personal

Back to work

Today was my first day back at work since December 18 — which was itself a much shortened day, consisting mostly of our group’s holiday lunch and setting my away messages on phone and e-mail. That’s actually a shot of my cubicle up above on the right; true, that picture is from way back in March of last year, but there really hasn’t been a significant change to the layout (or clutter) since then, and certainly not in the time that I was away. I spent the morning going through e-mails, but most of the big projects I have in development are on hold until I receive feedback or manuscripts from authors. So it wasn’t the most exciting day back at work, but that’s probably a good thing. I feel like I had a really good vacation, just enough time off, but there’s no reason for a mad rush back into things.

Other than work, and easing back into that daily commute, today was pretty much uneventful. I opened Kaleidotrope back up to submissions again at the start of the new year, and the slush pile continues to build. Meanwhile, I finished my entry in Geist’s Postcard Contest and expect to mail it off tomorrow. It’s a short piece — there was a 500-word maximum — but I had fun with it.

I broke down and bought a copy of Season 2 of The Big Bang Theory on DVD this afternoon. (I had a leftover Borders gift card from the holidays.) It’s very quickly become one of my favorite shows. I also bought a copy of Monty Python: Almost The Truth, which so far doesn’t seem to be offering anything particularly new about the troupe — I have, after all, read this massive tome, among others — but does so in a very fun and engaging way. I’ve only watched the first episode so far, but it’s a really good introduction to how the whole silly thing got started.

And finally, I was also offered a chance to attend an invitation-only “historic event at Carnegie Hall” where I can acquire a Steinway piano “at substantially reduced prices.” They advise me to schedule my appointment early, since it’s “first call, first served,” and this “impressive selection of used and restored vertical and grand pianos” won’t last! I suspect I’m on their mailing list after my mother and I attended a taping of Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! in the Stern Auditorium. And it’s not like I’ve never “considered owning a fine piano.” But for now, I think I’ll pass.

A lazy Satur–it is Saturday, right?

Today was about as eventful as yesterday, although also twice as cold. I went for a walk around two o’clock, which was…well, let’s just say ill-advised in retrospect. (As Heather wisely noted, though, this would have been better realized in futurespect.) I turned back after about half an hour (the length of only one in my backlog of podcasts), desperate to be out of the wind and chill. I stayed outside just long enough to help my father take down the Christmas lights from the front of the house, and then I escaped back inside to tinker again with my short story. I think I’ve pretty much reached the end of it, although it does still need a little fine-tuning before I mail it off. (This is the postcard I bought, though not through eBay, if you’re curious.)

I also went to see Up in the Air this afternoon and really quite liked it. It’s a good deal sweeter, and sadder, than I expected, and George Clooney and Vera Farmiga have terrific chemistry together. I also enjoyed the soundtrack, which I purchased online when I got home. I’d definitely recommend it.

Other than that, basically just pottering around in the last few days of my vacation. It’s still hard to believe it’s just about over.

Vacation, all I ever wanted

I don’t know about you, but I spent the first day of the new year — the new decade, depending on how you reckon these things — doing not much of anything.

Oh sure, my father and I took down the Christmas tree this morning. And I did a little tinkering with my short story for the Geist Annual Postcard Story Contest. And I watched a few more episodes of The Big Bang Theory — how have I not been watching this show? — and then this evening I watched a pretty decent horror movie called The Signal — kind of like a neat modern riff on George Romero’s The Crazies, with some good scares and interesting thoughts on what mass psychosis might actually look like. (“Do you have the crazy in your head?!”) But overall, really, where did the day go?

I’m in the tail end of my two-week-long vacation (sixteen days, actually), and I’m starting to feel like maybe I’m ready to get back into having a daily routine. Vacation has really agreed with me, and there’s a big part of me that doesn’t want to go back. But, at the same time, I think I really benefit from having a more structured schedule. I haven’t really done a lot of writing these past couple of weeks, and I’ve definitely done less reading. (A forty-five-minute commute, twice a day, really does wonders to focus my time for that.)

I go back to work on Monday, and it’s kind of nice to feel like I’m ready for that.

2009: My year in media

These are the books I read in 2009 — just shy of my hoped-for 50-book minimum. Reading the twelve books of Gene Wolfe’s so-called Solar Cycle slowed me down a little. Beyond the Wolfe (which I think I’m going to have to read again at some point), some of my favorite reads this year were Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert’s Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?, Guy Delisle’s Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea, Lorrie Moore’s Birds of America, Naomi Novik’s His Majesty’s Dragon, Audrey Niffenegger The Time Traveler’s Wife, and Scott Westerfeld’s Midnighter trilogy. I don’t know what, if anything, that says about my reading habits and preferences. There were a couple of small disappointments in the list, but I don’t think I read a single bad book this year.

These are the movies I saw this year. Some of the highlights, in the order I saw them, were:

Honorable mentions include Doubt, Speed Racer (yes, really), Away We Go, The Man From Earth, and George Romero’s zombie ouevre, which I finally got around to watching all of this year. (I think it’s a toss-up between Dawn and Day of the Dead as my favorite.)

Surrogates and Lady in the Water were easily the worst movies I saw this year. (Excluding The Room, but I had Rifftrax to get me through that painful experience.) And at least Surrogates is tied up in fond memories of the Vegas Capfest.

I listened to a whole lot of music in 2009. You can see the evidence of that in my monthly mix CDs. That’s 223 songs altogether. Is it any wonder I had trouble putting together a “best of the year” mix?

I’m not even going to talk about the television I watched in 2009. Well, not yet anyway.

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!”

Happy holidays to you and yours!

We’re celebrating Christmas here tomorrow with some family, including my sister and her husband who are driving to NY tomorrow morning. (They both had to work today, and they’re celebrating Christmas Eve with his mother and sister in Maryland.) All my presents are wrapped, though not yet under the tree. Now I’m just waiting on those visions of sugar-plums and their famous dance moves.

I have to say, I wasn’t exactly feeling the Christmas spirit until this week. Then my vacation started, and we hung the lights outside, and we had a pretty heavy snowfall — maybe 14 inches — and I started thinking, y’know, not all Christmas songs are terrible, especially when it’s actually Christmas. And then I put up the tree yesterday — with my sister not yet home, it was pretty much left to me alone — and we started getting ready for tomorrow. I’m looking forward to it.

So again, happy holidays to you and all the best in this season!