Very exciting, Sara!

Sorry, Tom. Good luck. Maybe next time just mail a card and don't call?

Good stuff, Burrell!

Good lord, Ginger. What a thing.

I'm sorry you are in that situation, Tom. Can you not think about it until it's upon you? I know that's not easy to do and maybe not actually helpful, but it would be nice if whatever unpleasantness tomorrow brings didn't bleed over into today.

Way to go, sarameg!

I like -t's suggestion, Tom, and also? Have a script. When it deviates in a negative fashion from script, return to script until script is done and decamp.

Tom - I do not at all like that she has put upon the equation of calling with caring. You know what? You care about yourself also and you finally are in a place where you will put your emotional well being first sometimes. How would she like it if you said to her, "well, you don't care about me if you call just to yell at me"?

Tuesday's dental work didn't resolve all the mouth pain. At first I thought my mouth was just sore from all the work done, but it hasn't faded at all. I've been living on Ibuprofen and Orajel for the last few days. I'll leave a message tomorrow and hopefully can get in early on Monday.

It is so frustrating cause I can't narrow it down to which tooth. My bottom molars have had root canals and the front teeth didn't show any problems when the xrayed them last week. But I can tell immediately when the Ibuprofen has worn off.

Not on the level of many other Buffistas but had a stressful few days, though have now gotten it straightened out. I had an article accepted last year in a peer reviewed journal. They have a policy that while, for understandable reasons, they don't want accepted articles released into the wilds of the internet, they are fine with an article author writing another article covering the same topic. Thursday I got a nastygram from them telling me I had released the article into the wild and to take it down or they would not publish me. The article they referred to was actually a popular article on the same topic. So I sent them a link. They told me that they "understood" that the popular article I had published was the same one they had accepted with a new title. This time I sent them pdfs as attachments to the email of the article they had accepted and of the one I had posted. I asked them if she really thought the second was the same one under a different title or even too close to the first.I copied in the editor who was writing me's boss. Finally, Saturday afternoon, she wrote me to say that the two articles were different enough and that she would proceed with publication without taking the popular article down. She had sent me the nastygram without ever reading the popular article. Somebody must have told her they were the same, and she took their word for it.

So it is straightened out, but still did not need the addition to my stress level. Also, if an editor is going to charge her author with self-plagiarism and copyright violation, shouldn't she actually read or at least skim the supposedly plagiarized article?

Oh yes, that's on her, and very unprofessional at that.

Tom, want me to call your mother and explain what a negative feedback loop is? That every time she makes it an onerous burden to call her because she's nasty, that makes it less likely you are to call her? Because that's what she's accomplishing with her attitude.

HaHA! I got up, had breakfast, and then sat on the back porch to do my work, and now it's done! I knew it wouldn't take long, and sitting on the porch is very pleasant.

Yay porch sitting!

I am still having coffee and easing into the day before going for today's run. After that I will decide which of the many many things that need doing I will start with. But I have already finished off the rhubarb which feels like an accomplishment (it was supposed to be 1 serving, easily made 3, could have been 4. Hopefully I can remember that next time I have rhubarb to eat up)