In Which Our Heroine Keeps It Together, Mostly

13 August 2003

It's gotten to be almost a ritual, really: I fall asleep, and then I wake up again, because the screaming has started. Last night it wasn't a baby screaming. It sounded like kids playing outside. Since I went to bed at around 11:00, and had already fallen asleep once, I can tell you that it was too damn late for kids to be playing outside. Also that kids who are anywhere near old enough to be playing outside at that time are also old enough to be taught not to holler while doing it. Honestly. I may be old and cranky, but this is just getting ridiculous. If I could wake up thoroughly enough to use the phone, I'd call security. I'm not even sure it's the same family every night, though. Just screaming. Every night.

It would most likely be rude of me to run out in the courtyard on the first quiet night and scream, "Why the hell are we still living here?" And heaven knows we can't be rude. Even when everybody else is.

Ah well. I got four rejections yesterday, and let me tell you, that's the wrong number. It's large enough to be noticeable, small enough that it's not impressive in itself. No juice for four rejections. No sprightly rewards. Just four rejections. So I had two e-subs and I still have to finish packaging up to the two paper subs, and I wanted to send two of the stories to a webzine that, last I checked, didn't take multiple subs, and already has a flash piece of mine hanging around trying to look appealing. Ah well. These things happen. One of the rejections was an ooh-just-barely. That did not make me feel any better. Well, maybe a bit better. Not a lot.

"Heart-Shaped Hole" has one scene left to go on it. It's a novelette. Maybe I'll edit it down. Still, it's a long short story, if a short story at all. It needs to be, with the two Greenlandic gods and the bit where the main character turns herself into -- well, I don't want to ruin that part, because it has its own funkitude. But she does turn herself into, and I enjoy it, even if it's possibly nobody else will.

I cleaned out my sock drawer yesterday. As I said to Timprov, "Now I just have the rest of the house to go." But much of the rest of the house consists of books, which are going with us. En (massive) masse. And we've already been discussing my propensity for cleaning out kitchen perishables. And also I'm taking duplicate books to Half Price Books today, with David. (That is, David and I are going; I'm not trying to sell David.) That's a total of three books, but still. It's a step. The socks are a step. Baby steps.

We're also going to pick up my "hold" books at the library while we're down there. And really really nothing else this time. I have nine days before we leave for home, and David will be with me to inhibit browsing (not his only function, of course -- this just keeps taking a bad turn). And at least five of my holds should be in. When I finished A Way in the World last night, I picked up The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, Vol. 1, which was a dollar at Half Price awhile ago. I figured it's hardback (thus not as good to take on the plane) and short stories (so I can put the bookmark in and stop once I've got my library stuff). I've been surprised at how many of the "best" fantasy and horror from 1987 is stuff I've already read, given that I turned 9 in 1987 and wasn't really up on short fantasy fiction at the time. (And I've never claimed to be well-read in horror at all.) But a lot of the stuff has either gone in collections or anthologies. Not all of it, of course, but I didn't expect to recognize very much of it at all.

Made myself nauseated doing yoga yesterday, but my back felt much better. I don't know if the nausea was good or bad or unrelated; we'll give the same stuff another try today and see if the same thing happens. And whether it's bad or not. And all that.

Don't let marinated sun-dried tomatoes freeze, is my advice to you. You can get the frozen marinade off them and generally make things be okay, but it's just not the happiest thing there is, picking through frozen muck for them. On the other hand, lemon artichoke pesto with red pepper, sun-dried tomatoes, and mushrooms is really not too bad, hot or cold.

I talked to the grands yesterday, separately (because Grandma wasn't home when I called, so I talked to Grandpa, and then she called me back when she got home), but I couldn't get Aunt Ellen and Uncle Phil or C.J. Made me want to start calling down my Minneapolis list and make sure it wasn't a conspiracy. Ah well; there's time to try again.

I keep getting more calls with nobody on the line. It doesn't sound like there's breathing or anything like that, just a dead line. At least eight of them Monday and Tuesday.

I've been feeling like these journal entries are increasingly fragmented. Usually when I start to feel that way, something triggers a good rant, and maybe it'll work out that way soon. Or maybe not; with all the stuff we have coming up, I'm going to be juggling like mad. I hope you-all don't mind, but I'm not sure there's much I can do about it if you do. This is where I am right now, mentally. There's no great coherence I'm hiding from the journal. This is one of the times where what you see is what you get.

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