As Ol' Mike would say, I'm up at the crack of ass this morning. I went to bed early last night since I had to get up earlier than normal this morning to start work at my new/old job. This past semester, I got a bit spoiled with not having classes until 11 a.m. or having to work until noon; most mornings, I slept in, and consequently didn't go to bed until late as well. I watched Conan O'Brien more in the last few months than I ever had. But I guess that'll have to stop now that I'm back at a regular job again, though I'm not sure what exactly my hours will be; I'll find that out when I go in later.

But that doesn't explain quite why I woke at 5:15 a.m. Am I excited or nervous about working? Not really. I was at that job for a year and a half before, so I know what to expect. Plus, I didn't burn any of my bridges there, which is a good thing. It's work I know and am good at. One thing I did notice upon waking was that I was simultaneously hot and cold; our new comforter is quite thick, so the parts of me that were under it were very warm, and the parts of me exposed were cold. Weird. Anyway, I'm up, so I'll make some coffee and take my time getting ready for work.

A nice weekend accomplishment: a new short story! Well, a rewritten old story. It was only 500 words in its earlier incarnation, and now it's been fleshed out to 1700. The editor I sent it to said that he liked it but that it wasn't quite there yet, and gave me a few suggestions on how to maybe get it there. I'll let it sit for a day or two than send it back to him (which he said was okay). The story's been bugging me since earlier this week to get it done, but I would put it off or forget about it, so it's a nice feeling to have it finished. Now I need to get an academic paper cleaned up for submission, and revise "Last Fare" before sending it to the nice folks at the SH Oregon workshop.

I also got a good list of example texts to use for the upcoming Young Writers' Workshop, after getting together with Ol' Mike last Thursday. For kids between fourth and eigth grade, I thought these were fairly good: Coraline and Stardust by Neil Gaiman, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling, "Show and Tell" and "Will You Be an Astronaut?" by Greg van Eekhout, "10¹⁶ to 1" by James Patrick Kelly, The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein, "The Thirteenth Fey" and "Sister Emily's Lightship" by Jane Yolen, Summerland by Michael Chabon, Tithe by Holly Black, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, "Spidergirl" by Jenn Reese, "Somewhere in My Mind There Is a Painting Box" by Charles de Lint, Last of the Hand by Michael Jasper, "Watersnake, Firesnake" by moi, and various international fairy tales. That's quite a list for ten days of teaching, but I want to make sure to use lots of examples in class, and Mike mentioned that the kids liked being read to. If you have any other good suggestions, especially you teachers out there, let me know in the comments.

We had a nice fairly lazy weekend, laying around until eleven or so, and emerging at nighttime once the heat of the day had cooled to manageable temps. There was a Braves game on Saturday that I got to watch (they lost, bleh), and I rented a couple of movies: Paycheck (which was a half-decent PKD adaptation, though there were several instance of lazy storytelling on John Woo's part) and School of Rock (which was hilarious and the perfect vehicle for Jack Black). Once I returned them, at Janet's insistence, I rented Being John Malkovich, which she thinks is still better than Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but I have a week to watch this one, so I'll turn it back in probably Wednesday night.

My parents invited us over on Saturday for a fondue night, which was fun and very tasty. They have two fondue pots (which were their weddings gifts), so we had cheese with bread, and got to cook beef and chicken in oil, then afterward dip strawberries and bananas in chocolate. Very yummy. We left at 7:30 to see Kyler at the Six String Cafe, but found out that she had to cancel on account of catching the flu. So we drove around a bit, then took a small walk around Cameron Village (a nice pedestrian-friendly shopping center near campus) until the threats of lightning and closed stores drove us back to the car.

So, a nice weekend, and a good ending to two and a half weeks of vacation. Though I didn't go anywhere, it was good to relax during that time, and recover from the last semester. I needed that time to recharge my batteries.

And holy crap! Four days to WisCon! Yay!

Now Reading:
Tithe by Holly Black

Stories Out to Publishers:
10

Books Read This Year:
30

Zines/Chapbooks/Fiction Mags Read This Year:
12