Outside the snow is still coming down, though not as heavily as a few hours ago. I woke at 9:30 a.m. around when the first flurries were coming down, and after eating some cheese on toast, realized that there were a few things I needed at the grocery store, and that I wouldn't be able to get over there later in case the weather got worse. So I threw on some clothes, got in my car, turned on the wiper blades and headed to the store.

This is the second snowstorm of the season, and so I assumed people wouldn't be as frantic about it, but you know what they say about assuming. Every single wire shopping cart or basket was gone from the front of the store, and I had to wander around for about ten minutes before I found an abandoned cart I could use. I didn't have much to get, but I did need milk, and that started feeling really cold against my hand after only a few minutes. So I dodged the other carts and slalomed around people and got the things I needed. There was a general feeling of panic in the air, which made people move agitatedly faster, including me. The checkout lines were long, and I could see through the front windows that the snow was starting to come down harder, which only served to make me more impatient. After paying, I stopped in the entryway to put on my gloves and zip up my jacket, then I grabbed the four plastic bags of groceries out of the cart so that the guy standing there could use it.

Janet has teased me several times about my reactions to winter storms, since when she went to school in Wisconsin, a storm could dump two feet of snow on the ground, and they would be going to classes the next day. They know how to deal with snow and ice storms up there, and even with our recent nasty winter storms over the last few years here, the people in North Carolina still get incredibly anxious. The DOT has gotten much better about ploughing and sanding/salting the roads, but it's nowhere near as efficient as Wisconsin yet. The biggest concern here right now is that the snow will turn to freezing rain or ice, which could knock tree limbs into power lines. I think it was three years ago that we had an incredibly bad ice storm that killed the power to my place for about a week. A lot of people were without for even longer. It just makes you realize how much you take your stove, refrigerator, microwave, central heat and water heater for granted.

In writing news, I got a nice rejection from Ms. Gwenda for "Little Miracles", and I'm very seriously thinking about rewriting it in almost purely musical terms. Since the little boy in the story, Audie, communicates through music, I was thinking this would be an interesting way of telling the story, that descriptions and emotions are expressed as arpeggios and fortissimos. If I get to it, I'll rename it "Little Miracles: A Symphony."

Also, after my big breakthrough a few days ago, I realized that I have two short stories still to write in the Blue/Dane story arc. One, called "Blue Sunday," is inspired by Tom Petty's song of the same name, and will be a cool little road story. The other, called "In Jurong," I have been working on for some time now, most recently for the zeppelin anthology, and is a surreal little piece, kind of like Wizard of Oz but in a Singaporean birdpark that is taking over East Asia. I'm not sure if I'll get this one done in time for the antho, but I'm going to try. I went over to Barnes & Noble the other night to work on it, but only got a few sentences down before stopping.

So today has been pretty much an inside day, as has the rest of this weekend. I've been doing a lot of studying, and a lot of cleaning. Since I found out that I'll be starting the new job on Wednesday, I wanted to take this weekend to clean as much as I could before Janet gets here. My kitchen is now spotless, down to the inside of the microwave and the food-catchers underneath the stove burners. Now it's on to the rest. Maybe I'll take a break later and go tromp around in the snow.

Now Reading:
Shank's Mare by Ikku Jippensha

Stories Out to Publishers:
6

Books Read This Year:
2

Zines/Chapbooks/Fiction Mags Read This Year:
4