Anyway, it's not going as swiftly as hoped, of course. I've read exactly a hundred stories so far -- there's 141 left in e-mail (plus some print mansucripts). I'm not even half done! If I'm going to finish these by Wednesday, then I really have to crank today and tomorrow. So if you love me, don't call. E-mail is fine -- I'll just ignore it. :-) Even finishing by Wednesday, I'm not going to start sending letters 'til next week because Roshani's having a child-care crisis, so I'm going to watch Zoe Thursday and Friday. I *might* get some work done, but with a seven-month-old, there are no guarantees... It's kind of amazing how easily they get bored.
I stopped work around 8-ish yesterday, and we watched a movie, A Clockwork Orange. I'm a little shocked that I've never seen it before. If you haven't, go, go now, and watch it. It's stunning. Beautiful and creepy and sad and funny and very surreal. I had a little trouble with the accents/language, but it's not absolutely necessary to catch every word. Next time.
We had originally planned to go back to Hyde Park to sleep, since the new bed doesn't arrive here 'til Wednesday morning. But I was feeling anxious about work, so I decided to stay here, on the little fold-out sleeper sofa. (More like a sleeper cushion, really). I expected Kevin would go back to Hyde Park so he could sleep properly, but he stayed here instead. We snuggled. We watched Mad About You. At one point, we had a tickle fight -- I think because he was contending that I had crossed over onto his side of the bed, and I was claiming (accurately!) that he had a) come over to my side, b) snuggled me, and then c) *pulled* me over to his side -- so that while I might have ended up on his side, it was clearly Not My Fault. He refused to concede this and started mocking me, so I had to tickle him. It was an absolute dire necessity. You see that, don't you? You understand, I know you do. That's why I love you best.
12:30. Three and a half hours later, fifteen stories read. I am not exactly racing along, am I?
I do stop periodically, about every seven or eight stories. I've done dishes, and cleared up a little, and gotten dressed, and just recently, gone around the corner to the little Greek grocery store. It has no freezer section, but it did have whole and ground cardamom, and ground coriander, at reasonable prices. I also bought soap with honey (almost went for the olive oil soap) and hot dogs, ketchup and buns. I was craving hot dogs for lunch. I have no idea why. They tend to make me feel a little ill unless I boil the hell out of them, but sometimes, my tastebuds override my stomach and good judgement. I kept feeling like I should buy something more foofy -- like some Greek bread, fresh-baked, with a selection of olives and imported kasseri cheese. Kevin would have liked that (he's still sleeping). But no, I went for the hot dogs. I'm such a weirdo sometimes...
I keep thinking about WisCon. It was a convention, like many conventions, and yet this year felt a little different. I think it was because I wasn't working quite so hard at the networking thing, and spent more time with friends. I got to know Jenn Reese and Susan Groppi a little better, and I really enjoyed that -- I think they're both so cool, in the gosh-I-want-to-hang-out-with-you-lots! kind of way. I still don't know either of them tremendously well -- for example, I was thinking I'd like to cook with them, but then realized that I don't know if they cook! But I could cook for them, at any rate, and I bet they'd be lovely dinner guests, full of interesting conversation. I think all this housewares-buying is really setting off my Martha Stewart urges -- I keep wanting to throw fabulous dinner parties, with tremendous food and lots of candles and wine. But of course, most of the people I'd want to invite are scattered around the country, in the Bay Area mostly, but also in Boston and New York and L.A. and Seattle and even North Carolina and Utah. Maybe in ten years we'll all be rich enough that we can just hop on a plane and fly over for dinner. That'd be nice, wouldn't it? That'd be swell.