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Wednesday, 20 January 2010 (while you wait for the others) 8:57am Which it was. Stormy, I mean. So I didn't go. Act of god and stuff. Now I'm at work, and wouldn't you know it, the building just lost power. Hooray for a fully charged laptop and iPhone—with the screen brightness turned way down, of course. At least it gives me an excuse to get some writing done. | ||
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Tuesday, 19 January 2010 (fine for now) 7:01pm No spin class this morning. I got up in plenty of time, a quarter to five, but it was dark and stormy outside, and it just didn't feel like it would be safe to make the drive. Further demoralizing me was the fact that my bathroom ceiling was leaking, which I'm pretty sure if the first time I've had a rain-related leak in the fifteen years I'ved here. Thankfully, the rain had died down considerably by the time I drove to work at eight, and we even got some lightning in the afternoon. I'm now waiting for my landlord to come by and look at the leak (which was only actually leaking during the worst of the storm), and tomorrow I make it to Damiel's abs class for sure. Unless it's stormy, that is. | ||
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Monday, 18 January 2010 (sorry for the delay) 11:28am At Mocha 101. Wasn't sure if I wasn't going to make it, since we had the San Francisco equivalent of a deluge earlier, and I spent some time driving around trying to find a decent unmetered parking space. Almost packed it in and just drove back home to start watching the fifth season of Lost, especially since I didn't get much sleep last night after staying past midnight at The Dark Room and waking up fairly early out of habit, but no. Must be productive, especially since this is a really critical time for the book. My agent and I have been continuing to correspond about the rewrites, and the iron is hot. As it were. I really feel like by the end of this year, we can get it sold to a publisher. It wouldn't actually see print until 2011 at the earliest, maybe 2012, but I'm quite convinced 2010 is going to be the breakthrough year. If I work hard, that is. | ||
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Sunday, 17 January 2010 (on a neck, on a spit) 10:11pm We spent most of Saturday afternoon trying to find a whipped cream dispenser, going from seedy smoke shops to Bloodbath & Beyond to Target, with no luck. Which is not to say we never actually found any dispensers, but rather, we never found the right kind of dispenser, being brand loyalists to Whip-It. Alas. It was fun to go out into the world together, though even more fun to come home and have homemade sushi salad and watch 30 Rock and then tear into each other. The gigs keep rolling in: after having written it off (because I'm way too much of a rebel, maaaan, and already stormed the gates back in June), I've been asked to read at the TGSF Cotillion next month. And I'm also waiting to hear back about a possibly being in a big queer women's festival at the University of Oregon. I guess the career hasn't skidded to a halt just yet. At Bad Movie Night. Man oh man does G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra blow, but the audience is having a blast, and that's what it's all about. | ||
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Saturday, 16 January 2010 (central and remote) 9:11am I was a little bored last night, but it's nothing I can't handle, but running the sound and lights next week won't be so bad, especially since I'll be doing it by myself. Oddly enough, there's less pressure that way, since there's nobody close by to snap at me. I was able to leave by ten, so I got enough sleep to get back up and go to Cally's spin class this morning. Exercise five mornings in a row! This is the only way it works. And I can sorta kinda see the hint of my stomach muscles starting to reappear. One of the things I like a bout my current neighbors is that they tend to leave on long weekends like this one, which means peace and quiet. I like peace and quiet. Now, long-overdue housecleaning before I go pick up Marta. | ||
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Friday, 15 January 2010 (never ask me) 11:01am At Mission Creek. Gonna write a couple hours, and then I get to have lunch with Marta. After that, I'm spending the rest of the day at The Dark Room, learning to do sound for SF Sketchfest. I'd rather not, to be perfecly honest, but in the end it'll only eat up two of my days—today and next Saturday night—and my theater needs my help, so I can't complain. Besides, I seldom have to do things I don't wanna do these days, so, once again, I can't complain. My Agent emailed me the standard retainer agreement yesterday. The contract, basically. I printed out, signed it, and put in the postal mail this morning. Shit's getting real. | ||
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Thursday, 14 January 2010 (service bell) 12:04pm Marta comes back tomorrow. Well, she comes back tonight, but I don't get to see her until tomorrow. Cally's spin class this morning, housecleaning, Apple Store (they're somehow out of headphones, so they have to order them), and now Mocha 101. And, hopefully, beginning work on Bottomfeeder v2.0. The Instant City editor wrote to say that the reading won't in fact be the Babylon Reading Series but rather the release party for the new issue, the one with "Tchotchke." Sounds good. 4:08pm The new chapter listing of Bottomfeeder v2.0, after the first round of edits:
Not hugely different, but I lost a chapter, and I expect I'll lose more. Then again, my Agent and I have discussed the manuscript quite a lot, and at no point has she suggested that it's too long, so who knows? Maybe there'll end up being more. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Wednesday, 13 January 2010 (eaves dropping) 6:06pm At Mocha 101. Went to Damiel's abs class this morning, then to work, then to the Apple Store in Stonestown to replace my headphones, since the right speaker has died. (Life is hard!) They told me I had to actually have an appointment to do such a thing, and that they had an opening at half past three, but I made one for tomorrow morning instead. That way it won't cut into my writing time as much. Not that I've gotten quite as much writing done as I'd originally hoped. I responded to an email from a fan in Belgium (!), then to my Agent, who has some interesting ideas for how to rework Bottomfeeder. Some of it's a little scary, but that's okay. It's not like I don't have several zillion drafts before this one, and any change I make that I don't care for can be fixed. It's a learning process, and there's a distinct possibility that with the Agent's help (and no doubt a lot of Marta's input), the book will be better than it would have been if it was just me by myself. sometime after midnight They're saying that upwards of a hundred thousand people might be dead in Haiti. I can't even begin to wrap my brain around those kinds of numbers, and it certainly puts the fucking Great Overshadowing into perspective. | ||
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Tuesday, 12 January 2010 (horn of plenty) 9:07pm And then there are days when everything shifts a little bit. I made it back to Cally's spin class this morning (where I've decided to embrace her musical selections, which are nothing if not eclectic), and then to the office by eight. The vibe was a little off, and at least one person seemed near tears. My supervisor pulled me aside later in the morning to tell me that there have been a handful of layoffs, hence people being in a weird mood. Of course, my own mood was a little precarious until he assured me that my position is safe. In fact, I'll be taking on some of the responsibilities of the departing, though I'll be remaining at part-time for the foreseeable future. I was already in a pretty good mood to begin with, though. The editor of Instant City wrote and asked if I'd like to read with them again at something called the Babylon Reading Series in March. I of course said yes, and it was especially reassuring because I've been afraid that not only did I bomb when I read with Instant City at Lit Crawl, I ruined my chances of ever getting to read with them again. That is clearly not the case, and I could be happier. The real heart-thumper this morning was the email from the agent, the one I've more of less courting since last March. I took a deep breath, opened it, fully expecting her to say that she's decided not to pass, and... She says Bottomfeeder still needs to be tweaked and rejiggered here and there, but otherwise, she likes it and she thinks I'm a good writer and she'd like to represent me. Wow. I have an agent now. That's pretty great. | ||
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Monday, 11 January 2010 (on track now) 9:22pm "Not," as it turns out. I didn't get to bed until after midnight, and rather rather than go do crunches and planks and weight machines on four hours of sleep (what is this, 1999?), I erred on the side of resting my still not-quite-healthy body. Cally's spin class tomorrow for sure, though. Bad Movie Night was terrific, though. Not quite as many people as I might have liked (there never are), but we had fun, and Jim and I even had a phaser fight on stage. Since the movie was Star Trek, which we saw together when it opened back in May. People commented in those days that I was looking thinner. Nobody's said that for a long time, because it would be a lie. It's only been eight days since I've seen Marta, but it feels much longer than that. | ||
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