Aww, hell. I DID NOT NEED TO KNOW THAT!

I think maybe you did need to know that.

Could you maybe write about collaborative husband-and-wife authors like CL Moore and Henry Kuttner?

No, he wants a personal essay. And it's for his decades-long-running print 'zine, so he probably doesn't want to hear about my online people. I know what he really wants; he wants ego-stroking about how sci-fi fandom has been better than my blood family and stuck with me thru thick and thin, but except for a couple individuals, it's not true and I don't have those stories. I mean, I could go back 30 years and tell the story of how my SFF family saved me from my psycho stalker boyfriend, but I kinda don't want to. (Not without noting that without SSF I wouldn't have had the psycho BF.) Maybe I should just talk in general, about how I found my BFF through SSF, and my first real relationship, and my second one, too, and how my life wouldn't be the same without the people I've known, etc etc. Ugh.

Give him your essay, Zen, not what he wants.

I remembered to turn my alarm clock back on over the weekend

Show off! Gold star for you.

Joining msbelle. Hopefully in being productive, definitely in "Bleargh. Work. Cramps"

I am also smug about having gotten through my cramps over the holiday! Although that may not be anything to be smug about....?

Since I got my stuff completed for closing. I am now going to run old cat Oz back to the vet and see if they can figure out what is wrong with him.

Health~ma for Oz

Poor old Oz.

Hey, I think we count, Zen. ;)

PM, welcome back! Don't go away again!

And now three weeks of 5-day workweeks, how am I supposed to manage that? At least I'll have a couple of days of working the outlet sale in there, which is still work but is at least different and a change is as good as a rest, right? (No, it is not, but it is better than no change)

This is part of why I like my job--the traveling part can get old, but at the same time it means constant change of environment and people, which keeps it more interesting than going to the same office and the same people every day. (though in both cases the people can range from awesome to suck)

I hate when the pitches get too specific. Because I'm a writer, not paint-by-numbers.

I'm taking a kitty to the vet today, too -- we discovered last night that Slinky has an ingrown claw. It's not uncommon (among cats in general, I mean; this is the first time it's happened to her in 17 years), and when it does happen (to cats in general), it's often the dewclaw. But no, this is one of her middle toes, and the damn claw just grew right around and into the pad of her toe. And the thing is, she wasn't limping or fussing or anything -- we wouldn't have noticed it if she hadn't made a thump thump thump noise on the hardwood floor when she walked. We thought maybe she had something stuck between her toes.

And not realizing she had an ingrown claw makes me think we went WAY too long without trimming her claws (because we would have seen it before it in-grew if we had trimmed her claws on time) and makes me feel like a negligent crappy pet owner. Like, "Honey, how long has the dog been THE UNDEAD?" "Uh...I didn't notice we have a zombie dog. Shit."

So we go to the vet this afternoon to get it dealt with. On the upside, I got my hair highlighted and it is no longer dark dirty blonde but shiny beachy blonde, and I am vain enough that that makes me so happy.