13 February 2003

I don't think I hate February in general. I think it's just this one. I have a feeling that Februaries have been all right, over all, although Valentine's Day is not my best holiday. (I keep startling David in e-mails by referring to it as "VD" -- sorry, David.)

So, this morning's auspicious beginnings: my domain registration people haven't sent me my password yet (and, of course, I have forgotten it), so I can't get marissalingen.com's forwarding to marissa.gritter.dsg.stanford.edu for awhile longer yet. And -- here's the fun part -- I woke up at 5:30. The second time. The first time was at 3:00 and involved a sick husband who had to clear his throat just often enough that I couldn't fall back to sleep. Not his fault, but, ick. It's going to be a long day ahead.

Luckily, it's going to be a long day involving Ikea and several of my favorite Berkeley places and Cuban food in Palo Alto, so that'll be good. We may also watch "Galaxy Quest" again -- Timprov thinks his mom hasn't seen it. It would be comfortable noise to me at this point -- I'd watch the best bits and read or work. I'd be okay with that.

What I would read, I must confess, is Louise de la Vallière. Yes, more Dumas. After I finished Finnish Cities yesterday, I read the issues of Scientific American and F&SF that had arrived, and then I picked up Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, which I had already started reading online. It's a short book, and I had gotten several chapters in, so I finished it this morning. It was fun. I'm looking forward to seeing what Doctorow does with later novels, though -- it was a good first novel but in some ways had that first novel vibe. Which is not a bad thing, just something different.

And I returned my library books at the dinky branch yesterday without trying to get more books from them, and, well, I feel like I've gone as far as I need to in the non-Dumas vein before picking up the next volume of The Vicomte. So here it is. And if Cory Doctorow's isn't enough of an intervening book to keep my brain from getting in permanent Dumas mode, I'm not sure what is.

Woo! There we go: the redirection seems to be working on marissalingen.com. Whew. All right then. Mark is sick, Timprov is sick, and we have many places to go, people to meet up with, etc. today. But at least one thing is taken care of, which is a relief, since very few of you would even know to look at the new redirect, nor do I intend to make it at all permanent. So. Hi. 's me.

Right. I think I'd better do what I can to make things (my house and myself) presentable. Have a good Thursday. It's Grant Wood's birthday. Grab yourself a pitchfork and go as Gothic as you care to.