Saturday

5:59 a.m.

I dropped Heather off at the airport, and when I came home, I listened to "Woke Up New" by the Mountain Goats, which is a sad song, and really far far too sad to apply to a situation where my wife is going away on a trip for nine days. But being awake before 6 a.m. makes me melodramatic.

6:45 a.m.

I called my buddy D., who called a couple of days ago and left a message wanting to chat, reasoning that, hey, it's almost 10 a.m. on the east coast! But he didn't answer. Perhaps he was, sensibly, sleeping. I drank coffee so I wouldn't doze off on the drive to the airport, and now I’m awake, so no sleep...

8:00 a.m.

Wow. We tivo episodes of Scrubs because the show is quick, pleasant, and there are a million of them shown every day on several channels, so there's always something to watch queued up in our DVR, even in rerun season. I just watched, like, three of them in a row. What's become of me?

Now I've come to my computer to check and see what time the post office opens. Because I might as well be the first one in line there.

Oh, wait, they open at 8. Hmm. Guess I'll shower and take a walk, then.

10:20 a.m.

I ran into Holly on the way out, and we agreed to do a little barbecuing tomorrow, so I bought a couple of buffalo steaks and some lamb sausages at the farmer's market, and ambled around a bit, but it wasn't as fun going by myself. I was back home by ten. And now I'm doing laundry. I'm going to have clean clothes, clean dishes, possibly even a clean house, by the time this week is out...

On the bright side, I have lots of work to do. A novel to write, and submissions to read. I should be able to keep busy.

12:53 p.m.

I finished off my Flytrap #8 reading just now. Everybody has been accepted or rejected at this point, though I'll refrain from posting the ToC for now (I heard a story read aloud at WisCon that I want to publish, that the author may be sending to me; it's a short piece, so I have room to get it in if she does).

I've talked to Heather on the phone twice since she left this morning -- once during her layover in Chicago, once just a few minutes ago while she waited for her bags in Ohio. (Yes, I kept track of the time, and called her when I figured she would be at baggage claim. I guess I'm a little needy.) She had a painless trip! Her bags even arrived quickly! We had such a horrible time with American Airlines a couple of weeks ago, and we were worried today would be a repeat. I wanted her vacation to begin well, and so far, it seems to be.

2:30

The cats are needy. They miss Heather. I'm working on the Death novel.

5:30

Mmm, Chinese food.

Oh, and I wrote about 3,000 words. Boredom has its uses.

10:30

Wow, Munich is a good movie, but shit, it's depressing. It had all the fascinating raggedness of real life, too, with loose ends and unexplained things. I don't know how closely it's modeled on reality, but it felt real in that satisfyingly unsatisfying way. I kept expecting it to do neat and tidy condescending little movie things (and there are a couple of such moments, like Eric Bana's frequent return to the window of the model kitchen that represents the life he could have lived blah blah blah, which another character even explicitly articulated just in case the audience was too dim to catch the symbolism). But mostly very good.

Bed now. Since I was up at 4:15 a.m. I'll post this tomorrow.