I wake up, read e-mail,…

I wake up, read e-mail, read journals, check the reader feedback page at CS, check mouthorgan, do a journal entry. Somewhere in there I make tea. I also turn on a light or two eventually, or light a candle. That's my preferred method for starting the day. Sometimes, reading mouthorgan can be really depressing -- some days, it feels like the world is going to hell in a handbasket. But sometimes I hear about something really nice, like this article on how the European Union is urging all its members and potential members to recognize same sex unions (and also some other nontraditional setups). Some days, mouthorgan just makes me want to smile.

Yesterday is a bit of a blur. I'm pretty sure I taught my classes competently, though the fact that being unable to find dry erasers at one point made me want to cry might be an indication that I was a wee bit over-tired to be teaching. I think I got through it, though, and managed to give that class an introduction to UNIX, pico, and HTML in 50 minutes. We got through basic pages, headers, text and links. Wednesday, if I can get us a computer room again, we'll do graphics, lists, and background colors. It was actually kind of fun teaching something so concrete, to be able to say firmly things like "HTML is not case-sensitive" or "do NOT type rm * in your UNIX shell". Ordinarily, I only get that concrete in my classes when I talk about grammar -- of course, that sort of thing basically IS grammar for computers. :-) When we get to dicussing design, it'll get all fuzzy again.

Once I finished teaching, I stumbled home. I remember buying some bread and eating some curry. It's a really good thing my mom did insist on sending that curry along, because I was in no condition to buy real groceries or cook. I re-read a little Bujold and then fell asleep around 3:30. Woke up at 7:00 when Kevin called to see about dinner. We re-scheduled for today. I staggered over to the computer, checked mail, made a to-do list for today. Then I went back to sleep, and didn't get back up again until 4:30 this morning. Which is basically something like 13 hours of sleep. I feel just fine now. :-)

Today I start work properly on another anthology. But don't worry -- this shouldn't (ah, the magic word) be nearly as exhausting as the last one. I'm consulting editor on Herotica 7, so I have a box full of manuscripts to read and make notes on. This should actually be a lot of fun, especially since once I'm done making comments, I'm done with the anthology. No decisions, no writing letters to authors, no negotiating contracts, not even any marketing unless I decide to help out. That's all Marcy's job. I'm just a consultant. Hey, I kinda like this idea...

I also get to do such exciting things as unpacking, laundry, dishes, watering plants -- but I'm looking forward to it. Small domesticities are pleasant. Kevin mostly kept my plants alive, but they could clearly use some tender care. I lost the angelfish, but the others appear to be going strong. Maybe I'll just let the tank stay at eight fish for now. That seems fairly stable for it. Well, seven fish and a crab. We couldn't find him either for a while yesterday -- turns out he had crawled under a rock and was clinging to its ceiling. Smarter than it looks, that fiddler crab.

Okay, I'm just babbling at you all now. I don't have anything deep to say today. Just good to be home. Good good good!

9:00. Moving at a very leisurely pace through the day. I'm pleased that it seems there's less damage to the plants than I'd thought. Oh, the miniature rose lost all its leaves, but its stems are still green, so I'm hopeful that now that I've pruned it, it'll come back strong. Aside from that, the jasmine blossoms are gone, and the mint lost some lower leaves, but basically they've all survived. The oregano is even thriving -- it seems double the size it was when I left. And my indoor pansies put out a few new blossoms, for the first time in at least a month. I had given up on them. :-) I've watered, pruned, and cleaned up -- the sunroom is back to civilized state. Five rooms to go. :-)

I've also started catching up on e-mail, though I've a ways to go. If you're waiting on a reply from me, you may need to be patient a while longer. I really should do some of the real work -- I think the next on the agenda is proofing the final galleys on AE. Duncan said he didn't need them 'til today, so I decided to wait until I was well-rested and awake before trying to find itty-bitty errors. :-) More tea, and then on to work, I think.

I'm feeling very chatty, and nobody's around for me to chat with. So don't be surprised if you keep getting updates like this through the day. Feel free to ignore them. :-)

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