9 February 2002

Why I Hate Aliens is officially full. I sent out the last acceptance and rejection letters this morning. Woohoo! Now I'm waiting for a few people to send me their addresses so that Timprov can send out contracts. And the only thing that's really my job from here on out is to order the Table of Contents. (Well, I also have a couple of stories to reread, to make sure I have no suggestions for them. But I know how to crit a story -- I can do that quickly and easily.)

I have to say that looking at our short story collections and anthologies has not helped particularly much in this task of learning how to put things in order. There are some basic rules -- alternating short and long stories, keeping stories with similar themes from clumping up together. But there are things I don't know. For example, with what kind of story do you lead off a collection? I would have said with one of your very favorites, but Timprov thinks that it's also better not to make it one of the longest pieces in the collection. And I don't have very many really light or funny pieces, so I want to intersperse those throughout. Hmm. No Karina next to Terry. No Paul next to Gene. No Evan next to Jim. I feel like I'm doing a family dinner party here -- "Oh, we can't put Aunt Frieda next to Cousin Lars because they won't have a thing to say to each other, but if we put Aunt Frieda with the other aunties there'll be havoc...."

It's amazing how often "aunties" and "havoc" show up in the same sentence, in my mind.

Anyway...so Mark and I watched the beginning of the Opening Ceremonies last night. I thought it was awfully nice of them to have all of the countries come in fairly early, so that I could turn it off before being brutalized by the Dixie Chicks. They only stuck us with the one allegory on ice before that, and an R. Kelly song during which I watched Comedy Central.

Why do Olympics Opening Ceremonies feel the need to include allegories? Oh, why? Mark says it's because they think it's the only art form we'll understand. I somehow think not. I think they feel the need to bash us about the head with An Uplifting Messageä without paying for interpreters for all of the dialog.

Luckily, we had Bob Costas to interpret the allegory for us. "And this little boy represents the human spirit." Shut up, Bob! Why do they employ this man? Please tell me: in what countries can I pay relatively few taxes, have a decent number of amenities, and watch the Olympics (and everything else I want to see!) without Bob Costas? If it's Canada, they've got winter, baseball, and a superior national anthem. Good enough. But Mark thinks the evil grasp of Bob Costas reaches into Canada as well. I pray that this is not the case.

Bob Costas: "And here's the team from Fiji! In the wake of September 11, the Fijians have said that terrorism is bad. I expect they'll get a warm reception from this crowd."
Mark: "AHHHHHH!"
Me: "Shut up, Bob Costas!"

Much of the evening went that way. But I got to see the teams in their nifty costumes, so it worked out okay. But Bob and his buddy Katie Couric reminded me of why it is, exactly, that I like the icy death potential at the Winter Olympics.

I also finished reading Defender last night, which was okay as an installation in that series but not so good on its own, and read The Finn in Me: the Chronicles of a Karelian Emigrant. It was the only book about the Karelian resettlement I could find at B&N, and Amazon had none at all. Sigh. Now I'm reading A.S. Byatt's Possession. We shall see. I'm not very far into it, so I have no thoughts of interest yet.

I wrote a nice little paragraph about my plans for the day, but when Agacante (my computer) crashed, it saw fit not to recover that paragraph. Fine. So. Hiking, un-Timprov meal (since he's asleep), working, reading, watching Olympics. Okay? Good.