"Puppet wrangler? There weren't any puppets in this movie!" – Crow T. Robot
I don’t know what it was about this week — the disruption of my normal schedule that was Wednesday, the much bigger disruption that could be next week, or just the fact that I have so few weeks left before the end of the year — but I’m really glad it’s over.
No immediate plans for the weekend beyond sleeping late tomorrow.
It seems insane that I’m going back to work tomorrow. It’s absolutely necessary, I understand that much. I have several huge projects I need to finish as soon as possible, and I need to squeeze in as much work as I can into the next three very short weeks. Which would be difficult even if this wasn’t the end of the year — and moreover the end of the semester for the academics from whom I’m trying to secure reviews and meetings. But I’ve been out for over a week, and the little bit of work I did in that time notwithstanding, it’s very easy to get used to being on vacation.
I have to make sure I find the time to write. Even Thanksgiving sort of threw me for a loop, and I haven’t touched this short story since last Wednesday.
Today, I mostly read other people’s stories, submissions for Kaleidotrope. Everything I accept now will go into 2014, or even later, and so I’m trying to be even more critical about what I accept, both for my and the writer’s sake. I’m not paying a lot of money for what I accept — relatively, pro-ratedly speaking — but I am spending money. (This is what I do in lieu of travel, I suppose, or a social life.) And I also don’t want to have to start telling people, “I like your story. But I can’t publish it for another couple of years.”
It’s a learning process, a work in progress. There are things I truly love about it — things I increasingly love about it — and there are also times when I’m tempted to walk away from the zine altogether. I already have enough for the next five or six issues, though, so maybe that won’t happen just yet.
No James Bond today. After the last three fairly disappointing outings, I think I’m going to give them a slight break. (The Man With the Golden Gun was pretty dismal.) I’m still interested in the rest of Roger Moore’s tenure, as well as Timothy Dalton’s outings. I’m less keen on Pierce Brosnan’s, though only because I remember how not very good a lot of them were. But I have the collected set. So I’ll get around to it. But I’ve watched four — five with the most recent Skyfall — just in the past week alone. So I could use a Bond break.
That, and the crossword puzzle, was my Sunday.
Do I really have to go to work tomorrow?
A quiet day, spent mostly reading (and accepting/rejecting) for Kaleidotrope, and watching movies.
These included a pair of not very good James Bond movies, Live and Let Die and The Man With the Golden Gun. The former at least has a terrific theme song; the latter has one of the series’ worst. I fared much better with Beasts of the Southern Wild, the only one of the three I can even come close to recommending.
I did absolutely no shopping today, “Black Friday” or not. In fact, I only left the house to take the dog to the vet. (Nothing serious, just chronic ear infections that continue to make his life annoying.)
Beyond that, I read some more for Kaleidotrope, since I’d like to finish reading this year’s submissions before I start getting new ones in January. And I watched two Bond movies, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Diamonds Are Forever. (I’d actually watched the first half of On Her Majesty’s a few days ago.) Both were disappointing, but Diamonds is often actively bad. I’m not entirely sure it qualifies as a Bond movie; it feels more like a forgotten 1970s TV show set in seedy Vegas. How seedy? I honestly expected to see Hunter S. Thompson around any corner. (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was first published in Rolling Stone the year Diamonds came out.) It also features maybe the single most annoying Bond girl in Jill St. John’s Tiffany Case. (The more imaginatively named Plenty O’Toole is barely in the movie.)
My vacation is all but over at this point. I’m really glad for the week, but it will be good to get back. Just, you know, not quite yet.
Today was more comics, more writing, very little work e-mail, and rounded out with an episode of Quantum Leap and tonight Strangers on a Train. The latter is great mostly for Robert Walker’s performance…and for this amazing climactic scene. I can’t in good conscience recommend you watch the clip if you haven’t seen the movie, but I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s one of the most amazing and outlandish things I’ve ever seen. It’s Hitchcock at his most entertainingly insane.
Anyway, that was…what was it, Wednesday? I mean, I also went to the bank, having been reimbursed for my Maryland trip, and I finally got gas for my car, now that there are no more rationing and day-long lines. But I spent most of the day writing, even if I didn’t write a whole lot.
I’m just glad I wasn’t on the Long Island Railroad tonight.