personal

The things I did today

I woke up early, but didn’t get out or my pajamas and into the world until late morning. I ran a few quick errands, stopping by the dry cleaners, the post office, and the library. And then I spent the rest of the day hanging around the house, mostly just watering the garden beds and mowing the back lawn. I watered the tomatoes in the back, which haven’t gotten a lot of rain, along with everything else. A small bird misunderstood, but was quite happy with the bath I had apparently decided to provide it. With the new bird seed and suet cake I put up, it’s almost like a small bird spa back there. Beats the puddle I saw two pigeons bathing themselves in, the other day, in Manhattan.

I also spent a fair amount of time watching episodes of In Treatment. I’d seen some of it before, but I never made it through the first season for some reason. It can be pretty intense, especially for a show that’s often just two people in a room talking, a conversation between patient and therapist. (Even on my days off, I can’t escape from the world of psychotherapy.) It’s a really good show.

And that, such as it was, was my Saturday.

It is Saturday, right? I had to double-check a couple of times to make sure I hadn’t lost a day somewhere.

Suiting up

First off, I took the Allegra this morning. I wasn’t really too worried about it, whatever impression I might have given yesterday, and it does seem to have helped. That, or the weather cooled off enough with today’s rain that allergies weren’t as big an issue. Either way, I don’t feel like I’m caught in a perpetual sneeze like I did on Thursday.

I also bought a couple of suits today. I went in to the men’s clothing store with the idea of buying a jacket. I have a family wedding coming up, and while I have a sports jacket in my closet, it has probably seen better days. I have a suit as well, but that’s definitely been hanging around for awhile. Not quite as long ago as high school, perhaps, when I wore a jacket and tie every day — we had a dress code — but long enough that it doesn’t fit as well or look as good as it might.

So I went in with the idea, vague in my head, as I don’t really know my measurements beyond waist and leg, of buying a sports coat. And I got fitted for one that I thought looked nice, had the sleeves measured to be tailored slightly, and was taking it up to the register to pay for it. That’s when the other salesman — I have the feeling they work on commission there, and the gentleman helping me initially was just doing so because they were so busy — convinced me to try a couple of suits. They had this “buy one, get another for $100” deal, which was actually not bad. I ended up paying a couple of hundred dollars more than I would have with the other jacket, but I got two full suits out of the bargain. And I got to take the blue suit jacket with me, since this one needed no tailoring. And that’s good, in case they can’t finish tailoring the other jacket and pants before the wedding next month.

I went in and spent more than I had anticipated — and after talking yesterday about my not insubstantial Kaleidotrope expenses — but there’s something grown-up about buying a suit. I don’t know how often I’ll wear either as a suit. Even at the wedding, I’ll probably wearing the blue jacket with some other pair of trousers. But it does feel like an adult thing to do.

Having not really been on my own in awhile, I may have grown a little rusty at that.

That was Thursday

It was a rainy day, although the sort without a whole lot of actual rain. Just gloomy and cloudy, misty and muggy, Thursday all around.

I was off from work today, but I spent a good amount of time checking my work e-mail, off and on, nonetheless. I’d been waiting on a book chapter for a couple of weeks, and both I and the acquiring editor whose book it is are out of the office, and his assistant had been out of the office since last week, getting back today. So some off-site coordinating and e-mail forwarding was in order.

I also spent the day trying, yet again, to get caught up on Kaleidotrope slush. I just have way too many submissions at the moment, both for what I can reasonably fill into a year and for my own reading sanity, and it’s been slow going trying to get caught up. I think I’ve finally read everything up to and including March, which is a start, but you really do start to re-evaluate what makes a story good when you’re paying a cent a word out of your pocket for it.

(Out of hope and necessity, then, I put up a donate button on the Kaleidotrope page. I’m already looking at more than $1000 expenses for the year. Those word counts sure do add up, don’t they?)

Other than that, the day was mostly spent fighting allergies. I bought some Allegra-D — it’s got pseudoephedrine, so they have to scan your driver’s license, even though one box would probably make for the world’s tiniest methamphetamine lab — but I was a little hesitant to take it. I’ve taken Claritin-D before, which is roughly the same thing (they didn’t have any at the drug store), but this recommends taking on an empty stomach. And I went out to a local Japanese seafood buffet for dinner tonight and left with anything but an empty stomach. And being on your own, suddenly, does make you (or at least me) hesitant about trying new drugs, even over-the-counter antihistamines like this. What if I have a really bad reaction? What if I need, but can’t get to, a doctor? What if I die here? Who’ll be my role model, now that my role model is gone, gone, he ducked back down the alley with some roly-poly little bat-faced girl…

Um, maybe I’ll just take it tomorrow before breakfast and see if that helps the runny, itchy nose and near-constant sneezing.

That was Thursday.

Twisted solstice’er

Today’s the longest day of the year, but I’m afraid I didn’t make too much use of that beyond watering the back lawn and cooking a cheeseburger on the grill for dinner after work.

Exciting times.