"Puppet wrangler? There weren't any puppets in this movie!" – Crow T. Robot
A busy day at work, and then I came home and mowed the front lawn before dinner. You know, like one does.
I’m a little amazed that it’s almost the end of June, not least of all because I still have an issue of Kaleidotrope to put together for next month. And mountains of stories still waiting to be read.
A normal Sunday, for the most part. A little television, the New York Times crossword, and my regular writing group. I wrote this, based on the prompts:
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I like how it started in a fairly silly and ridiculous place, with Dr. Electric and his cape, and took sort of a turn halfway through, as I started to discover who my narrator was and what kind of world he — at least, I think he’s a he — is living in.
Back to work tomorrow, which is just as well. I’ve been checking in with my e-mail off and on since Wednesday, thanks to a couple of projects coming due just as I was getting ready to leave for the week, and there’s plenty to be done when I get back in.
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.
Today seemed an awful lot like a Monday, if you ask me.
It was a little weird being back in the office after four days out, more than usual perhaps, with my usual routine so thoroughly off. I’m only in for three days again this week, then there’s a full week, then the 4th of July, and then not a single day off between then and when I head to Canada at the very end of August.
There’s no shortage of work to keep me busy between now and then.
Not much to say about today. A hot Thursday. I bought some groceries. I read a little. That kind of day.
I’m afraid I couldn’t help but glance at my work e-mail, however. Our office is apparently having a contest for New York-themed photographs, to hang on the walls. I’m thinking maybe about submitting this one. Or this one. Or maybe even this one. What do you think? Do I have a shot at that gift card prize?