8 March 2003

Sometimes I really hate the pregnancy dreams, because I come out of them feeling like I was beaten with a stick. Last night I didn't even get to dream about holding the baby after. It was just the very beginnings of labor for the whole dream -- pain that I knew, even in the dream, was not what it was going to be like to actually give birth. Still pain. Wooo. I wonder if the subconscious just decides to take cramps and backaches and transmute them that way while I'm sleeping. I don't know why I would have had any more cramps and backaches than usual last night, but I definitely feel like crud after it.

Also I was attempting to give birth in the admin bunker of my alma mater, which was a bit disturbing.

Despite dreaming of labor, I did no work yesterday -- no writing work and very little housework. Rah. Go me. I finished reading A College of Magics, which had its own momentum, but I disliked the title because -- be forewarned -- the college in question only has to do with the first third of the book. I'd probably read a sequel, though. I also finished Time and the Gods, which was very nearly too many Dunsany vignettes in a row for me, but I persevered. And enjoyed. And then I started Dreamside, which I believe is Graham Joyce's first novel. I don't think it'll take me long, and I'm enjoying it as I've enjoyed his other books. More than Indigo and The Tooth Fairy so far; less than Requiem. But it would take a fairly lot to unseat Requiem as my Graham Joyce favorite. (Happily, though, Matt, there is nothing about Christ's mother Mary so far in this book. He still has a ways to go, so I guarantee nothing. But I have hopes.)

I keep telling people that I am not a patient person. Then I keep wondering if patience is like courage, and people think it's about what you are but really it's about what you do. I think if I didn't have some measure of practiced patience, I couldn't have lasted this long in the slush piles. One of Mark's research group members was pondering writing some short science fiction to help make ends meet for the next few months. And after Mark stopped laughing, he explained the time scale of submissions and the pay scale for short stories. I'm always amused at how lavishly people think short stories pay, and how quickly they think they get accepted and published. So I suppose that's a type of enforced patience.

That's the thing, though: I'm only patient when I have to be. There's really no choice in the publishing industry: patience or nothing. Same thing for waiting on Mark's job prospects. Pitching a fit will get me nowhere.

Still, though, I feel like everything has been going through molasses, a little bit dark and very very slow. Meh.

So today I'm pretty sure I'll run to Office Despot for more paper for Dwarf's Blood Mead. Even if I don't read any of it, it's time that I print it out. So that I can poke it with my finger: mine. My book.

I'm trying to stay away from the computer a bit more than usual, so if my e-mails responses are slower than usual, that's why. Nothing personal and all that.

And to that end, off I go to read a bit more Graham Joyce. Have a good Saturday. I'm trying to cultivate laziness. I hope you get the chance for some, too.