My mom and step-dad are visiting us from China this weekend. A mad flurry of cleaning has ensued. I thought it wasn’t possible, but we do indeed have too many books. I’ve started stowing them under the couch and randomly shoving them into drawers.
We need to look into acquiring more shelving and bookcases. Desperately.
It’s hard writing a sex scene when the little old lady sitting beside you on the train keeps glancing furtively at your laptop screen. Umf.
So recapping yesterday: insomnia, oversleeping, driving to the MARTA station and having the power windows on my car die—driver-side fully down.
So, bleary from sleep deprivation, I had to figure out what to do with my car: leave it at the train station in one of the highest crime-rate cities in the nation* or drive home and switch to the hubby’s car and end up very, very late for work.
I ended up leaving it at the station, gambling that I could awaken Matthew via cell phone and have him swap cars before someone either hotwired my car or stole everything out of it. As it turned out, I couldn’t wake up the hubby, who is an astoundingly sound sleeper, until noon (his usual waking time) despite ringing him every fifteen minutes or so. But those spirits and deities who watch over flustered, harried insomniacs were vigilant, and my car was neither jacked nor targeted by opportunistic thieves.
Whew.
But I’m now looking at a $450+ repair bill to fix my @#$!% power windows. Sigh. The cosmos is not exactly smiling upon my save-money-to-fly-to-Singapore endeavors.
In other news, I’m still digging myself out of the Dragon*Con catch-up hole, ergo I’m only now catching up on various writing news. After discovering the review of Returning My Sister’s Face at Cabinet Des Fées yesterday, I went on to find a couple more items that went up while I was focused solely upon Dragon*Con and therefore looking away from the Internet:
• My author’s notes for “Beautiful Winter,” published in issue #13 of OSC’s InterGalactic Medicine Show, are now up at Editor Edmund Schubert’s blog.
• “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast” in Apex Magazine was reviewed by Kimberly Lundstrom in The Fix:
“Eugie Foster’s stunning novelette, ‘Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast’ [originally published in Interzone] is the highlight of Apex Magazine’s August 2009 issue…Foster paints this uniquely imagined society in vivid hues, by turns beautiful and terrifying. She draws the reader in with lush descriptions and holds her by doling out tantalizing morsels just as the reader craves them. From its intriguing beginning to its shocking end, ‘Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast’ is a gem not to be missed.”
* Technically, the North Springs station is not in Atlanta proper. Also, it bears mentioning that the MARTA rail areas are some of the safest places in metro Atlanta.
This day did indeed improve! I came across a glowing review of Returning My Sister’s Face by Erzebet YellowBoy (erzebet) in the current issue (#8) of Cabinet Des Fées:
“Lovers of fairy and folk tales who crave, as I do, stories from cultures not their own will delight in these deceptively simple tales. They are layered with tragedy and superstition, with spirituality and most importantly, with a fine sense of the marvelous.”
Cabinet Des Fées actually reviewed a bunch of Norilana titles, with Vera being something of a featured author, including norilana‘s fabulous Dreams of the Compass Rose, Salt of the Air, and The Duke in His Castle.
Having a bad day. Had insomnia last night. Overslept this morning. The power window in my car died. fosteronfilm isn’t waking up to his cell phone when I call him (he sleeps hard). And it’s only 8AM. Wah!
Torrential rains prompted the legislators to head out a couple hours early, so my office got to go home too. Now watching the metro area flood damage on TV. Wow. We were in a drought last year at this time.
My folks are visiting from China next weekend. Planned to do a lot of housecleaning this weekend.
Massive cleaning fail.
But we did watch Bolt (Fun+) and Wolverine (Meh. Very meh. I had fewer suspension of disbelief issues with a talking animated dog than I did with Wolverine).
My excuse is that it rained all weekend, and I’m always low-energy and groggy when it rains—and I don’t take my uppers—and that’s the story I’m sticking with.
My day off was full of hamsters: a rush freelance editing job, a website development project, and a follow-up website consult! Working is.
Not reciprocating Mr. Insomnia’s affection, but he just can’t take a hint. Sleep deprivation is fun, right? Right? Bleh. Need coffee.
Whew and hurray: system restore and disk cleanup saved me from having to do a full reload. Much relief.
