Okay, I finally changed the time zone on my computer, so now it knows that it's in Chicago, which is confusing me less. Good. That doesn't mean that I've gotten any work done on my paper, though. (No good reason why it should -- it would just be nice if it did.) What I *have* done is a fair bit of laundry and putting away of stuff and rearranging things. Kevin had big plans for cleaning the whole place up and making space for me and my things before I arrived, plans which got completely derailed by being sick. Which is actually fine -- the place isn't too bad, and the process of cleaning up a) gives me a good excuse for procrastinating, and b) gives me an opportunity to reorganize stuff to suit me (I get the lower shelves, for example, so his stuff is getting compactly packed onto the upper ones). It makes me feel more like I actually live here. Since the rest of my stuff won't arrive for a week, having something to do now which has that effect is good.
Also finished reading Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines. Why is it that British kids' books are so much more brutal than American ones? Never mind -- I know the answer to that. In any case, fun and fabulously imagined. Has something of an ecological point to it, but reasonably well camouflaged in lots of story. Worth reading if you like kids' sf/f. Somehow reminiscent of Aiken, even though it's sf and set many centuries in the future (post-apocalypse). That whole 'kids caught up in major political events'-thing. Maybe more like John Christopher, actually. Not so much like Lloyd Alexander. But a bit.
By the way -- I'm sure I haven't sent most people who need it my new phone number and/or address. If you're one of those people, please remind me. For now, my 801 cell phone number still works, but I'm not sure how long I'll be keeping that number.
Okay. Change laundry, and then work. Really.
It's starting the paper that's always the hardest part.
