10 October 2004

Post-draft crash set in around 3:00 yesterday afternoon. All the energy drained out of me, and I went around feeling like a cooked noodle for the rest of the day. I woke up still in the cooked noodle phase. There is nothing so absolutely urgent that it has to be done this very day. I may need periodic reminders of that, but it's still true.

I got puppy time last night at Liz's birthday party. They have a bichon and a sweet little black dog, and I petted and petted them. When we were five minutes in the door and I still showed no signs of leaving my position on the stairs petting the bichon, Timprov said, "You've been really starved for puppy time, haven't you?" Um, yeah. We're waiting until Mark is not so busy and stressed to go looking for one, and most of the people we know here are cat people. Which is not at all the same thing. And Heathah and Dave have an outdoor dog, which is also not the same as a little house dog.

We also had a good time with the adults, kids, and baby, but for me it was mostly combined with petting one dog or another. And that was a good thing.

I have 201 pages printed for a book I agreed to read and crit, and the printer is playing games with me. It refuses to grasp the paper. It makes noises like it's trying, and then it makes noises like it's about to, and then the "no paper, idiot!" light comes on. Only there is too paper in there. I have varied the amount and the type and checked for a jam and sworn and done everything else I can think of. The printer just refuses. Stupid thing. I am near my wits end, and I am the only one awake. We'll see if anyone else can help, but it appears to be a hardware problem, and I don't see any reason anybody else should be better able to kick the hardware than I.

We started the filing project yesterday afternoon. We'd gotten a big filing cabinet, but I was writing a book and had not sat down to reorganize all the files and make new files for all the things that go with having a house. Our apartment files were barely sufficient for that purpose, anyway, combining all sorts of elements that oughtn't to have been combined. We ran out of file folders halfway through and had to go get new ones, and three-hole paper and binders and a shredder. (The shredder won't come until Tuesday, because they were out. I think we can leave the stack of paper until Tuesday without too much of a qualm.) I want to finish organizing the files today, because once you start it, who wants it hanging over your head? But it shouldn't take too long; I just didn't have a lot of energy for it after we got back from Liz's.

Noodle. Like I said.

So I didn't finish reading Mortal Engines, and I didn't watch the Twins lose in extra innings, and I didn't make the banana-chocolate chip muffins, and in general there's a lot of stuff I didn't do. And it's likely that I will do at least some of it today. I'm really quite good at thinking up stuff to do. You may have noticed.