Saturday, November 30th, 2002 - Very Good Day Souffle So, I'm going to give you a rundown of today, to lead up to the topper, the creme de la creme, the thing that has me happier and more confident about my art than I've been in months. I'm telling you now because I want you to read down to it, or at least skim down so that you get my good news, because I've been so down lately I want you all to share in some loveliness for once. Hm, so I should start a couple of days ago, though I'll probably skim through the highlights to get to the good bits. Thanksgiving was lovely enough -- Tim and I woke up and snuggled together as we do almost every day, and he asked me what I was thankful for. "You." I said without pause. "I'm so thankful for you. My life has been hard lately, but in the past it's been better than this and I've been lonely and suicidal and miserable. You make everything better, even the really hard parts; I don't know what I'd do without you." And then I asked him the same question, and got a very similar answer. We're grateful for one another, and that feels comforting, as it should be. There's a longer list we gave to each other over the course of the day, but we're number one on each of our lists, and that's what really matters right now. Friday we ran errands in Berkeley, where we froze our YMCA membership and paid the dues on our PO box. While checking the PO box we found a package of cheer and prezzies from Jon which brightened our day considerably. We have good readers; we're thankful for you guys, too. So, today. Today Tim finally did his formal proposal. We went to the sammitch shop, where we bought our favorite sammitches and yummy drinks. Tim put them in a lovely picnic basket we inherited from Karen, and we headed over to the Oakland Rose Garden, which he chose because it was where I took him on our very first date, when we read poetry to one another and stole kisses under my floppy green hat. Today we spread out a blanket, ate our sammitches and inhaled the surprisingly still-strong scent of roses. A man with a European accent walked by and commented "Ah, some people really know how to live!" After lunch, Tim warned me that there was going to be a presentation and related materials, a quiz, then a formal proposal, and I should wait until the formal proposal to answer. I got kind of nervous, because man, what if he had contracts for me to initial today? Anyway, I needn't have worried. He read me a very sweet poem (which made me cry, of course), which ended with the question. He told me not to answer yet, and then presented me with the quiz. He'd taken back the ring earlier in the day (I was just borrowing it until today, when I got it formally). He held out a plain white jewelry box in one hand and a plastic egg from a gumball machine in the other. "Knowing me," he said, "which of these do you choose?" I immediately chose the egg, and opened it to find his tiny wooden boat encircled by my ring. "Will you sail around my life with me?" he asked me. I started to say, "Yes, I will. Of course I will." and some other eloquent phrases when he said, "Wait, don't answer yet! Just in case you were stumpted, I came up with a list of possible answers for you to choose from." He then handed me a piece of notebook paper with three options: a "roses are red" rhyme, a suitably dirty limerick and C) Yes. I laughed and chose C. We snuggled and kissed and Tim read me some poetry for a bit. I scouted the place as a possible wedding location (I'm thinking yes on this, by the way; it's perfect in so many ways and it even has a "wedding terrace" which we sat above while we picniced today). Then Tim dragged me home where we had a lovely frollick together. Feeling all warm and fuzzy, I took my laptop upstairs to Tim's room (where I get more work done) and sat and revised WWW12 for a good while before our dinner date with Susan (who was taking us out just because she's a good friend, a groovy person and her mother works for a dentist . . . long story). It was feeling like a perfect day, and we got to top it off with sushi and Susan, one of my favorite combinations of all. Susan ordered a nice big carafe of hot sake, and insisted Tim pour a little into a cup so she could make a toast. Expecting an engagement toast, we raised our glasses grinning widely. "I just wanted to toast to the fact that I'm sitting at this table with two Strange Horizons fiction authors." Well, I was squealing with joy before she was even done and hugging her soon after. They had decided to accept my story, "Famishing" the night before, but she had had Jed wait to send my acceptance until after tonight so she could tell me at dinner! Let me repeat, I sold a story to Strange Horizons! This is a pro market, y'all. This is my first pro sale. Not only that, but this is a market I enjoy the most, the one that I think does some of the most interesting, important work around these days (and, no, I'm not just saying that because I'm friends with many of the staff). I'm so very proud to be in Strange Horizons. It's a very tough market to crack, and I wanted to more than any other market. And I did! With a story I love, which I think will get me some good attention! I'm going to be read by lots of people who have never heard of me! I am so fucking excited! I think I disconcerted the staff at Drunken Fish, as they kept looking over every time I'd remember about the story and jump up and down in my seat, squealing happily and flapping my hands. Susan seemed very pleased that I was so happy about this and Tim, oh, folks, Tim just beamed with pride at me. The look of admiration and love coming from him was icing on the sale. The joy Susan got from telling me about it, the pride of my fiancee, and yummy, yummy fish. Man, I don't think you get a better first pro-sale than this. It rocked. It was trancendent. It was absoluetly fucking lovely. Ahhhhhhh. A very fine day, indeed! Man, I needed this. I sold to Strange Horizons! I'm engaged to an amazing man! Tell me how happy you are for me! Whoo!

Exercise Log: Dancing with joy. Shagging. Writing log: Hee! Read the entry! Great news! Some revisions on "WWW12" that I'm very happy with. Current Publications: In the Shade of You nominated in the long poem category for the Rhysling and will be reprinted in the 2002 Rhysling Anthology! "How to Suck" reprinted in From Porn to Poetry: Clean Sheets Celebrates the Erotic Mind I've been reading: Currently Reading: The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl by Tim Pratt Donate money to my teeth, my grad school application fees, our writerly projects (Floodwater and Flytrap!). Every little bit helps!

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