Over the weekend, Daniel and I assembled three bookcases, and Daniel unpacked several boxes of books onto them.

It's amazing, the psychological effect this had on both of us. The new apartment is lovely, and cosy, and wonderful, but it wasn't really home until it had books in it.

It's nice to be home.

I got the galley proofs of "Portrait of an Unidentified Angel" from Realms of Fantasy. I'll need a little time to get over the sheer thrill of seeing my story typeset before I can really read them.

We found our local comic book store. It's tucked in the back of the shopping center with the Starbucks and the Target that we seem to go to every weekend. It's not exactly Comic Relief - it has a much smaller selection of graphic novels, and we very nearly had to forcibly pry the clerk away from a game of Mage Knight to get him to take our money for the comics we wanted. But they have a decent selection of new comics, and it's fun to watch the gamers. (It's kind of nice to see that Magic: The Gathering is still going strong. I haven't really felt the urge to play in years - or at least not an urge strong enough that it actually leads me to go down to the local gaming establishment to get tromped by striplings not old enough to remember the Reagan administration. But it's nice to know that if I wanted to, I could.)

God, I could be such a gaming bore. "When I was your age, there were only two expansion sets. We had one edition, and we liked it just fine! Blah...Blah...tapping Lord of the Pit uphill in the snow both ways..."

The holidays are almost upon us, and I don't feel ready. Of course, I'm not ready - I've forgotten which darn box I packed the menorot in. (You know, I'm quite certain that that's the proper Hebrew plural for 'menorah', but it looks just plain weird. Last syllable rhymes with 'rote' not with 'rot'.) I'm still stumped on what to get certain people for gifts.

I'll sort it all out, I suppose.

Hmmmmm...I'm suddenly feeling very sleepy. I think it's time for a quick cup of coffee, and then back to work.