Oh, I know it's just leftovers and dishes, and that probably an hour's cleaning will get the place back to a pristine state. And that I should put on extra socks and Kevin's shirt if I'm going to work in the sunroom and then I'll feel warmer and more loved. And that some tea will help with the tiredness. And that it'll all be fine by 9 or so. But right now, I'm low.
Maybe reading the new issue of Strange Horizons will cheer me up. There's a really charming/funny/sweet story this week -- though it's possible that I'm a bit biased on that, since it's about a mathematician. :-) Do you know what "bleem" is? And there's a review of Red Planet (which doesn't sound good, but at least the review is appropriately scathing -- back when I did theater reviews, it was always the most fun doing the scathing ones...and you'd just been forced to endure a miserable production, so there was real pain and venom behind the review), and an interview with David Coe. I hadn't heard of Coe before, but in the draft of the interview I saw, he sounded pretty interesting. Mostly children's fantasy, it looks like. How could I not know this? I thought I knew all the kids' spec fic. I am so ignorant. I'm never going to know even a third of anything that I need to know.
Shit. Just realized I have a student coming at 8:45. No pj's for me -- I have to go get ready. Dammit dammit dammit. Why can't I just meet with them in my pj's, huh? They're flannel and long-sleeved -- they're decent...
11:15. Okay, feeling more civilized. The kitchen's still a mess, but the rest of the place is reasonably clean, and there's a load running in the dishwasher. I want to do a first revision on the Herotica afterword, and possibly revise the Soros essays as well, and then get into campus by 1 or so; a fair bit of work to get done there today. Unfortunately, all I really want to do is sit around and re-read this Tanya Huff novel I picked up yesterday...I've spent two hours on that already this morning. I'm not sure why; I really can't afford the time today, and I'll have plenty of time to relax and read in the next week. I'm such a goober sometimes.
On a positive note, I did a Google search when I was killing time waiting for my student to show up this morning, and found out that Aqua Erotica is on the Amazon Literary and Paperback bestseller list -- it's #38 right now, but was up at #19 not so long ago. Pretty darn cool. I talked with Crown briefly this morning about the other anthologies, and I should have an answer within a week or so. It looks likely (though not definite) that there will be another waterproof water-related erotica one at least, so for those writers in the group, you may want to start brainstorming ideas now. And just FYI, if I rejected a story of yours for AE but told you that I really liked it, there's no reason for you not to think about revising it and resubmitting it this time around. It may fit better into the balance of this set. It's always surprising to me how much of anthology decisions comes down to balancing the collection. I wonder if that's true in a Best-Of anthology as well, or if you just take the fifteen best stories regardless of whether they work well together? Hmm...