I should probably dive into this pile of 365 manuscript pages and do my last line-edit, scene-tighten, and overall touch-up, but I don't feel like getting into it yet. I'm expecting Heather to call sometime within the next hour for a ride home, and then we'll watch some television, and maybe around 10:00 I'll do a couple of hours work on the book. Wednesday is my day off, and I'm devoting it wholly to the manuscript, which I expect to lug to a café and labor over with a pen. Line-editing on hard copy is easier for me. I can type in the changes this weekend and have Rangergirl back to my editor by Monday. That's the plan, anyway. Then I can get back to the Bridge novel (at least until it's time to check the proofreading...).

Now that it's warming up, Heather and I are walking more. We took a long walk Sunday afternoon, and I went out after work today and strolled for 40 minutes or so, almost down to the lake and back. We live in a good neighborhood for walking. It's easier to motivate myself for an early-evening ramble than it is to get up and go running.

We didn't make it to Potlatch this weekend. We went to Concord (though the tunnel!) to meet with our caterer on Saturday morning. They cut us a great deal. The guy who runs the company used to be the head of cardiology at Children's Hospital, and catering is his retirement fun-thing. We basically told him how much we could afford (several hundred dollars less than their quote), and he gave us that price and threw in more food and a free case of champagne. I'm hesitant to wholeheartedly endorse the company when, y'know, they haven't actually catered for us yet, but so far my impressions have been completely positive (and I can vouch that their food is very tasty). So if you're looking for a Bay Area caterer, look into Culinary Excellence.

Heather and I both had headaches afterward, so we didn't want to deal with going into the city. We wound up getting burgers and fries at Barney's, total deep-down comfort food, and strolled around Piedmont in the beautiful weather. Saturday night I leafed through the big heap of manuscript pages and read my editor's letter and started trying to get back into the mental space to work on this book some more...

Sunday we went up to my boss's house for a little post-Potlatch gathering. In addition to the usual suspects (Charles, Liza, Amelia), there were some nice visitors -- Bruce Gillespie (of SF Commentary fame) and Grace Dugan from Australia (I had a nice long chat with Grace, who just sold a YA novel to Penguin Australia), Eileen Gunn and John Berry from the wild blackberry-brambles of Seattle, and later Terry Bisson and Judy Jensen (who just got married last year!). Shortly after I arrived the assembled revelers gave me a champagne toast to congratulate me for the Best American thing. The weather was gorgeous. We sat on the deck and ate cheese and drank many delicious wines, then retreated to the living room when it cooled off for more drinking and talking and whatnot. Heather and I had only expected to stay for an hour or so, but we were having so much fun we stayed closer to five hours, and had dinner with everyone. Quite nice (and today I got to eat the leftovers for lunch). I had, very strangely, been yearning for some social contact, and Sunday fulfilled it nicely. Now I can go back to my customary hermit-like state.

On a profoundly unrelated note, the ToC for TEL: Stories has been announced. Looks like Jay got some good writers!