Oh, sleepy day. I'm feeling oddly woozy, and should probably take a nap, but it's like 8:30 p.m., and if I go to sleep now, there's no telling when I might wake up. It could be centuries. Or, worse, tomorrow morning. So I'm here instead, hoping that putting words in a row will make me feel less disconnected from the world. Heather's taking a nap -- she's had a headache all day, and no amount of caffeine, food, or medication seems to help. So it's a quiet evening. Even the kittens are asleep. (Marzipan has wicked bad fleas, by the way, according to the vet, so we got some medicine for her and Zanzibar. No ringworm. Yay!)


It's been a very Flytrap day. I answered submissions this morning, and have now read every submission I've received via e-mail so far -- if you submitted something and it hasn't been rejected, that means I'm holding your story for further consideration, and will let you know one way or the other after the reading period ends (so, early November). Go, you! I rejected some perfectly good stories because they didn't seem right for the 'zine. Based on a small sample size (about 45 submissions so far), I have to agree with Jay Lake's assessment about slush -- it's not so much that you get loads of terrible horrible "Eye of Argon"-level submissions as it is that you get lots of okay-but-unremarkable stories. (Hell, I've written (and even published) some of those myself. They can't all be works of brilliance, right?)


I also wrote my half of the reviews for Flytrap #1. I review one graphic novel, but mostly they aren't book reviews -- we're going to review all kinds of things. Movies, restaurants, music, cities, toys, tech, etc. It's pretty fun. We're waiting to get an ad, and a couple of bios, and an illustration (which I expect to have this weekend), and once I put all that stuff in, layout is done, and we'll send this baby off to the printer. Whoo!


Today we went to Berkeley, to check the PO Box and have dinner at a good Mexican place. I picked up Tom Strong vol. 2 and Tomorrow Stories vol. 1. The former is wonderful, the latter rather uneven. We also got a dust-buster because, you know, we have cats, and we have upholstered furniture, so there's an adhesive-hair issue to be dealt with.


I chatted with Meg this afternoon, and caught up on the mutual-college-friend gossip. She's got a new apartment in Greenwich Village, and I gather she's feeling more hip by the minute, as well she should. It's a sixth-floor walk-up. She was moving in on the day of the blackout. It's crazy New York fun! I don't envy her. I thought our stairs were bad...


Hmm. I'm feeling a bit more awake, now, so I think I'll post this and then go do something useful.