Bonk

22 May 2002

I blamed my poor little computer for the slowness I just had in getting a webpage up, and I rebooted, but it turns out it is not to blame. Mark's computer isn't responding, and it's got the hub going through it. Oh, what a happy morning.

We did this yesterday, too. I love computer problems. They're so much fun. And this has been the month for them for all of us around here. Getting to be longer than a month, even. Hmm. Anyway, Mark is trying to fix it, which is good for me but nerve-wracking for him.

Well, shortly after I complained about getting no response letters, I got a rejection and an acceptance on e-mail. The rejection was from Glimmer Train on a story I'd sent them. The acceptance was from Zed. He accepts me. Not my stories, just me. I thought that was nice. And he didn't even ask for revisions.

So I'm a little less scared now, because while I still have a ton of stories out in limbo, I've gotten some response. Superstition, I know, but what are you going to do about it? In some ways I feel like it's my job to be the optimist. It's my job to take whatever might possibly be an omen and say, "Oh, look, it's a good omen!" Some people seem to be optimistic by temperament -- my friend Heathah, for example. Me, I'm optimistic by force of will.

And that's convenient, because then when I'm around someone like Heathah who is genuinely optimistic, I can take a break. I can be as bitter and cynical and twitchily pessimistic as I want to for awhile, and somebody there will genuinely believe that it'll all work out, so some kind of social constant is maintained.

Ah well. Yesterday was not very productive. I was bonked. When we were watching the EcoChallenge, the hardcore kiwi woman kept saying of her teammates, "He was totally bonked, he just bonked back there. I think he was bonking for like three hours." (Usually USA [the TV network] put subtitles on this. When she was speaking English. Because, after all, only American Newscaster Dialect is comprehensible to the average viewer.) Anyway, I thought it was a good word, and it definitely described yesterday. Timprov and I essentially bought a present for Mark and came home. We didn't even get all of the presents bought. Just one. So tired. I ended up sending Mark to the store when he got home, because I was not really awake enough to drive, starting around 1:30 in the afternoon. Bonk, bonk, bonk. I have an appointment with Dr. Bill this morning at 11:00, so I hope that helps things. I got almost ten hours of sleep last night. I hope that helps, too.

It's not that I've stayed up insanely late on any given night or done insanely too much on any given day. It's just that I've been staying up a little too late and doing a little too much every day for weeks. And it catches up to me times like now. So I'm drinking lots of water and juice, trying to ward off illness with hydration and Vitamin C. I'm still pretty tired, but not quite bonking. Of course, I wasn't bonking at this hour of yesterday, either. We'll see. (As of writing the end of this entry: I spoke too soon. Bonk bonk.)

I started reading Joel Garreau's Edge City but was too tired for that. Read some of Catherine Asaro's The Quantum Rose as well, and I hope it goes better in the end than in the beginning, because so far it feels slow and cutesy -- oh, look, they're all named after physics stuff! I have very few expectations of Edge City on the whole -- I'm reading it for detail, and for small insights. I liked The Nine Nations of North America for the same reason. Many of his larger theses were just plain silly, but some of the smaller details were really interesting. And in the introduction to Edge City, the man acknowledges that he's trying to do something really huge (understand North American culture and geography), and that it's an iterative process. I have a lot more respect for people who are doing a lot of iterations than for people who think that they're going to Understand North America in one fell swoop, although I do think it's a pretty ridiculously large goal. We'll see, though.

I'm not sure what to put on the agenda for today. I'd like to work on the Not The Moose Book for sure, and if we were feeling up to it, we could easily stop off at a location or two near Dr. Bill's for the remainder of Mark's birthday presents. (I feel safe saying that because there's a ton of stuff near Dr. Bill's, so he won't be able to tell where we'd be going.) On the other hand, if today is like yesterday, and if Dr. Bill gets my back all redone, I may just want to go home and crash. We'll see. I'm not particularly good at not having a firm agenda, but I think I can manage it today. I think my body may force me to, which is always incentive. Not necessarily good incentive. Just effective incentive.

So, let's call it 500 words on the Not The Moose Book, minimum, plus any outline work that seems fitting. And basic personal maintenance like making sure someone makes dinner. Yep. Anything above that is pretty much pure cake for today, because, dude, I'm bonked.

(I feel kind of like the Swedish Chef here, you know, heeerdy hürdy bonk bonk. Chocolate on the moosey, moosey moosey...ahem. Right. Some kind of work to be done, unlikely to be chocolate.)

Oh, a note a bit later: I have put my synopses up with their links off the fiction page. Go on ahead, if you're interested, but don't feel at all obligated.

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