I'm writing the formal proposal which will go with the sample chapter and annotated table of contents. Sample chapter is pretty much done (thanks for the help, Amy, I think I fixed what needed fixin').

Formal proposal? So unfun. So very unfun. It's like writing your own job review. Bleh. But I plan to be really arrogant and all, "I RULE" about it. Still. Unfun.

I think I'm a big moron, though, Allyson -- did I send you back the original instead of the one with my comments on it? Feh. Anyway, good luck with the formal proposal. Very unfun, I know.

(Squeaking through with "currency"...How apropos!)

Social Change

It’s that time again. End of the month and the check’s late, again. Time to raid the change. I hold the jar, enjoying the heft for the last time. I think, as I always do, “Look at it all hanging out together. Check it out. Social change.” And promise again to find somewhere to use it, a promise unfullfilled until now. My mom doesn’t find our whisper-thin safety net funny. Not that I do...the wisecracks are just hard to turn off. It’s either that or contemplate being like some rich person’s crazy cousin living in their garage, and even puns are better than that.

Allyson, sent, very late last night. Please to excuse if incoherent.

Another squeaker!

Trust

The smell of the pastry was mouth-watering. I asked the baker, “Cuanto cuesta?” He rattled off a sequence of words. I thought I recognized “cien”—hundred—or was it “cientos”—hundreds, the plural?

Shopping in Jerez was part of our orientation tour. We’d been taught common Spanish phrases earlier in the week, including the denominations of the local currency.

I glanced in confusion from the change in my hand to the baker. Gently, he plucked a gold cien peseta piece and three smaller coins off my palm. We smiled at each other, completing our transaction in an unspoken currency—trust.

Tep, new topic? I just finished a grisly copyedit (after a marathon three-day edit) and I'm itching to drabble.

Need suggestions? I've got:

"heat"
"wicked"
two people in a cemetery
"growing"
one person exploring an attic
"toys"

Why can I never get formatting right the first time? Grrr.

I just sent all my R&RNF readers something. Input desired, please.

Also under the wire.

Coin of the Realm

It's nothing personal, they assure me. Disembodied voices over the phone tell me my life is about to change drastically, yet again, without my permission.

Nothing personal. The company's decided to go in a different direction. My services are no longer required.

It stings a bit nonetheless, of course. A cog being stripped out of the corporate machine still has some feelings. Inconvenient though they are.

Disposibility being the coin of the realm, though, I’m not as surprised as I was the last time.

So, I wrap up my ennui and my experience, and set out for the next camp.

I'm posting the new drabble challenge, but, for you last-minute "currency" posters, if you want to post it to the LJ community -- and, as always, I think you should -- by all means, PLEASE do.

That said....

Challenge #70 (currency) is now closed.

Challenge #71 is The Other Side. (And I just creeped myself out by remembering the Other Mother from Coraline. Eeep!)

Catch you on the flip side.

Journals from 1978

They promised me light. It was supposed to get easier.

Page: 19/10/78 - interesting day, think I'm pregnant, not happy with the library here in the London office.

Flip: I hate you. I hate you for leaving, hurting me, coming back, making it impossible for me to not love you, fuck you FUCK YOU.

Lighter? Easier?

Page: 25/12/78 - Christmas, Cornwall, good weather, dinner with Colin. Very hormonal, oddly weepy.

Flip: Why aren't you here? Why am I here without you, pregnant without you? How could you not be here?

The flip side? It's all about ghosts in the dark.