In Which The List Keeps Going

11 June 2003

Our water was restored a little after 6:00 yesterday, but it's a good thing I wasn't holding my breath, because the AC people still have not been out to fix the AC. So I added "call Anna-in-the-office back" to this morning's "to do" list. Just what I needed: more stuff on the "to do" list for today. Actually, I should be fine. The list is significant but manageable. I hope. Ask me again at dinnertime.

We also had a visit from the maintenance beings yesterday. They wanted to know if there was a circuit breaker in Timprov's closet. Err, no. Then they wanted to see the circuit breaker in Timprov's bedroom but not in the closet, which they knew was there. (Because our apartment is so palatial that we need two circuit breakers in the same room?) And he was sleeping, so they went in and conferred in loud whispers and left. An hour and a half later, they managed to set off the fire alarm somewhere in the building. Uff da mai. That was no fun at all. Constant, high-pitched, and so loud. Woke Timprov up. We went and sat on the bench out in the courtyard and waited for it to pass, but it was annoying even there, just not ear-shattering. Sigh. They set it off again briefly later in the day, but they got it shut down right away.

I'm having a hard time getting to my homepage this morning. Hope you haven't been also. Oh, and AOL and Compuserve are occasionally rejecting my e-mails to their clients. But sometimes not. We have a fair idea of why this is (having a networking geek around the house is useful), but there's really nothing we can do about it except hope they get it fixed soon. Mark is also suspicious that there are some bad things going on with the Stanford servers; we'll see about that.

Um. Worked on the Not The Moose, and that's going well still, and I can see the end of this section, coming soon, very soon. Read a bunch of the Kim Stanley Robinson. I am to a section I like ("Nsara"). This means that it will soon be cut short and I will not get to deal with the rest of this story, because the story Robinson is telling is a totally different one. It's not that I don't "get" the larger story, I hasten to add. It's that I don't like the larger story, and I do (finally!) like this smaller one, so I'm annoyed. But I'm very nearly done with it, and if I'm a good kid and finish getting my dad's presents ready and do the cleaning and make the necessary phone calls and of course write some of the book, I will get to finish The Years of Rice and Salt. And then I can go on to Kushiel's Dart or Searching for Dragons or The Raphael Affair or even (unlikely) The Bestseller. That's what's left of my library pile. They don't need to go back until next week, but I do need to give them back before I go, so they've got the priority. Then David's books. Then my own.

I made the mistake of looking at my starters file yesterday and the day before, and as a result, I didn't get to Not The Moose work until later than I would have liked (but it'll still be fine). So many good things in there! Lines and titles and entire story ideas. I could just write one or two, just maybe. We'll see what I get to while I'm gone. Lots of things could happen by then.

I'm kind of bogged down on Reprogramming edits -- well, no. No, I don't think "bogged down" is the right phrase. I think it's just been that I put too many things on the list, plain and simple, and Reprogramming edits are the most expendable right now. I'd like to have it in really good shape, but I'd like to finish this section of the Not The Moose first, and if I have to take Reprogramming with me, that's fine. Also, I think it's a respectable enough first draft that if The Person Who Might Ask For it actually asks for it, I wouldn't be totally ashamed for him to see it in this form -- but I also wouldn't be totally ashamed to say, "I'm editing it up, should be ready in a week or two, I'll send it on then." And I'm still thinking about that stupid subplot.

(It's not stupid. It's either going in Reprogramming or in Command Line when I write that. We'll see which one when I have more time to breathe.)

I can tell I'm in That Mindset again, because I keep finding titles and jotting them down in the starters file. As I've said before, the more I give my brain to do, the more it wants to do. So when I start making the list of what needs to get done today, the subconscious tries to throw in things like, "And write the first three chapters of that chapter book!" No. No, no, no. My brain is like a Saint Bernard. It means well, but sometimes its enthusiasm makes things a good deal more difficult if I can't keep it reined in, and even when it's fairly well-trained, it sometimes just wants to jump up and slobber.

(Pet grammar peeve: "reined in." I see this on people's journals as "rained in" or "reigned in." Reins. Like for a horse. Not like for a monarch or a storm. Also, you are toeing the line, that is, keeping your toes directly up to it in perfect formation, not towing the line, which is going fishing. Going fishing has almost nothing to do with being well-behaved. Well, not in most circumstances, anyway.)

Sometimes the articles on my hotmail front page baffle me. I read them to try to figure out how other people are thinking. "20 snacks under 200 calories!" Uh, duh. How hard is that? Three Thin Mints is under 200 calories. Their first suggestion is "veggies and dip." There's creativity for you. I'll bet nobody knew that carrot sticks were not a high-calorie snack. What would be really useful is if they had an article, "How to Get Paid for Really Obvious Tips." That would be much more interesting than being told you can snack on an apple with peanut butter. Is there any American who didn't know that? I'll excuse Europeans, because I know peanut butter is approximately the price of platinum over there. Don't know about the rest of the world. (Anybody? Non-North American, non-European readers? I know I had at least one for awhile.) I just don't understand why this article was worth paying for, and I know they didn't get it for free.

Of course, I have that reaction to some speculative magazines' content, so maybe I'm just cranky. This is never a possibility to be neglected.

Especially when I face a day of cleaning. Right. Well, on with it.

Back to Novel Gazing.

And the main page.

Or the last entry.

Or the next one.

Or even send me email.