4 February 2003

Well, I didn't even have to show up at the courthouse to see if they wanted me to come in for jury duty: they didn't. California does this. They call you constantly for jury duty, but actually make you show up? No, no. You must be thinking of some other state.

However, I do have a problem. (Yes, I can hear you there in the peanut gallery: "I figured that out after two entries!" Plbt.) It hurts to swallow, but I'm not sure why. See, my throat is sore. This much is straightforward, and generally it would mean that I would dose the heck out of myself with juice and lemon chamomile tea. The problem is, I have given myself a few sore bits in the back of my mouth, the kind that pop up in indignation when you've been eating too many tomatoes (lemons, grapefruits, cranberries...). You know the kind? Where you don't actually have a sore, it's just sore, and when you eat the three hundredth tomatoey thing recently, your mouth just says, "Oh, come on, no." So I don't know for sure if that's also the cause of the soreness in my throat. So I haven't been drinking my nice lemon chamomile tea, and I haven't been drinking my nice cranberry-peach juice, and...yeah. All of the things that I usually do when I have a sore throat, I haven't wanted to do.

Do you know how many foods I like that are highly acidic? I didn't think about it until now. Lots. I was trying to think of what I like and could eat that wasn't really acidic. I came up with bread, but we didn't have any thawed, oatmeal, and...frozen peas, I think. Ice cream, probably?

This is not usually an issue. I think it's a stress reaction. DUH! I'm sorry, that was a really dumb thing to say; of course it's a stress reaction. The question is whether I'm also getting sick. I don't know the answer to that yet. Stay tuned. The thrills. The chills.

(This is no fun.)

So the plan for today is rather more complicated than it often is, but in a good way. Timprov and I have appointments with Dr. Bill to fix our backs. Mark is driving us up (and working on his laptop in Dr. Bill's office and so on), and we're all getting bread in some form at Boudoin, and then we're going to Emeryville, as long as we're that far north, to go to Ikea. Because we really need not to have this couch any more, and so we're all going to go try out chairs. The thinking is, if we buy a new couch, we'll be buying a couch to fit in this living room. Bad idea. This will not be our living room permanently. Also, we have a couch coming from my parents, The Best Old Couch In The World, as soon as we move somewhere we can have it. So it seems more sensible to look for comfy chairs and put them in the space where the couch currently is. It does negate my ability to get snuggled on the couch while watching a movie, but it's a sensible thing to do, and I'll just have to get used to getting up for extra hugs for awhile.

Then when I get home, I'm going to rework the end of the essay I sent out yesterday, because the editor I sent it to liked all but the end of it. And then there will be work on Dwarf's Blood Mead, and maybe also on "Big Sister," which is the story I would like to finish for Spellbound's dragon issue, just in case the Roachel likes it. (And there's a new YA magazine, yay! So I could send them "Sigyn and the Humans," yay! And whatever else I write in YA, maybe. And they pay pro rates. Hurrah.)

Yesterday I read The Queen of Attolia, and I could totally see why Sharyn recommended it to me, because it was all politics. You know how I keep saying I adore The Kestrel because it's all blood and politics? Not as much blood here. (Some. Mostly offstage, after the first bit.) Just politics. And a twisted little love story. And more politics. Very much fun, and no unfair ending, unlike its predecessor. So. I read most of People of Eight Seasons: the Story of the Lapps. This book is problematic for me, since it's kind of old and contains an ethnic slur in its title, and the summation of the author's attitude about the Lapps seems to be that they are not the Noble Savage, but the Jolly Savage. Which is really not very much better. On the other hand, I see no reason to doubt that the Saami put sorrel in their sour milk at the time. There's no reason for that to be wrong. So. Moderately useful, maybe, and I'll finish it quickly today.

And we have recycling stuff that needs to be taken out (it's easy to let the newspapers accumulate, because we have a spot for them in a corner, and they don't smell funny or anything), and I need to figure out what I can comfortably eat for dinner, and I have a story to get into the appropriate submission package form before we leave. So. I'm going to get to it, then.