasant den emerges from the rubble--and packing gets worse and more chaotic and more impossible as you get closer to done.
I am not well-suited to systems of increasing entropy.
This is where I need a spouse. Because somebody else needs to come over here and pack these last four boxes for me, and maybe sweep the floor, while I keen and rock.
- Mood:
anxious - Music:keening and rocking
almeda has an awesome story about a duckIn other news, there is successfully internets at the new house, and I have moved the dishes over and started running them through the dishwasher. A dishwasher, I note, makes the prospect of rewashing already-clean dishes that much less irritating.
However, now I need to go wash dishes here, and maybe pack another O*&)(&(*&(* box.
I will probably be largely absent from livejournal for the next few days, as you might expect.
Sadly, the big loss with regard to the move is that my local will no longer be the fabled Half Door, Hartford's best nearly-Irish pub. Instead, it will be The Hungry Tiger, as immortalized in Blood & Iron. Which is a great place to go listen to bands you've never heard of, but the food and the beer list is, well.
It's not the Half Door, I'll tell you that.
- Mood:
accomplished - Music:Emmylou Harris - When I Was Yours
But business aside, it was a really good day.
I can tell my stress level is dropping, because last night I had the urge to play guitar again. I haven't touched my axe in a month. It's sitting there in its case being sad and unloved, like a puppy. (Because it was nearly midnight, I had pity on my neighbors and left it there. But today, baby, I will tune you. And oh, my fingers will regret it, but I will play a little between bouts of packing.)
The pre-moving booksale (as previously advertised, will take place today, starting around noon EST. It will be bare-bones and Paypal or personal check only, because the idea is to convert some of this weight into airy-light digital money before I have to schlep it.
I also need to try to stay off the internets today, because my forearms are killing me, and I need to write two nonfiction pieces around the packing.
I blame the 5.8 on Wednesday.
- Mood:
tired - Music:NPR- Morning Edition
This could get ugly.
First, however, a shower and coffee.
- Mood:
geeky - Music:Patty Griffin - Rain
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