Whew. First day of SPring Semester, with classes drastically cut and an "enrollement cap" on the classes that remain. I handle this by lottery: there are always students who pre-enroll who don't bother to show up for the class. If they haven't e-mailed me, their seats get raffled off to those hopefuls who HAVE showed up. The classroom was jammed with people trying to get into ANYTHING to fill requirements - one enterprising would-be student sneaked THREE slips with his name on it into the lottery. (He was asked to leave. If he'll cheat on the lottery, what's he going to do on the Final?)

Yet, I enjoy the first-week-of-classes energy of the campus.

Way too much to do this morning - finish school-work and spend the rest of the day working on Ben January # 10... and go pick up my copy of Dante's Inferno videogame (and my free Dante Alighieri collectible action figure!). I probably won't get to play the thing until next week, if then. Then work on the second draft of Blood Maidens until bedtime. (Actually, until it's time to do my yoga - the arm and shoulder pain that started with Chair Wars in the summer is still ferocious, but yoga seems to help)

WoW - On the subject of playing, Thursday night at 6 as usual? Clean up the rest of the quests in wherever the heck we ended up last time? (Were all those new quests we picked up in Desolace, or still in Ashenvale?)

Yesterday Gus - who is, as I've said, an acrobatic boy - got himself trapped down the 9"x9" chimney of dead-space between the bookcases in my study (which was covered, by the way, but not, apparently, securely enough - I had no idea he could get up there) - a 7-foot fall and no room to twist around to land on his feet, I think. I was working and didn't see him fall, though I'd seen him walking on top of the bookcases a moment before (and thought, "Hm, didn't think he could get up THAT high...").  Apollo, bless him, sat by the base of the bookcases crying until he got my attention (Apollo is pretty much talking all the time). Then I looked around for Gus and thought, "Oh, jeez..."

So now the contents of the bookshelves are on the floor among the other debris (none of which I have time to deal with until April when the books get turned in). Gus wasn't hurt (I think he has rubber bones), but he was sure shook up, and I'm pretty sure he knew Mommie really didn't like dismantling the bookshelves and dumping the books all over the study to haul his skinny little ass out of the dead space. It was hours before he climbed up and purred on my lap, the little bastard. (The dead space now has a much more solid cover, nailed on).

And, the original 10 chapters worth of story for The SHirt on His Back seems to have grown itself into a viable novel length... something which rarely happens until I'm actually working on the book and seeing how the story plays out (which is why my outlines are so short and rickety, and my first drafts are so funky). This is unfortunate, since I sell books on outline - I don't KNOW, exactly, how we get from Point A to Point B, until I'm on the road. So far, my editors have trusted me, and I hope have not been disappointed (except that ALL editors are disappointed these days with writers who aren't mega-blockbusters...)

WoW query: first, thank you all other members of the posse for a lovely evening cleaning up quests in Ashenvale. Where should the next talent point go? (Instead of putting books back onto shelves I'm going to go shopping in Darnassus for twenty minutes sometime this week..)
And, I have these blue drops from the various instances that I'd like to sell - can I do that at the Auction House? Or does them "binding on pickup" mean I can't?

Well, I guess the salmon-flavored "classic pate" cat-food gets two thumbs down from Gus. He is making scratching motions all around the dish as if to bury it. Laurie refers to this as "The restaurant review." ("Sure smells like something that needs to be buried in the box...")

A lovely afternoon at the Family Birthday: Boys - Dad, brother, brother's grandson all have birthdays within a week of each other. Cheap out, get 'em one cake. A beautiful drive - snow on the mountains is down almost to the valley floor, and the air storm-cleared so that the mountains near their house can be seen from MY house. But, I've been beat REALLY hard with the Freeway Stick, and there's an evening of work yet to do before curling up to watch reruns of Man vs Wild: Bear Gryllis eating cockroaches in the Panama jungles before bedtime...

More restaurant review?

WoW - Suggestions on the best use of the talent-point I just earned?

I realize I'm so tired these days that everything seems distorted: even the thought of running an Instance is terribly frightening, as if it were real. But then, reality for me at the moment is being in the middle of 1837. (There was a giant Depression going on then, too....) (Which is why Benjamin is taking on whatever cockamamie case anyone offers him). No wonder things aren't looking very straight.

And will continue to be pouring down rain all week, allegedly.

This is the first time I've worked on two books simultaneously - first draft in the daytime, second draft of another book in the evening - and aside from the physical problems it's going well so far. Particularly with the evening work I seem to settle into a kind of overdrive, and I'm extremely pleased with it, but I suspect I'm going to have to take a break one night this week and play Tomb Raider just to clear my brain. (Scheduling spontaneity - how OCD is that?)

That's in addition to Quest Night on WoW, which - if all are okay with that? - will be Thursday 6 pm pst as usual? I'm so tired I don't even remember where we camped.

I do find that with a heavier work schedule I need to take breaks and lift weights a little, in addition to regular exercise; is this something all writers have to do as they age? Do other people get Chair Arm?

In addition to all this, I have to get the ball rolling on the Bridal Shower Tea I'm throwing in March for my lovely niece who is getting married - making sure everyone gets maps to my place, and tactfully mentioning where the Guest of Honor is registered, and figuring out the best place to get a cake. I love girly stuff.

rant-rant-rant-rant-rant-rant-rant-rant-rant

Grocery store. Me in line; clerk I've said Hi to for years now.

Me: Hi, how are things with you?

Clerk: [three-minute graphic description of her new cat's bowel movements]

Me [thought-balloon]: *let's not ask that question of anyone again ever*

Have I become hyper-fastidious in my old age, or was I just working on a story the day they changed the rule about what is Too Much Information? Is this an effect of blogging? Of Reality TV? Of Jack Black and Adam Sandler movies? Of texting or Twittering every priceless event that Heaven gifts you with during the day?

Can you interrupt a casual acquaintance mid-sentence and in public and say, "I'm sorry, that's too much information," without implying that the speaker is being disgusting? (I'm pretty hesitant to embarass someone to that extent in the presence of their co-workers).

rant-rant-rant-rant-rant-rant-rant-rant-rant

There. Now I feel better. Thank you for listening.

Thursday night as usual? I just made my way to Darnassus to do some shopping, and got back to Honor Hold all by myself - sort of like the first time I went anywhere on the New York subways.

Vexingly, LJ is still not notifying me of posts. I've changed my LJ-to-email address, in the hopes that this will work better, but it means I check LJ a number of times: always awkward. And the nice folks at LJ say they haven't got the slightest idea what the problem is.

Meanwhile, plowing ahead on The Shirt On His Back, which is reaching the point of taking root and growing on its own - always a comfort when a book does that.  I have to keep reminding myself that my first drafts are ALWAYS terrible, bare and rickety and awkward...

One thing about working with the nice people at Severn House: their word-count demands force concision, and I'm very pleased at the process of making every word count. It quickens the pace, never bad in a mystery.

I'm happy to report that we have achieved Corpse by the end of chapter two. (Actually the first corpse - Shaw's younger brother - is dead at the opening of the book).

I'm also happy to report that the horrendous stress symptoms I've been experiencing ARE only stress-symptoms, and not anything nastier. I remember why I tried to get rid of this chair, too: compression of nerves in arms and legs, resulting in spot-numbness in spite of periodic breaks to lift weights and go for walks. There's just a LOT of book, and not a whole lot of time. And, the replacement chair's long-term effects were far worse. (I've still got serious rotator-cuff pain). But, re-reading the first draft of Blood Maidens, I am extremely pleased.

I have also achieved The Burning Crusade, at long last: I go pick the thing up tonight, and will try to install it tomorrow. With luck, it should be in place by tomorrow evening's quest... But if there are any problems, you bet I will be on this blog asking for help with downloads and patches. Any assistance or tips would be much appreciated.

I won't say I got MUCH done of Chapter One of January # 10 - The Shirt On His Back - but the closest thing I have to a New Year's resolution was to get it started today. Today I also finished the first draft of Blood Maidens - Asher & Ysidro #3. (Which I'm really pleased with, by the way, even though my first drafts are truly awful).

And miles to go before I sleep.

MASSIVE stress-symptoms... or maybe it was food-poisoning from something I ate at the party last night. (I left early, as I try to on New Year's Eve... I always feel so stupid, when the New Year turns over and everyone kisses their sweetheart).

And many, MANY thanks to all you who helped me with the train question. I deeply appreciate the collective wisdom and knowledge out there.

The only other New Year's resolution is something I heard at a meeting some months ago: That if you can't deal with any other spiritual practice, the base-line one is, Wash your dishes every night, make your bed every morning.

Can we go on a quest and kill monsters Thursday night? With the amount of work I need to get done, by Thursday I'm certainly going to want to kill SOMETHING.

All you railroad buffs out there - I need help and the Internet apparently has no idea what I'm talking about.

European railroad cars pre-WWI (1911, to be exact). I know first-class were compartments, each entered separately from the platform. What about third-class? Was it a Pullman-style, single chamber with benches? Or was it just grubbier compartments that anyone could get into? And, where would I find this information? Is there any site anyone knows about that has a (gasp!) layout of train-cars?

It's a real cope finding a public library in California that's open.

Thanks for any information anyone can give.

A most lovely Christmas. The stove actually cooked the roast beef (I always think the laws of physics will decide to suspend themselves when I'm cooking for people I care about), the roux actually roux'd itself properly for the creamed spinach sauce, there were ginormous piles of presents and non-stop talking. Everybody liked what they got. There's now a distinct academic "side" to the family - myself, my nephew, and his lady, so during the after-party there was much discussion of pre-Columbian empires along the Mississippi Valley and the joys of faculty meetings as we did the dishes. My niece's fiance was duly introduced to - and approved of by - the entire family. I scored Season Five of House, and The Burning Crusade (though the latter is "on its way"... will I get another 24 hours of back-to-back patches when I install the thing?)

The cats unanimously thought this was all horrendous beyond belief: Rocky spent about 36 hours in the study in a snit, though the Dead End Kids came out pretty quickly to see what was up, and ended up sleeping with academic nephew and lady in the living-room last night.

Just before all this started, Gus discovered the World of Warcraft. Ordinarily, of course, when he sits on my lap as I'm at the computer, all he sees is a white field with a little cursor moving across it. All of a sudden, there's bright-colored things running around, and he REALLY wanted to find out more: patting the screen, poking it with his face... I finally had to throw him out of the study and shut the door. Next thing I know, he'll figure out how to get his own account.

Now I get five weeks to get some real, steady work done.

Having a Master's Degree, it only took me 3 days to figure out how to avoid the issue of having Hall Deckage that didn't look like Kitty Jungle-Gym. (At least, I hope the problem is solved...)

Instead of hanging fake-pine garlands around the ceiling molding as I usually do, and hanging ornaments from the garlands (Gus is a good enough jumper to get to the top of the 7-foot Chinese Cabinet, and from there would tightrope on the garlands) I simply made rosettes from curly ribbon bows with ornaments hanging off them, and hung the rosettes on the nails that usually support the garland. It's far fewer ornaments than I usually hang, but it makes a very festive appearance, and they're not connected together. Needless to say, none of these little fluffies hangs anywhere NEAR the places where Gus can jump to.

I also got out and rinsed the dust from George's lovely old monax dinner-service. George was a collector of Depression-glass (for years he was the secretary of the New Orleans Glass Club - I really WILL have to dig out the club's newsletter, which contains his serialized Adventures of Amber Madrid - Amber Madrid being the name for the glass-pattern "Madrid" when it was made in gold). Under his tutelage I collected another amber pattern - "Spoke," it's called, or "Patrician" - which I usually use for Christmas luncheons, but since we're having a particularly large group this year, my usual set - which is for 8 - isn't going to cut it. So it will be mixed, gold and monax (which is a translucent and very slightly irridescent white). Plus the usual assortment of Talavera and fake majolica serving pieces, which lower the dignity-quotient of the whole set-up a LOT.

I know I spend way too much money on these Christmas luncheons for my family. It's once a year, and I want to have them be memorable.

I can't remember when the last time was, that the parents and all three of the kids were together for Christmas, as we will be - with siblings' children and their live-ins - this year.

I, too, gave up Christmas trees when I acquired kitties. Besides, the way my house is - the front room is the old living-room and front bedroom of the original Levittown cottage knocked into a 10 x 30 Great-ish Hall - you can't really set up a tree as you could if the room were more square. A garland around the ceiling gave the sensation of being inside a Christmas-tree. I'll probably go back ot it, once Certain Members of the Household are a little older, fatter, and less springy in the ankles than they are this year.

About three times a year all 12 feet of dining table gets taken down to the wood, preparatory to a Family Occasion. The cats are puzzled. Where's the piles and piles of flat white things? Where's all the pens? All the books? All the Scantrons? We must lie on this to make it acceptable again.

Having accomplished this act of virtue, I feel like I've bought myself two days of uninterrupted working. The morning was spent driving out to the College to drop off a) the grades and b) the acceptance for the new class in Spring (yay!) - I stopped by the optometrist and picked up new glasses, which I'd had made with simply the distance lens, no bifocal... which of course means I can't teach in them because I can't read my notes. But I'd forgotten what a total pleasure it is to not have the bifocal lens down there.

The jury is still out about whether the Hall gets Decked. Gus is just too damn acrobatic and too damn inquisitive.

I've come to think of the Saturday Before Christmas as a sort of Little Christmas: the night everyone has their Christmas Party. Certainly everyone on my friend Laurie's block was ALSO having THEIR Christmas Parties, which made for exciting parking and long walks in the cold.

Yet, the usual excellent food and fascinating conversation (who knew that people can make houses out of storage-containers?), and catching up on friends with whom one only communicates via rumor... and lots of cats. As the crowd thinned out, the cats emerged from the bedroom, the thin, frail oldsters to sit on laps or heads (at 14, Roswell's favorite place is still on the top of Mel's head), the evil Satan-inspired youngsters to do what evil Satan-inspired little gray cats do.

Now several days of grading papers, prepping and decking the hall, and figuring out how I want to teach US History in the Spring.

And working. Lots of working.

Christmas shopping is done.

And, at the last minute I scored another class for next semester, US History again - so I have the notes - at a time that works well for me. So I'm pleased.

Many exams to grade. As an extra-credit question on 20th century I asked for the Three People who would be People of the Century for the 20th Century. So far, I have numerous votes for Martin Luther King, a large number for FDR, several for Bill Clinton (???), one for Father Coughlin (!!!), and one for Abraham Lincoln (um...). Plus a couple for Henry Ford and one for Tim Hoffman, the inventor of the micro-chip.

Time to go soak my eyes.

Final this morning. Already it feels like it was days ago. I have a large pile of exams to grade, though I'll read many of them during the first part of Final #2 Wednesday evening - waiting for the first turn-ins.

Thankfully, I've reached that wonderful point in Blood Maidens where you come over the top of the roller-coaster and the whole story is a straight drop from there - first a, then b, then c, no more question about, Do I need to put in this scene here or...?

But, far too tired to do anything tonight (these days I seem to be good for about four hours in the morning and that's it). And, tomorrow I go get my Spells of Clear Sight upgraded... an expensive nuisance.

On the subject of getting spells upgraded:
WoW Thursday? Since, I realize, NEXT Thursday is the Night Before Christmas and I'll have houseguests... and then the FOLLOWING Thursday will be the Night Before 2010 and I'll be at a party... early in the evening. Generally I like to be home, in bed, with the cats pulled up to my chin and preferably already asleep when the year turns over.

Pouring-ass rain, cold; clouds of sea-gulls over LA.

Fluffy cat and Pekinese sharing the big blue chair before the heater, their backs scrupulously turned to one another but hips touching. ("I'm only sleeping with HER because it's COLD...") (Although periodically Damsel WILL mount Jasmine, whose attitude - to that or anything else - is, Hey, Whatever.)

Hot tea and vampires.

The nice folks at LiveJournal actually got back to me much more quickly than I'd expected - and yes, the problem with the "XYZ's virtual gift" announcement inundation seems to have been a backlog on their list... but I've removed that particular announcement from my Profile nevertheless. I'm pleased you're all getting virtual gifts, of course, but it simply isn't my business. I attempted to thank the Help Staff by clicking the "tell us if this answer helped" link and got zippo - ditto for the "copy this whole link to your browser..." option.

So I must be a boor and leave them unthanked.

It's profoundly chilly here - I would say "cold," except those poor folks who live in actual snow country would chide me, and deservedly so - I've had the heater running in my study, with the Rocket dozing before it, dreaming perhaps of fire. The cats are hungrier in the chill, and the Dead End Kids especially follow me into the kitchen crying loudly when I'm standing in the place where I stand to put up their food-bowls. Tuesday night I managed to step on Gus's tail when he was doing this; he yowled, ran about two feet away (so as not to lose his view of me standing beside the counter), and Apollo went over and washed his back for him, such an obvious, "There, there..." Apollo is such a good big brother to little Gus, it amazes me.

Final class of the semester last night. Finals Monday and Wednesday. Only one class Spring semester, and it's booked solid already... and we've all been warned, that the Department is now enforcing the school-wide cap on first-day enrollments, so I'll be forced to do the drawing-lots thing again, which always makes me feel terrible because so many get turned away. I understand the State is in terrible financial shape and must make cuts, but it's difficult to see how cutting college education opportunities is going to improve the state's tax-base five years down the road.

WoW: Quests tonight, (Thursday) 6 pm? I've tidied up my backpack (and found the head of somebody named Deepfury in it, somewhat mouldery with keeping, which has to be delivered...) (no WONDER that bag smelled...) and stocked up on mana-potions... Meet you all in the Park? Can't wait.

Amid all the fuss and fluster I completely forgot to mention that the second graphic novel in my series The Garden of Emptiness is out this month!

This is the series - from PennyFarthing Press - about Anne Steelyard, rip-roarin' rootin-tootin female archaeologist in the Middle East prior to WWI. The first of the series - An Honorary Man - came out last winter; I'm really curious to see the artwork on this one. Evil Germans and desert afrits and snotty upper-class English dowagers going on expeditions into the desert to find the Garden of Eden, whoo-hoo!

It's Thursday and as usual I'm physically trashed from teaching last night; most of Thursday I end up just resting and getting very little done, which isn't such a good idea this week because (yet again) I'm losing half my weekend to holiday Stuff. The cats, concerned lest I be oversleeping, all came up and sat on me at (co-incidentally) breakfast-time.

A small and homey local convention - and good to see friends. I could have done without a loudly electrified concert scheduled in the room next-door to a panel I was on - Karen Anderson was kind enough to go over and ask them to turn down the sound system, which they obligingly did - but otherwise an enjoyable time. Good chat-time in the Green Room with Harry Turtledove - whom I haven't seen probably since last LosCon - good to see folks like Tim Powers and his lovely wife, Karen Wilson and Chris Weber, and an extremely superhero-like Steve Barnes (who I think was Guest of Honor). It was Dress Like A Pirate Day at the convention, so since I have a pirate suit (voted Most Disgusting Pirate at the 1984 Anaheim Worldcon) I wore it.

In a VERY few weeks it will be Christmas - in even fewer, it will be finals. I'll try to keep posting, but even my reading time will be skimpy here for awhile, and I apologize for that. One thing I WILL do this weekend is get my Christmas Cards out - one of my friends mentioned a number of years ago that that was her policy: LosCon Weekend = Christmas Cards, and I know if I don't adhere to a policy like that it's not gonna get done.

And grade exams.

And do a boatload of laundry.

And look up how long it will take Asher and Ysidro to get from Warsaw to Prague on the train.