Monday, May 19th, 2003 - Step away from the baby And here it is, another week gone by and no new entries from me. Journal Walker is now shaming those of us with entries older than 5 days old by noting that fact right there on the page for everyone to see. Eep! It's a good thing, really; I don't mean to update so seldom, it's just that life gets in my way. Guilt has been a wonderful motivating factor in this novel dare (link over there in the writing log). More than once, getting the email reminding me that my fellow dare-ers have completed their quota of words for the day has spurred me on to sit down and crank out a thousand or so myself. Go guilt! I'm about a quarter of the way through my YA novel, almost done introducing all my characters and setting and all that, about to get into the serious action. I can totally see where inconsistencies in novels come from now -- it's just too long, and unless you keep rereading the chapters and chapters you've already written, you're going to forget certain details, or forget you've already said that, or accidently contradict yourself. I've caught a couple of times I've done that already, but I'm sure there's more. And it's true that writing a novel is like driving at night -- you can only see what's right in front of you, but it's enough to keep you going until you get to your destination. All in all, it's pretty cool; I'm very pleased that I have so many words down, and hopefully someday I'll be able to revise them and make them into a real, honest-to-goodness YA novel, and hopefully it'll even be good! Tim and I have both been sick lately, though Tim has it worse than me. I've been sucking down Zinc, swallowing vitamin C and echinachea and drinking OJ and trying to sleep lots (though it's been difficult) and futilely trying to keep from coming into close contact with my fiance, so I'm only slightly sick -- enough to make me tired and cranky (though there are other forces at work here, too). I need to take better care of myself overall, it's true; I need to get to the gym more regularly and eat better. It's tricky, as Tim really believes that if there's not meat and/or cheese in it, it's not worth eating. I'm going to eat with Holly the week of Rio Hondo (while Tim is away) so I can remember what it's like to eat light; who knows, maybe I can influence Mr. Pratt into eating a bit better afterwards. So, this weekend we managed to get some stuff done we needed to, despite being hazy and ill. Our trips away from home each ended with us hurrying home again and not leaving the block for the rest of the day (there's a liquor store around the corner to which we run for milk, bread and other things we run out of). Yesterday we went to the laundomat with Holly and Aleister, which was harrowing. At one point I noticed that Holly had left the baby on the other side of the laundromat, and that a strange teenage girl was playing with him. I was asking Holly about this when he started crying, so I went over to rescue him (Holly was up to her elbows in wet laundry). This girl was holding the baby by his forearms and not letting go. Alarmed, I told her that he didn't like being held down, and when I got her to let go, I picked him up and cuddled him. The baby was (understandably) very upset, and the girl stood there staring at me until she was summoned to the other side of the laundromat by a woman who seemed to be in charge of a large group of teenage girls (group home laundry outing maybe? Sorta seemed like it). I was really upset by the whole thing -- I felt very protective of Aleister, and I didn't like this strange woman holding my nephew like that. Holly does the best she can, and she's told me before it's hard to laundry with the baby in tow, but I had no idea she meant that she sometimes had to leave him on the other side of the room (she never took her eyes off him or turned her back, but still). I guess I'll try to go with her to the laundry next time, or offer to sit for the couple of hours it takes her, 'cause I worry by nature and now I've got something even more to worry about. It occurs to me that Mom is going to freak out about this. Sorry, Mom. I spent a lot of time with Aleister this weekend, actually. Saturday night I watched him while Holly went out. Tim and I had other plans, but they involved being home and the baby was asleep, so we just brought the baby monitor into the bedroom. Those of you who are parents probably already know just how freaky baby monitors sound. Noises sound different, coming over those plastic speakers, and both Tim and I kept expecting to hear some creepy male voice saying something like "hush, little baby" coming from the thing. Holly warned me that the baby had, er, "orgasm radar" but he was good for us, and didn't cry until we were at the point where we'd be smoking ciggarettes (if we smoked, which we don't). Heathen (at work) tells me she thinks it's the "potential sibling" radar, which would explain why it didn't work on aunty and uncle. Comforting the baby was tricky. He didn't want his binky, didn't respond to the cuddling or the gently stroking of the cheek that Holly had recommended on her "list of what to do if he wakes up". I was actually already boiling water to heat up the frozen breast milk when I started singing to him. He twisted his head around and looked at me, as if he wanted to see who this person was who was singing to him. It quieted him down, though, and I got him to take his binky, so I didn't bother heating up the breast milk. It's very satisfying to get a baby to stop crying. Really, these are the exciting moments from my weekend. We forgot to go see The Matrix Reloaded, so we're going to be left out of those conversations at Wiscon this coming weekend. I drove the car and reveled in its nice-carness (we've named her Phobe, which is Saturn's sister). I loved on my man, I argued with him. We watched DVDs. We ate. The usual. Baby talk.

Exercise Log: Did some yoga for an hour Friday night, otherwise the usual walking. Haven't felt up to going to the gym lately, to tell the truth; must work on this. Writing log: Banging away at the YA Novel. Words written since last entry: 6,796 Current Publications: "Famishing" in Strange Horizons. My first pro sale! "Wetting the Bed" and a collab with Tim Pratt, "A Serious Case of Fairies" in Floodwater "How to Suck" reprinted in From Porn to Poetry: Clean Sheets Celebrates the Erotic Mind Currently Reading: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon Donate money to my teeth, my grad school application fees, our writerly projects (Floodwater and Flytrap!). Every little bit helps!

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