Nothing says "Welcome home from a long day working at FEMA" like this.
Thanks to Ann for bringing it to my attention, and to all the Clarion West folks who have been cheering me on.
Okay, quickie update:
- I owe lots of folks e-mail, and I expect to have a couple of hours to reply, um, let's see...Wednesday night.
- Saturday I traveled and slept. Sunday I worked and slept. Monday I worked, then searched for apartments online, and soon I will be sleeping.
- I like the work I'm doing and the people I'm working with. I have a lot to learn, but much of it is contextual and it isn't causing undue strain to my skill set. Sunday was a bit like jumping into a pool of icy water, only I was immersed in IT and project management terms -- WBTALB (Welcome Back to Acronym Land, Baby).
- I experienced minor joy when I was given an edited PowerPoint hardcopy with STET written on it.
- My hotel room is serviceable but boring.
- I love living in a city with a decent transit system. Metro is my friend.
- This morning on my way through building security I noticed that I've already learned to avert my eyes from the section of the wall with the POTUS 'n' Pals portraits, 'cause really, it's just too early to be reminded.
- I have an appointment to be fingerprinted on Wednesday.
I'm off to D.C. tomorrow morning, so I took care of the lawn yesterday afternoon.
Two things that are fun to hit with the weedwhacker right up until the moment they fly back into your face:
1) Probably poisonous toadstools
2) Massive garden spiders that insist on building webs across in/egresses and whose puffy abdomens must contain like a quarter ounce of biogoo.
Hooray for safety goggles!
Also, I love the moss that grows in our yard. It's like spray-on hair for a balding lawn.
I went out to get the mail today at my usual time -- 30 seconds after the mail carrier leaves. This is what happens if you work from home and have stories out to editors and have anything short of an iron will. I try to control it, I really do. Hence the thirty seconds.
So here is what happened today:
I found among the white #10 envelopes I scan so anxiously for signs of rejection an envelope from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, but it wasn't the SASE I sent along lo these five weeks ago. After a split second of "Huh?" I switched to reciting (yes, out loud), "It's just something about my subscription. That's it -- it's about my subscription. Subscription, subscription, subscrip -- "
That's when I saw the check. With my story title next to "For". And then everything got a little fuzzy for a minute. Then I believe there was screaming. The good kind.
And while I'm relaying anxiety-relieving news, my employment search concluded on Monday with a contracting job in Washington, D.C. I expect to leave this week for at least three months and up to six months.
If I run into Harriet Miers I'll try to find out what she really thinks and let ya'll know. Perhaps Jell-O shots will loosen her tongue.
Last night I was speeding through the cable TV listings and misread Psychic Witness as Psychic Waitress.
I would have watched Psychic Waitress.
The keen-on-trucks preschooler was sitting on the stoop of his house next to the open garage as I walked by yesterday.
KID: Hi!
ME: Hi!
KID: My garble garble garble's in the garage.
ME: What's in the garage?
KID: My garble garble garble.
ME: Your what?
KID: Garble garble garble.
ME: Huh. Is that good or bad?
KID: Good.
ME: Yay!
Via M, the Table of Condiments That Periodically Go Bad.
It's especially nifty that the most inert condiments are at the far right, but it's a sad testament to my nerdy response to things both chemical and culinary that after a moment of appreciation I began to mentally rearrange the others in alternate family groupings based on properties and usage.
My inner cool kid has lodged a formal complaint that I keep letting the inner geek drive.