I'm babbling all this at you because I'm avoiding work. I'm behind in one class already and need to try to catch up on that this evening. And I need to read some academic articles and write journal entries on them by 10:30....and it's 9:35 now, so I'd best go. Ick. Argh. Some mornings you just don't want to use your brain, y'know? If someone came up to me right now and offered to trade me an hour of heavy labor for doing this homework for me, I'd gladly accept. And just think, I'm paying the school for the privilege... (well, not anymore, since I have a TA-ship covering tuition. But I did last year. :-)
Have a good Monday, guys. Smile. I'll try to.
8:47. Well, I didn't get quite all my work done, but enough of it. I should be able to finish catching up tomorrow, if I'm good. One story to crit, one article to read, 3 1/2 journal entries to write, 2 reader responses to write. I've got about 5 hours to work in tomorrow, so I should be able to manage that. Eh -- I don't know why I dump all this stuff on you guys; it's hardly interesting.
I had some promising conversations today with a writer for a magazine in Italy, who is trying to persuade his editor to run an interview with me. That'd be fun. :-) He also wants me to get my book translated into Italian -- fine with me; now I just need a publisher in Italy to volunteer! :-)
Gosh, guys. I'd really like to be clever and witty here, but I'm just too tired. Well, when all fails in a journal, substitute gory personal details of your choice, right? You guys are sadly neglected in that regard, you know -- there are journals all over the web that'll not only tell you who the author is sleeping with, but how often and in what positions. And here I am, erotica writer, and you don't get any of that (except what you cleverly infer). I'll tell you something else personal instead, how's that?
What Mary Anne is unreasonably afraid of:
- Small, enclosed spaces (I'm mildly claustrophobic, which is at least balanced by being gloriously agoraphilic -- I love wide open spaces. And heights. I remember standing in one of those ridiculously high Chicago buildings and pressing myself against the glass window, looking straight down...until my SO of the time freaked out and yelled for me to move back)
- Bugs in her bed (I think this came directly from a particular incident in Sri Lanka, when I was falling asleep, gazing up at the ceiling through mosquito netting, watching the little lizards scuttle around in the cracks. I had a nightmare in which the lizards were falling onto the mosquito netting, tearing it down and smothering me. There was also the incident when I lay down on a bed, tried to go to sleep, noticed a sort of feathery touch, sat up, turned on the light, lifted my pillow and discovered a veritable horde of ants. *shudder* Normally, I'm okay with bugs. Spiders seem to know this and make themselves comfortable in my home. But in my bed is where I draw the line.)
- Needles (okay, only a little. I try to be stoic at the doctor's. But they do give me the creeps, so I thought I should put 'em up here. Made me faint once too. (Oddly enough, that didn't happen at the doctor's. It happened in Biology class, when I pricked my finger myself and put a drop of the blood on the slide to test my blood type (A-). Minutes later I was falling. Weird.)
- Standard insecurities (you know, the ones everyone has. Nobody likes me; I'm dressed funny; I look weird; I'm fat; I'll die miserable and alone...luckily, I figured out somewhere in early college that EVERYBODY worries about this stuff, and that most people are neither ugly nor alone, so I'd probably be fine. These things only come out and attack me in the dead of night or in awkward social situations)
- That I can't really write. (Write something great, that is. Something memorable, important, real. Hazard of the trade, I'm afraid.)