21 May 2002

I knew it was time to stop working last night when I started thinking of my characters in terms of The Red-Green Show. Although one of them is She Who Must Be Obeyed, and another cannot be found handsome, but at least can be found handy. Apart from all of that, I had a really good workday yesterday and anticipate many more to come.

Which is a good thing, because I still got no response letters. No acceptances. No rejections. Nothing. Could someone please tape a "reject me" sign to my back? Please? Not that I would mind an acceptance letter out of all of this, mind you. Far from it. Or even several. It's just that I can envision a flood of rejection letters coming in after this drought, and while an average of one a day for a week is quite tolerable, seven in one day is not. Even if Mark says I get a smoothie whenever I break my daily rejection record. It's not that I'm unhappy about the smoothie, mind you (he suggested a Blizzard, but I said I'd rather a smoothie, either from Jamba or Orange Julius, so either kind of smoothie). It's just, well. I'm sure I'll let you know if it gets to be smoothie time.

That's the thing: I told Jenn that it was good to have more than one thing out because then they would be less likely to reject you all at once, and you'd still have stuff out to keep your momentum going. And I still think I was right about that. However. However, however, however. The more stuff you get out there, the more actual bulk of rejections you risk getting in one day. So I know that I'm not going to have a fifty-rejection day. But it doesn't work in percentages. Getting ten rejections in a day when you have fifty out is not the same thing, emotionally, as getting one when you have five out.

I am, of course, fussing over nothing. But you knew that.

I read The Forgetting yesterday, and it was hard. And it reminded me of how lucky I am that my old people are so far pretty much there. That was what got me through the harder parts in the book, thinking, "My Gran knew me until she died, my Gran was always in there." I know not everyone is so lucky. And I know I have more old people than most, so I probably won't stay that lucky. Chances are. But Gran was always in there, and Great-Grandma's confusion was usually a result of diabetes, not Alzheimer's. So that's pretty good.... Sometimes my mom and I worry and get frustrated because my grandparents have this tendency to push themselves to get something done in a self-appointed timeframe. They just exhaust themselves. And I was thinking about this yesterday...as I yawned and mopped the floors and felt like I'd been run over by a truck and yawned some more. I was worn down to a nubbin and washing the floors. This is not always about my grands getting older. Sometimes it's about a personality trait. Their judgment is no worse than mine on these things, and you can judge for yourself how helpful that is.

I also read Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian. Meh. It was the same soapboxes as Vonnegut has stood on for years, with a very thin premise that was repeated many times. A small book, and not particularly offensive, but it does support his decision to retire. After that I started Kate Wilhelm's And the Angels Sing. Short stories. Decent stuff so far, but nothing has jumped out and grabbed me yet.

Stephen Jay Gould died yesterday. Cancer. Not unexpected, but still sad. The man could write about science, and communicating ideas to other people really seemed to matter to him. There's too little of that in the world. It's sad to lose one.

What I'm really looking for right now is good essayists. Does anybody have any recommendations? Please? I haven't been in an entirely nonfictional mood, but certainly more so than average, and I'd like essays. Nonfiction books will do, if they're well-written, but I'd really be happy to settle down in the chair with a volume of essays and a glass of juice.

We're out of juice, though, so that's a totally unattainable fantasy. It's on Timprov's and my agenda for the day. Juice, I mean. The agenda includes the grocery store, birthday presents for Mark, and a necessity or two for Timprov. Maybe we'll go somewhere that does mailing. I've been waiting to see if The Jewish Americans shows up before I send out the copies of The Chinese Americans to the family members who dibs'ed them, but I do have wedding presents to send out, so I don't want to wait too long.

This entry used to be several paragraphs longer, but then my computer crashed and this is what we got back. Sigh. There are things to do around here. I'm going to try to do them.