Well, I received a lovely present this morning. While looking under my bed (trying to find a copy of The Stainless Steel Rat for President, which I was re-reading last night -- no luck finding it, btw), I stumbled across two books I had bought and forgotten! It's like getting two books for free! So today I get to read Susan Cooper's The Boggart, which will be a real treat, 'cause she's one of my favorite authors, and tomorrow I get to read Crowley's Little, Big. Hooray, hoorah!
I spent the morning up at Berkeley, doing various and sundry. I was primarily there to research my poetry/music paper (our library is pitiful), which was partly successful (the primary source material I needed was in archives and I have to go back up Friday or Saturday morning to get it). I also looked into taking classes there in the spring (Mills has an exchange program for its graduate students -- we can take two classes at Berkeley during our time here and have them count for Mills credit). Unfortunately, it looks like I missed the deadline to take a fiction class with Mukherjee (I find her work fascinating), but they have several classes that look interesting, especially Asian-American Literature, Gothic Women, and Victorian Sexuality. Will think about it and see. There's a shuttle that runs back and forth on the hour, which is highly convenient and only $1 each way.
It was a little weird being up there. It's *so* much bigger than Mills (40,000 to 3000, I think), and even about 4 times bigger than Chicago. Also, it's kind of strange going to take classes at a school from which one has been rejected. I mean, I felt a bit like I didn't belong on the Penn campus when I came by to visit Kevin...but at least I wasn't pretending to be a student. Aw, I'm being silly, I know. I'll get over it. Just felt very self-conscious. At least I'm finally settling in at Mills -- it's a very comforting place in some ways. A function of the size, I suppose. I think it may also turn out to be a better place in which to work -- there's nothing else to do here! No coffeeshops, no bookstores, no shopping. Just plain nothing. Berkeley is much more distracting. :-)
Plans for the poly novel (the collaborative one) are proceeding apace -- there's something really thrilling about this stage of creation, when the ideas are bubbling (And you haven't settled down to the sludging through the muck. :-)
> On other fronts, revision 3 of Interruptions is awaiting class review, as is The Devouring Night (a short story that is looking like it'll become part of Dreams). I'm also finishing up a dumb little porn piece that is paying me well - another ten minutes should do it. :-) Still need to do revisions on Endings (and probably another on Interruptions) and much more on Dreams. In non-writing news, Penn has implemented majordomo software on the erotica list, which is causing much confusion. It has me a little stressed, but hopefully will sort out the mechanics soon and all will settle down. New web authoring job for Mills is going okay -- kind of frustrating, very non-creative and pluggish, low pay -- but on the other hand, it's the sort of work that's good to do when my brain just refuses to be in writing mode and I'm stuck on campus anyway.
I'm feeling a little over-extended (really. more so than usual.) but sort of in a good way. I mean, everything is progressing, finally. Nothing's actually stuck. I was feeling very very stuck for a while, which was terrifying. Part of what got me out of that is Sherman and I spent a couple of hours talking over plotting for our respective novels, and I pointed out a couple holes in his work and he helped me work through some technical stuff I'd been avoiding thinking about (whether to have a war, for example, and the geographic structure of Ranek and Liella and the Eastern city-states). Really basic stuff, but important.