Nattering

It’s spring, so I’ve springified the design a bit. (Oh, to be able to design headers.)

ANYWAY, everything seems to be working properly EXCEPT the Read Read list over to the right — Karen’s novel seems to have broken it. I’ve sent a message to the Tech Support People, so keep your fingers crossed. At the moment, it’s not letting me add the absolutely BRILLIANT new novel by Jincy Willet, The Writing Class. Woe.

p.s. It makes me very nervous when people are following me at Twitter, according to automatically generated e-mail messages. It seems to be happening more and more. I don’t even remember my password. I don’t recall my last Twitterette, but it’s unlikely to be followed by another. Ditto for Goodreads — I never update these things. I do love getting the e-mail with the Flickr friends updates though. Oh, technology, you are a wiley siren.

I must tell you that I saw these little numbers at Tarjhay the other night, and it was very hard to resist. Lauren, what do you think?

You know, one of the perks of Southern living is supposed to be an early spring. I’m just saying.

So why does it continue to snow outside and be 12 degrees? Unacceptable.

Two-point-five.

At least this means I can stay home on the couch and finish Karen’s new book. In addition to using up all the tissues on the planet.

(Sorry, Coll — couldn’t resist.)

p.s. Vegan strawberry hobbit cake from the co-op is pretty much a cure-all. Yum. (Yep, it’s an enormous cupcake with hunks of strawberry in it and I’m eating the whole thing. Puck is totally trying to convince me he’s a hobbit. I don’t think any food smell has ever made him this crazy.)

No Operation: Loverboy alleycat race for us today — not with the appointed hour showing "feels like 9 degrees" and winds 25-35 MPH. Eek.

Drat.

(Updated) Well, not totally, as it turns out. We did fully half the checkpoints. And the feeling has returned to my toes. Almost. Pics to follow. And here they are.

I seem to have settled into a winter rhythm just in time to have it disrupted by the residency. Get up, go to work, come home, walk the dogs, do yoga, eat something, revise two chapters or so of Monster Nation, maybe watch some TV and have a glass of wine, read, sleep. Repeat.

I’m planning to try and keep the revise two chapters or so a day going during most of the residency. We’ll see about that.

When I get back, it will be time to really and truly add critical thesis work into this schedule, along with Tiptree and Cybils jurying. Which is to say that I will be insanely tired and overcommitted and very well read.

But the writing’s going pretty well. The rest of it is like unto a swarm of patient gnats when that happens–troublesome, but not fatal.

Well, that was fun. We rang in the New Year in low-key style with the North Carolina contingent–the fabulous Richard Butner and Barb Gilly–and the New Hampshire delegates–dynamic duo Meghan McCarron and Sadie the Dog. Many hours of Game Show Network* were commented on, several games/moralty tests were won and lost, and (at least) six modern houses were seen. Sleep was light. Dogs were rowdy. Etcetera. Pictorial evidence is forthcoming.

My hope is that when the beginning of a year is this nice, the year can’t be anything but wonderful. Good luck with your resolutions, if you’re resolving, and with things in general, regardless. My own resolutions all involve hard work, which is good because that means they are entirely achievable. One of them is to catch up on e-mail and STAY caught, and that will commence today. The horrified expressions of our houseguests when I confessed to the size of my inbox (both read and unread) said it all.

Regular service here will resume momentarily.

*High point? Probably Monty Hall remarking on what things might be like if "women’s lib goes all the way."

Update: When I said catch up on e-mail? It turns out I meant archive a whole bunch of it. I’m going to be answering the more recent stuff, but if you need a reply and don’t get it within 24 hours, send the e-mail again and it will be answered. Swearsies.

For those times when you’ve begun to deal with the code red housework and laundry situation that has arisen from the depths of being away too much and too much busy (the words filth pit have been used, though really it’s more of a mess pit with mounds of cat and dog hair in the corners), I highly recommend an Angel marathon with your brand-new early X-mas pressie box set and the kind of food children eat. And wine.

We’ll do a lot of driving in the next couple of days, to see people we love, and come home to the place we want most to be. Hard to complain about that (even if Emma does keep escape-attempting under the back fence and the revision fairies keep not showing up). I hope y’all have just as happy holidays and every days.