Man, what an exhausting, yet extremely productive weekend.

Yesterday was go-look-at-potential-wedding-locations-day with my mother. Since the ceremony is going to be here in North Carolina, it's pretty much up to me and my family to plan this bad boy, though I'm definitely keeping my lady in the loop.

I went over to my parents' house yesterday morning at 9:00, and we left at 9:15 for the first place. Seven hours later, we returned home, after visiting ten different locations. I was so exhausted, but was happy at how much we'd accomplished. We eliminated some places, and put the rest in order of preference. There was one I just loved, but it was incredibly expensive. There were a few that were right on busy streets, with a lot of traffic noise. The last two we visited were probably the favorites of both me and my mother: Haywood Hall and Longview (The Poe House) (I'll post pictures later), though the latter we will have to call back about prices since the woman who handles that wasn't there. Right now, I'm tending toward Haywood Hall, since it's a little more intimate, and it's cheaper than other places we saw, though we're definitely not locked into anything yet. We still have a little while. I took three rolls of film to send to Janet.

After we got back and wrote a pro/con list for each place, my parents and I went to Smithfield's Barbecue in Fuquay and ate some really good barbecue pork, then went home and watched Father of the Bride on TV. Then my mom turned the channel to TLC, and there was a wedding show on called "For Better or Worse", where the bride and groom's families arrange the entire wedding and surprise their kids on the wedding day with the whole thing. I was so wedding'd out by then, and Neli was driving my allergies nuts, so I left, got home around 11:15, and went right to bed.

I drove over to Carrboro today to visit Jamie at 12:30, and I got to see the botanical garden he's growing. Since he's in a townhouse, all the plants are in big clay pots on the back porch, but he's got a good thing going out there: romaine lettuce, tomatoes, basil, cilantro, eggplant, bell peppers. We actually had salad as part of our lunch over there, and got to pick it ourselves. It was pretty cool. (We also had some tofu hot dogs, since Jamie and his wife Steffi are vegetarians.)

I also got to see the illustration he's done for "One Big Crunch" - which will be in the next issue of The Dream Engine - and oh my god is it cool. I always enjoy Jamie's artwork, but he's outdone himself this time. He managed to capture the feel of the story by incorporating images from it, and it looks fantastic. And I found out from John Klima that he'll be using Jamie's illustration of "Songstress" (which was originally created for the Christmas chapbook I did a couple of years ago, The Curragh of Kildaire) for the story's appearance in Electric Velocipede. Woo! Two collaborations in one year! Very cool. The illustration for my story in Intracities will be done by yours truly.

Man, I just realized, all four of my stories coming out this year will have accompanying illustrations. That seems unfathomable to me. And super keen at the same time.

After getting back from Jamie's, I took the laptop over to Borders and got another 1600 words written for "Last Fare", bringing the total up to 2700 words so far. The guidelines for Leviathan 4 set a minimum word count at 5000 words (which is the first time I've ever seen that as the minimum), but I think I've got enough story to push past that limit. I was hoping to have the story done by now, but I've learned that sometimes things don't happen the way you want. Though they sometimes happen in a better way.

So I got a lot done this weekend, but now I need another weekend to recover from it. Sigh. I don't see my life slowing down until after the wedding, and I just hope I don't pop a blood vessel by then and start foaming at the mouth and sending dirty limericks to all my coworkers. I should really start doing yoga again. Can you believe this guy is 46 years old?

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Now Reading:
Report to the Men's Club and Other Stories by Carol Emshwiller

Stories Out to Publishers:
12

Books Read This Year:
23

Novel Word Count:
9200