23 July 2003

I am paying, right now, for the extensive cooperation my brain has been giving me.

It has been a lovely brain, a sweet brain, a gentle brain, for the last several days. I want to work on short stories? It finishes one and starts in on another. I decide it's time to do more edits on Reprogramming? It sits docilely down and picks up Anton's voice as if we'd never left it. The Not The Moose seems like a better idea? It lets me write whichever scenes I want. It even gives me insight so that when I sit down to ponder some plot points, I just have to write out the question for the answer to arise in my mind, as if by magic, as if I already knew. Which I guess I did. But the trick is knowing what you know, as Smilin' Bill Novak taught me lo, these many moons ago.

For awhile, my bet has been that the brain is behaving so well because my back is behaving so poorly (and now getting the head, the neck, and the stomach in on the act), kind of to make things up to me. Now the brain has been getting some of its minor misbehavior out for the last few hours. When I was asleep, it gave me another one of those dreams where they made me stay in school for the year I skipped. I hate those. I usually get violent in them, or just bitterly mean. And now that I'm awake, it's treating me to a psychotic mental medley of three songs: "Lump," "Stand," and "I've Got a Golden Ticket." None of which I can just listen to and get out of my head. Fabulous.

And I can't even really get sarcastic with the brain over this, because the brain is the one who's on my side. The brain has not been misbehaving, particularly; as far as the brain is concerned, I could work indefinitely, so long as I also got to eat, sleep, pay attention to people I love, etc. It is the back who has been the evil one lately, aside from a few choruses of "Stand in the place where you live! Now face north...." It's the back who doesn't want me to eat, sleep, work, or pay attention to people I love.

I'm calling Dr. Bill, like, now. Woo! 11:00 appointment. All right. So I should be able to spend most of the day feeling decent. Also should maybe be able to coax my body into lunch. Things like that. Rah.

Yesterday I read Mark Kurlansky's The White Man in the Tree, which is a short story collection with a Caribbean theme. Eh. If you want to read Kurlansky on the Caribbean, go with the nonfiction. I was underwhelmed. I would read just about anything nonfiction he wrote, but I'd have to have a good reason to pick up another of his fiction works. I also started Diana Wynne Jones' The Ogre Downstairs, and now I'm wondering if I'll get through the stuff the library has of hers before we move. Quite possibly. I've been picking up about a book at a time, and that'll add up. This one is fun so far, like most of the others. Again not eating my brain the way Fire and Hemlock did, but I've given up on having that happen again. It'll just be good fortune if it does.

I believe Wendy is coming over for dinner tonight. I hope she is. I haven't heard from her this week, so for all I know she picked up Daniel from Seattle and ran off to Paraguay. But none of Daniel's Clarion classmates have said so in their journal...unless it's in some Clarion code I haven't picked up on....

Sarah said my birthday present wouldn't make it quite in time, since it said it'd ship in 3-4 days. And I quite virtuously did not scroll through my Amazon list to see what, if anything, on it would ship in 3-4 days. Am I not a virtuous birthday princess? You don't have to answer that, because I already know that I am. Also, I know that my birthday present is not wrapped and is sitting in Timprov's suitcase somewhere, and I know that he sleeps like the dead and is, in fact, sleeping like the dead right now. But am I pawing through his suitcase? I am not. Nor am I easing the masking tape off the Amazon box that Mark checked to make sure it contained my presents and then retaped. Even though the masking tape doesn't stay on the box very well and has popped off the edges. I am not peeking in the Amazon box.

I am such a good kid. Just ask me, I'll tell you.

But in the interests of being a good kid, I had better stop typing and get ready to go up and see Dr. Bill so that I can feel better. Okay? Okay. So then. Happy Wednesday.