18 November 2002

Spamomancy says that this will be a great day and I'll have lots of money. All right then. Editors and agents, take note.

I've been reading Kathleen Alcalá's Spirits of the Ordinary, and I think the moral of the story this week is "accept no substitutes." Wendy recommended some other Kathleen Alcalá book, and the library didn't have it, so I picked up this one. Meh. It's not bad enough to put down without finishing it, but it's not jumping up and grabbing me, either. And this happened with the Jenn Crowell book recently, too. So. I'm going to try to be a good M'rissa in the future and find the books I'm recommended rather than other books by the authors. Because, honestly, I'm not that jazzed about Crowell and Alcalá right now, but that's not Andrea's or Wendy's fault, nor is it the fault of their actual recommended books.

The library list is long. It'll be fine.

I managed to get "Miss the Mississippi and You" in my head, and now I'm sunk. Because I put in that particular Arlo album, and now I'm going to have half the songs on it chasing each other around my head. (Especially the one about Uncle Jeff Guthrie. Argh.) I do miss the Mississippi and you, dear. For some values of "you, dear." I was thinking, you know, I didn't grow up by the Mississippi. The Missouri was nearer. But I don't miss the Missouri, I was thinking. And then I thought of coming down from St. Pete, down 29 with Christopher, joking about the moment where you can first see the Omaha skyline: "Oh, no! You blinked! You missed it!" And I do miss it, some.

The difference between missing Omaha and missing Minneapolis, I think, is that I don't start inhaling the smell of home in Omaha until I get in my parents' door. In Minneapolis, it's just out of the jetway. Sometimes in the jetway. I miss some things (as opposed to people) about Omaha, but not nearly so many. Mostly the Omaha-missing stuff is people. Mostly the Minneapolis-missing stuff is people, too, but the things are pretty darn cool.

(I'm just homesick this morning because I have to go grocery shopping. Well, okay, not just.)

Thursday's weather forecast here is "limited sun." This amuses me more than it should, I think. But it's generally better to be more amused than I should be than less. I think.

I know I said I was an awfully lot like Jordan from "Real Genius" a few days back, but lately I've been a different movie character: Fezzig. Yes, from "The Princess Bride." Yes, the one played by Andre the Giant. That would be me. (Stop it. No mocking the M'rissa. Okay, well, maybe a little mocking.) I keep wanting to lean in to Mark as he does his college aps and say, "Inigo. I hope we win." I keep promising, when I do good things, "Don't worry. I won't let it go to my head." Thus far I have avoided gratuitous rhyming. You may thank me.

Mark's and my date today will be Chinese food at noon. Which is better than pistols at dawn, I think.

Other than that: groceries, as I said, and more laundry. And more typing of old scenes from the NTMB. Er. The Long Night. And more new scenes, too, I hope, and some new material on The Chinese Americans v. 2.0. (No, that won't do, makes it sound like a rewrite.) I have to keep convincing myself that I can indeed write this immigration book, and I'll be just fine. I do have the research. I do have the writing skills. And I do have the time. So. It'll work. Deep breaths. All right. Time to make it work, then.