31 March 2003

It's not just that I feel like everything is more of an effort here. It's that everything is more of an effort here. Case in point: yesterday, despite their telephone lies, we did not get a copy of the Merc after 8:00 a.m. So I called at 2:00, and their happy machines said they'd credit my account. Which was fine but didn't get me a newspaper. So Mark and I set out for Target, figuring we could pick up a few things on our list, like basin-tub-and-tile cleaner that doesn't smell like wombat corpse (true) and that they'd have to have newspaper boxes in front of Target (false) or if not that, an approximation of a newsstand inside (also false). So we tried the grocery store. Nope. There was also nothing near the Starbucks or the movie theatre, but at that point we were figuring we needed to walk over to Borders anyway.

When we lived in Concord, there was a new shopping area over the border in Pleasant Hill, and it had many of the same shops that our local shopping area does, with a major difference: in PH, the shops and the sidewalks were the center of the area. In Union City, the center is...well, I'm not sure, really. It could be said to be the parking, but the parking also doesn't make any sense. This area is not designed for walking in, but it's also a really inept design if anybody was intended to drive through it. So it wasn't that Mark and I had to dart across busy thoroughfares or wait while an endless chain of cars crossed our path. No. It was just that there was really nowhere sensible to walk. And if we'd been driving, there would have been nowhere sensible to drive.

But we emerged triumphant, with not only a copy of the Merc, but also the April issue of Realms of Fantasy, which has a story by my friend the brilliant and illustrious Thomas in it. (Did I get that right, Thomas? He gave me instructions for how I was supposed to introduce him to august personages, but I forgot what was supposed to go with brilliant.) And now the paper has not arrived again. When I called, no production delays were listed; I fear that either the apartment people have changed the gate code on us or the newspaper people have changed the delivery person on us and have not given the new delivery person the gate code. Which they already did once, to my great annoyance, and they won't tell us if that's the problem, they'll just heap newspapers outside the gate until you track down someone responsible and yell at them. Grrrr.

And it's not like we have a house, so it's not like I just didn't check the bushes or the driveway well enough to find where the paper went. We have an apartment. If it's not in front of our door or on the stairs or landing in front of our door, it's not delivered to us.

Ah well. I'll take care of it eventually. It'll go on the list if it has to. Otherwise, I do have to go out today anyway, so I can buy a paper then if I have to.

I had the library fetch Jo Walton's first book for me last night (I put in the request last night, that is), and while I was at it I decided to get a few others that have been particularly elusive. Zed thought I was suffering from an excessive sense of civic duty when I was hesitant to put holds on books. He was probably right. So I'm easing myself into it by putting holds on books that claim to be on the shelf but aren't actually there. Then I'm just asking librarians to do the same work I'd ask them to do in person, only I'm asking for it at their leisure. Maybe in a few months I'll be ready to boldly, brashly have them hold things for which I have no pressing need and no repeated inability to find. Baby steps.

I didn't finish Carter Beats the Devil yesterday -- too many errands to run, phone conversations to have, real conversations to have, web debates to read, story notes to jot, etc. But I do intend to finish it this morning, and I enjoy it very much. Last night at 9:45 I hit a wall. I'm an early riser, so I go to bed earlier than a lot of people my age, but at 9:45 last night I was done. My body does this to me inexplicably from time to time: nope, no more awakes for you, get your contacts out and your butt in bed, because you are not having any more of today. At least this time it was in the comfort of my own living room. Sometimes my body makes this decision on BART or in the car somewhere, and then I have to drag the body home on sheer force of will. On those nights, I'm glad I'm no bigger than I am, because it seems like 120# is a lot for one brain to carry all by itself. I think this is why I no longer react as positively to telekinesis in stories: I think, I know what it's like for the brain to do all the literal heavy lifting.

Oh, hey! Story sale for me! SF-F.Org is going to start publishing stories, and they say they're starting with mine, "Drops of Yesterday." Rah for me. It's a semi-pro market, but sales is sales. Woo. And Michelle suggests that good news could start small and grow large, which is true, it could. So here's hoping for more of it today. And soon I will have my Ideomancer story up, and I like it very much, and I like them very much, and it looked good when they had me look over the galleys, so it looks like I also like the combination of it and them very much, so, yay.

And I'm allowed to get back to the Not The Moose Book today, and I doubt that any of my first-readers will have been so ambitious as to have read all of Dwarf's Blood Mead and mailed me comments this morning (although if they do, it's welcome), so I'll just be working on the one book for awhile. Oh, wait, maybe two: there's that edit that I keep meaning to make to Reprogramming, and it's even specific, it's not just "fix this somehow." I should do that just to get it off my list.

List list list. It's a good list. Not too overwhelming (like some of my lists -- the "novels to write" list -- uff da mai), but long enough that there's always something on it that needs doing, which is comforting in its own way. So I'm going to.