Here are the two things I found out before breakfast today:

My and Patrick's cowritten short story, "Fire Magic" (our homage to The Prisoner of Zenda and every other 19th-century adventure set in an imaginary Eastern European kingdom), which will be published in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine No. 22, has the cover illustration! Woot! Woot! Neither of us has ever had a story used for a cover illustration before. This brought much joy and happiness to our household. We still haven't seen the illustration (I just found out the news from the editor) but I'll post a picture (or link) here as soon as it's released.

My iBook is refusing to start. Every time I try to turn it on, it tries and tries and tries, and then gives up and pops up with a picture of a folder with a question mark inside. I'm guessing that it can't find its own hard drive???? Gaaaaah. This has not brought joy to our household...to say the least. We were already worrying about whether we can afford to fix our broken car. This is not a good time to think about paying to fix or replace my laptop. It's not quite as apocalyptic as it could be, since we are a 2-computer household...but I also haven't been as good as I could be about backing up short stories and submission data (thank God, I am careful about backing up my novels)...and on a day-to-day level, I do all my writing on my laptop. When I'm going to work (as I will be again starting Monday), that's the only way I manage to get writing done every day. When I'm home sick, I generally still can't use Patrick's computer for writing because he works from home and can't take time off just to let me give the Muse a go. I am feeling more than a little bit panicky about this.

Oh well.

I'm listening right now to my CD of John Dowland lute works (vol. 4), which is about as soothing as any music could possibly be. I also just found a deeply wonderful page of 19th-century New York personal ads, posted by Ellen Kushner. My favorite might be:

THE LADY WHO CALLED UPON ME AT MY OFFICE on a Friday afternoon some four or five weeks ago, and left a note signed ''You know who,'' will please make herself known, as she is not recognized. (Oct. 21, 1865)

Now I just want to sit around making up old personal ads... :)


Update (11:46): After three hours of no luck, the ibook just started up again (with its date/time reset to 1pm, April 21 1971, for some reason...go figure). Thank God for small mercies. I leaped to back up my PhD work, short stories, submission data, etcetera...and am now watching the computer very, very nervously. I may never turn it off again.