Author Archives: Eugie Foster

Our friend Paul is here!

I’m the only one awake right now. Hobkin is napping on my lap and the boys are still asleep. The house is so quiet, but with a full sort of quiet. It’s nice.

Traffic going into town was pretty congested on Friday when we went to pick Paul up from the airport. Matthew and I pulled into hourly parking a little after his flight was scheduled to arrive at the gate. I was a little antsy ’cause I didn’t want to leave Paul standing around at our predetermined meeting place wondering “Gosh, I wonder where Eugie and Matthew are.”

Matthew says: “Relax. Unless they throw him out of a window as soon as the plane pulls into the gate and he sprints to the terminal, he’s not going to be there yet.”

And, of course, we do indeed stand around for a couple minutes, discussing what flight the people mobbing the baggage claim carousel have come in from, before Paul steps up behind us.

Matthew proceeds to pat him down saying: “Hmm, no broken glass, no broken bones . . .”

I burst into laughter and then we have to explain to a somewhat perplexed (but accustomed to our antics) Paul what the joke is.

Paul brought a stack of DVDs he wanted to show us down with him, and so far we’ve seen The Royal Tenenbaums and Mallrats. (Paul’s a huge Kevin Smith fan.) Tenenbaums was a great romp, with jaw-dropping, macabre humor. We greatly enjoyed it. But, um, I’ll just be nice and say that Mallrats was not one of Kevin Smith’s better works. It was something we needed to see, though, in order to top off our Kevin Smith repertoire.

Hobkin really likes Paul, but nevertheless is completely stressed out at having someone new invading his territory. It’s worrisome ’cause Paul’s got the Animal Thang (*), and especially seems to have a rapport with skunks. Makes me anxious about how he’s going to be next week when we’ll be adding 2.5 more houseguests. (The .5 is ’cause one of our friends got a room at a close hotel for the duration of his stay just in case he turned out being allergic to Hobkin and needed a clean space to sleep.)

I’ve really missed Paul. We didn’t have any reservations about moving to Georgia when the opportunity to do so presented itself, except when it came to leaving behind some of the people. Paul is one of those people. A lot.

But he’s here now.

(*) Animal Thang – what I call the Zen that some people have with animals where they can understand and get along with them better than people without it.

Somehow or other, the last week hasn’t properly registered. I just looked up at my calendar, and realized it was August! How did that happen?

*Blink*

In other news: our friend Paul is flying down from the Midwest to visit us tomorrow. We’re getting a mini-exodus of folks coming in to celebrate Matthew’s birthday over the next week+. He’ll be joined by Max next Wednesday and then Mike and Patrick the following Friday. Gaming, hot tubbing, and an evening at the Shakespeare Tavern. Woo! Fun will ensue. And I must find some time to bake a cake . . .

Writing stats:
– Culled 1000 words in some heavy editing of “Only Springtime.” Another run through and I’ll toss up the revision to Critters for next week’s review.
– Speaking of Critters, Andrew’s doing a triple-week next week. I’ve got “Only Springtime” going in then, but I’ve also got my high fantasy story completed and ready to go. It’s in zero draft status now, but another day of work will get it into first draft shape. I was set to MPC it for the week of the 21st, but Andrew’s announcement means than if I wait, it won’t hit until September 4th. Otherwise, I can put it up with an MPC for next week for the triple-week, but that means I’ll have two stories in the same review batch, which I don’t like doing. Argh. I’ve got until the weekend to decide on how I want to handle that.
– And a veritable bevy of Critters used their MPCs this week. There are three people up for review just in the MPCs alone that I want to do, including prosewitch‘s.

This is going to be a heavy crit and re-write week, I see.

Yesterday was a blah day. I accomplished nothing and felt grumpy while doing (or rather not doing) it. But fortunately I groked the error of my ways before I’d spiraled too deeply into my pit of grumpitude. The problem was, I’ve been trying to pull back on the caffeine throttle and apparently when I do that I lose any motivation to function productively.

One steaming cup of java later and I’ve:

– Assembled submission packets for and mailed off two stories into the market place.
– Cranked out 3000 words on the zero draft of the high fantasy piece I’ve been working on. It’s now at 7500 words. And draft zero is complete! Huzzah! It will need tweaking and editing, and first readering before it makes it to draft one status, but I suspect I’ll get it up to the Critters queue in a few days. I’ll probably MPC it for the week of the 21st.
– Discovered that my training class will be a 3-day rather than a 5-day class. Huzzah! Have since ragged corporate travel to change my itinerary accordingly.

Not too shabby for one little cup of coffee. And my headache’s gone too.

Matthew and I went out and bought a new couch today for the great room. It was impulsive, unnecessary, and extravagant, but we did it anyway.

Sometimes, a person’s just gotta buy a big ticket item, just so’s they can maintain their obligatory debt quota.

Got forwarded an e-mail from a fellow animal rights activist. I can’t believe that people’s actions can still surprise and appall me. And yet.

This is excerpted from an email from Mary K. Van Dahm of the Ferret Advice and Information Resource Society/Sanctuary. Some bastard just left a store full of animals to die of thirst and starvation:

“Recently we also helped rescue a bunch of animals from a pet store that had closed down. The owner just locked the door and walked away – leaving the animals behind to starve to death. Someone finally called the police, who broke in and found the animals. All of the puppies and kittens were already dead. So were the birds and most of the larger animals. Three ferrets, two rabbits and an assortment of small rodents survived. Thankfully the ferrets were able to be placed right away. The rabbits unfortunately were too sick and had to be put down. The rest of the rodents came to my house until we could find homes for them. While we have found homes for many of the males, most of the females were pregnant, which compounded the situation. We are still looking for homes for 3 guinea pigs, 6 golden hamsters, 4 dwarf hamsters, and 18 gerbils. A few other rodents will be put in our foster home system due to injuries they sustained while fighting for food or territory during their ordeal at the pet shop. Since we were not set up to take in so many rodents, we had to buy tanks and cages for them, food dishes, water bottles and food. Some of them needed veterinary care so we had to pay for that, too. At any rate, our association is financially in dire straits right now and we still have animals that need continued medical attention. Any donation that you would be willing to give would be greatly appreciated. You can make it payable to FAIR and send it to our P.O. box listed above or make it payable directly to our veterinarian – The Midwest Bird & Exotic Animal Hospital; 1923 S. Mannheim Rd. Westchester, IL 60154”

Maybe it’s the weather, or maybe I’m just tired, or maybe I’ve been too sedentary of late and it’s finally catching up with me, but I’m feeling dispirited. (Ever notice how many sad words start with “d”? Discouraged, depressed, disheartened, downcast, dejected, daunted, doldrums . . . )

Today is really dragging–oh look, another “d” word–and all I want to do is curl up with Matthew and Hobkin, and tune everything else out.

Glad it’s almost the weekend. Very glad tomorrow’s my day off.

I heard a little blurb on NPR via shower radio this morning and it made me grin. I wanted to post a link to the story here, but I can’t find any write-up online. Guess it was too small for them to bother with. Or maybe it hasn’t been posted yet (since it was just this morning).

Anyway, some Alaskan fishermen caught a Humboldt penguin in their nets and when they reeled it in, they were like: “It’s a penguin. Wow.” In probably bears mentioning that Humboldts are not indigenous to Alaska, but rather hie from South America around the coasts of Chile and Peru. The NPR guys were talking about how the penguin managed to make it to Alaska, and said that it’s probable that it hitched a ride.

I immediately thought of Opus on some sort of pilgrimage. *Giggle*

Thank you NPR and Berkely Breathed.

Writing stats:

2000 words on High Fantasy work (!).
400 words on funky Dark Fantasy hybrid thingy (sigh).

My creative process remains a mystery to me.

Lady Inspiration is a fickle slut. My muse has decided that no, she would not like to finish the high fantasy piece we have neatly outlined and set to go, but instead, she would like us to work on this slipstream modern mythos fantasy fusion thing that popped into her (our) head as I was driving home from work last night.

Dammit.

Part of it’s my own fault. I should never outline, apparently. As soon as I know exactly where and how a story is going to go, I lose interest in it. Or maybe I should just never try to write high fantasy.

On an up note, I’m over 2000 words into the slipstream modern mythos fantasy fusion thing. They just poured out of me, easy as smiling. Not sure where it’s going, but I like what I’ve got so far.

Damned slattern muse. Oh well, at least she’s still sitting on my lap and not larking about with some other writer. Take what I can get.

Just got confirmation from Corporate Travel for my itinerary for my training trip back to HDQ. It’s getting to be old hat, these jaunts back. Still don’t like ’em, but can’t complain too much. Telecommuting from Georgia is just too sweet a benefit and at least when they send me back, they shack me up in a luxurious suite (complete with a fireplace and kitchen!) and I get to visit old friends.

Weekend was quite productive and enjoyable. There were many chores done, and the looming necessity of having to don black vinyl fun-wear as my only clean clothes option for work has been unloomed.

Monday mornings are never great, but this is my short week, so I’ve only got to hang on until Thursday, and then it’s a three-day weekend. Huzzah.

I keep wondering if I should switch from my current 9/80 week to a 4×10. Except the appeal of having a three-day weekend every week instead of just every other week is mitigated by having to work ten hour days. Hrumph. Will continue pondering–undoubtedly indefinitely and will thereby just keep on keeping on with my current schedule.

Purr, hmm. Last night, Matthew and I had ourselves a mini-party. We bought some decadent Bunny Tracks ice cream, poured ourselves some alcohol-laden beverages, and had a big screen movie-thon in the home theater upstairs. Stargate first, then Big Trouble in Little China. Much giggling ensued. There was some talk about either The Thing then or Escape from New York but after two flicks, I was too tiddly to handle any more Kurt Russell. Hobkin almost had his first taste of Guinness-wanna-be beverage, but paper towels were faster than the inquisitive fuzz-head. He’s far too young to be drinking.

Pity it was too warm to hop into the hot tub; that would’ve made it perfect. But it takes too long for the A/C unit in the sun room to cool the place down. Should’ve got a bigger one when we built the thing. Ah well, live and learn.

Post 2nd flick, I slumped over on the couch, undoubtedly still giggling softly, and Hobkin curled up with me in his favorite spot–nuzzled up against my neck. Y’know, when he was one and a half pounds, curling up at my throat was cute and cuddlysome, but when he’s cresting four pounds and up, it’s a little strangley. But still cute.

Eventually I exhaled enough alcohol from my system to stumble with Matthew to bed, whereupon I slept in! Woohoo! (Okay, I woke up–briefly–to feed Hobkin breakfast, but then I was able to get right back to sleep.) I haven’t been able to sleep past 7am in ages! Two cheers for better living through fermented vegetable matter.

So, today, I’m going to brew up a lovely pot of tea to tempt my muse (mmm, sikkim), and write.

There’s much to be said of the virtue of lazy Sundays.