I can't get any further from figure skating this month. I still have a pair of unmounted boots. I am still way over-weight. Now I'm all wet. See, I've lived about 4 blocks from the Midtown Community Center, which has a BIG pool, for about 2 years. Finally, I got down there and joined. Thanks to grandma for the cash, because God knows, I still seem to owe in every direction and that never ends!
At any rate, I have been going with GG (my oldest) to swim and take water aerobics every morning. At least we did last week. The end of this week, they had a swim meet that went the whole freaking weekend. No swimming or water aerobics for us.
Water aerobics?!
Yeah, you know, I like the same things about it as I like about skating. You stay cool while doing it. I HATE to sweat and I hate feeling as heavy as I am. The water bouys me up and makes me not feel so heavy... I mean, even whales can swim, right?
Unfortunately, my record for lap swim is 2. No, not 2 miles... 2. Laps. That's up from the beginning of the week when I swam 1.5 laps and then quit from exhaustion. The fact that it takes me 20 minutes to swim those 2 laps.... Don't laugh, at least I'm out there. It's not so much swimming as controlled drowning.
Yeah, that's it, controlled drowning.
As of last issue (I have delusions of magazinehood), I was wondering what I should do about this tech book deal on wifi. The original author dropped to 20%. Then he dropped out altogether. It was a few days before I heard back from my agent, and only because I asked, that the project had been canceled altogether. What a GREAT vote of confidence from the publisher! Ye ha!
Well, it's not so bad as all that. There's another orphaned book that wants to be written and I've tentatively signed on to it. For any of you familiar with Macs, there's a new feature in Tiger (Mac OS 10.4) called the Dashboard. It's basically a layer that holds little one purpose programs... desk accessories. Anyway, thse little buggers are simple to make conflagurations of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Yes, I realize I just started speaking g(r)eek.
Anyway, they are looking for someone to write this book on how to program these little things and I am thinking about taking it on.
Somebody shoot me now.
He does not so have to shoot me now.
He can wait til he gets home.
So the next installment in the saga of On the Edge. I called my agent after the 4th like he asked. I left a messsage. No response. So I waited a week and called again and left another message. No response. I waited another week and left a rather terse and kind of unhappy message with the new assistant that this was my THIRD call, and there has been no response to the other two.
And he claimed to be reading my book. He said that as a new assistant, he got to read a LOT of slush pile tripe&mdahs;please don't stone me if your masterpiece is languishing in a slush pile somewhere, been there, done that, got the freaking t-shirt. Anyway, they wanted him to get a chance to read something that came in the door that DID make it through. It was a tiny boost to my ego to be the one who made it... at least to be shown to assistants to say, "Now, THIS is what we're looking for."
The kid—he DID sound like early 20's—said he was about half way through the MS and really enjoying it. I didn't test him to see if he was actually reading it. I was too flattered. I suppose, that if he was leading me on, that he did a darn good job of appealing to my vanity.
Not that writers are ego-pigs. OH NO.
So this is a good thing, right? At least someone is reading OTE. Maybe it means I am not completely dead in the water yet. I would like to think I wasn't. I really, really, REALLY would. At any rate, the boy himself called me back and said that the Man Himself was out of town and would call me Himself towards the end of next week.
We'll see. I'm not planning any victory parties.
Am I the only person just slightly depressed about the release of Harry Potter IV. Oh, of course, I am slavering to read it with the other 10.6 million US fans. As an author, it depresses me....
Not that writers NEED a reason to feel depressed. OH NO.
We used to say, "There's only one Stephen King," by way of saying that most of us were never freaking going to make it anyway, so not to get crushed by having high expectations dashed against the hard ground of the book business. Well, old JKR has indeed raised the bar, don't you think? Having become richer than the Queen of England on her books. It should be inspiring... but there is only one JKR. And I don't see it being me any time soon.
Did I just depress you? Awwwww, poor baby. I try not to think about it too.
Exactly. I'll go buy my copy sometime next month. I have deadlines on top of my deadlines and can't afford to take the two solid days to read The Tome without sleeping. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to the new Rug Rats All Grown Up movie about herded ostriches.
Okay, so I'm trying to think of some more self-deprecating and snarky things to write today and can't quite come up with any. It's not that things are going so bad, it's that i feel so freaking awful.
A good part of that is strictly physical. In VA, July is high season for Crepe Myrtle. Supposedly, these showy bloomers grow as far north as Massachusetts, but I've never seen one north of Maryland. And damn, I'm glad! I am so allergic to these things, I spend the better part of June, July and August as a basket case with sinus headaches that get so bad I wanna puke. I spend the majority of the summer alternatley pushing myself to work and wishing I was somewhere else. Ie yi yi, I hate being so sick every year.
The good news is that we really only need to live here for another 6 years or so. Then Dh will retire from the Navy and we get to leave and go live where WE want to live. Of course, where we want to live is Tennessee... which has worse allergies and makes me sicker than ever despite not having crepe myrtle.
I think I'll just make myself a plastic bubble and live in it.
Well, I guess it is time to go get supper out of the pressure cooker. Hope y'all feel better than I do.
1 comment:
Doin' the phone tag game here too. Summer must be the agents oof months ;)
Post a Comment