Charles Tan has posted an interview he did with me about many things, not including ships, shoes, sealing wax, cabbages, or kings...

Last night, we went to baby brigade! Least successful baby brigade ever, alas. The film, The Savages, was very well acted but depressing as hell, and River was incredibly fussy (every other time we've gone, he's basically snoozed through the whole movie). Ah, well. At least the pizza was yummy! And River slept from 9:30 to 5:30, so I'm decently rested, and it was fun hanging out with him in the morning before work... he's a cheerful kid, and has discovered his feet lately, which is all kinds of adorable.

I'm feeling somewhat smushed by stress just lately. Moving, of course, is a giant scary thing (just eight days until Moving Day), and we're a long way from being prepared. There are many boxes yet to fill.

My boss has also (reasonably enough) decided that two babies in the office at once is too much, so that complicates life a bit, requiring coordination with the other parent of an infant in the office (and scuttling any chance for our babies to grow up together and fall in love!). It's going to work out, probably with me working half-days in the office a couple days a week and taking the kid home to work in the afternoons (where I can write and work on layout for the magazine even if he's feeling screamish).

The combination of those stressful things has made it pretty impossible for me to concentrate on writing, so work on (Not)Grift Sense has ground to a halt, and probably won't resume in earnest until after we're settled in our new place. At least I know where the book's going. Still, I feel anxious about the fact that it's not done.

I'm also stressed about taxes. I'm quite certain that my tax bill will be in four digits, but I'm unsure what the first of those digits will be. I've got enough money socked away to cover it up to a certain point, but if it's more than that... Anyway. Stress stress stress. Enough stress that my baby senses it and gets cranky when I hold him. I'm making an effort to relax, takes things day by day, enjoy the good moments, and etc. So far it seems to be working. I feel much better this morning than I did last night, laying awake, staring at the darkness, and, you know, fretting.

Alvaro Zinos-Amaro really enjoyed "The Frozen One". Which makes up a bit for the reviewer at The Fix (a marvelous review site), who didn't think much of it. So far the love/hate ratio is running about half and half (and who knows how many people who read it were simply indifferent?). Fortunately I'm used to such wide ranges in the responses to my work -- when the widely divergent reviews of Rangergirl came out, it really messed with my head, but at this point I just shrug and say "De gustibus." (Except for the occasional bad review that points out some flaw in the work that I instantly recognize as true and avoidable -- those make me simultaneously sad and determined to do better next time.)