Category: essays

I’m Only Me When I’m With You

Operation Scooter is going well so far. He doesn’t run away when we get out the syringe, he’s eating the wet food–although he’s not eating enough, I don’t think–and we’ve successfully convinced him his tartar control dry food (which is what he used to eat) are treats. We’ve also noticed behavior change in him since we started the insulin; he seems more alert, more active, and his fur is softer and sleeker than it was. He’s also more affectionate than he has been for a while–he’s never been much of a “hey let’s play” cat; he just wants to cuddle and purr. He also doesn’t seem to be drinking as much water as he was–that was when we noticed the change; he was drinking more water and his litter box became insane to deal with–and so I’m pretty happy about the whole situation now. It doesn’t phase me anymore to get the syringe ready or give him the shot. We’re hoping he’ll do so well with the change in diet and with the insulin now that he won’t need the shots anymore in a few months.

I’m so glad this is going so well. As I mentioned before, we’re very close to the ten year anniversary of when we lost Skittle and Scooter rescued us, and losing him around this time would have been rough. It’s going to be whenever it does happen, regardless, but I’m delighted we are going to be able to enjoy Scooter cuddles for a while longer.

The weather–and daylight–have definitely changed around here now; last night it dipped into the sixties (I could tell; I slept deeply and well, and my bed was so warm and comfortable this morning I didn’t want to get out of it). I feel very rested this morning. Yes, I certainly could have stayed in bed for longer than I was able to, but the summer weather has definitely broken and we are now in our beautiful, marvelous, gorgeous fall. (It’s very dark outside my windows this morning)

I finished reading Patrick Ness’ Release last night, and it was quite marvelous. I am looking forward to putting my thoughts together about it into a blog entry–it definitely made me think, and rethink, a lot of what I knew, or thought I knew, about writing for the young adult market. I think next up on my reading is going to be John Vercher’s Three Fifths, which was an Edgar finalist for Best First Novel this past spring, and I’ve heard a lot of truly terrific things about it. I also got two Kindle books for a ridiculously low sale price–John Ball’s In the Heat of the Night (which the Oscar winning film was based on, and I think it won an Edgar Award) and V. M. Burns’ The Plot Is Murder, which looks absolutely delightful. I should really read more of the books on my iPad book apps, shouldn’t I? There are quite a few of them, and I keep acquiring more, and since I’m not traveling at all….

I also managed to get a lot of my email cleared out yesterday, which was not only productive but felt amazing. I don’t feel sleepy-tired today, either, which means I should have yet another productive day. Yay! I had a lovely day at the office yesterday–all of my clients kept their appointments, and that’s really my favorite part of my day job, helping people–even if it’s just in the small way that I can through my work. I enjoy those interactions with my clients; and I miss seeing clients every day. I’m not sure when or if I will ever be back to full time counseling, but I really do hope it’s sooner rather than later.

Paul didn’t get home until late last night, after I had already gone to bed–he’s working on grants and proposals–and I have to admit, I was plenty tired when I got home from work yesterday, which was why I read my book rather than doing any cleaning or writing or revising. Hopefully, he will be home at his usual time tonight–I just let music videos stream endlessly on Youtube on the big television while I read, and thought about Bury Me in Shadows some more. I pitched both it and the Kansas book to my publisher yesterday–biting the bullet and realizing the stress of a deadline is what I need to finish pushing through them and getting them both finished–so hopefully they will agree to take both books and I can get the contracts signed and the deadlines set relatively soon. I’ve still not heard back on the Secret Project, but I still have hope an offer might come through; although the longer it takes the less confidence I have that one will be forthcoming.

Worst case scenario: it’s turned down and I use the plot for another Scotty book. Worse things have happened.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader.

Out of the Woods

Yesterday was annoying and frustrating on several levels, and if you guessed that almost all of them were computer-related, you would be absolutely correct. But I did manage to get through the hump of Chapter 11, which was delightful, and now I can move on to Chapter 12, so progress was made. I also finished and posted my blog entry about being a shitty friend; so that was something else accomplished, and if I wasn’t really able to get through all those emails, oh well. I can try this week. And who knows? Maybe tomorrow morning my desktop computer will be functioning properly.

One can dream, at any rate.

I am just so tired of 2020 being, you know, 2020.

Heavy sigh.

I also had an almost-major kitchen catastrophe last night, too. Don’t ask, but suffice it to say it was very 2020; you know, shitty day, get it together, decide to just laugh it all off, and then BOOM! Grease fire! Although, in all fairness, I was just thinking the other day how long it had been since we’d had a fire of some sort in the kitchen, and I guess it was one of those Candyman things. So now I need to deep clean the stove at some point (hello, EZ Off and toxic fumes and chemicals!) and gradually get to real work on the deep cleaning of the kitchen that, in all fairness, has been overdue for quite some time. And at least I had dinner finished before the grease fire broke out.

Grease is the word, have you heard?

But, annoyances and frustrations aside, I did get some things finished this weekend, which was enormously lovely. As I mentioned earlier, Chapter 11 is finished (for now) and I started reading again; Release by Patrick Ness is quite good, and I also read one of Laura Lippman’s essays from My Life as a Villainess (and yes, it was actually a reread of her essay about being a bad friend that inspired me to write my blog post about being a bad friend in the first place, several years ago; I decided to reread it to make sure I wasn’t plagiarizing it, and found that her essay had very little in common with mine, so I went for it). It is lovely to be both reading and writing again, and I also managed to find the germs of an essay that I now have to write this week, and quickly; I knew the germs were there somewhere, but couldn’t find the file; having to mess around with both my work laptop and my MacBook Air yesterday actually helped me find said germs–I would have never found them because of what they were named; I would have never remembered that in a million years. So, overall, it wound up being a pretty decent weekend, LSU and the Saints losing (in almost identical games, which was quite odd) and grease fires and computer issues aside.

And at least I felt somewhat rested and relaxed yesterday morning before it all turned into a shitstorm. Despite this, I am hopeful this will turn out to be a highly productive week and I am able to keep the creative work going. I am hoping that all the bad karma worked itself out over the weekend, and I am facing this week with a good attitude and feeling relatively well rested this morning; not groggy at all, which is nice. I’ve got a cappuccino in hand, it’s pitch black outside, and I am giving my life a control-alt-delete reboot.

We also watched the new episode of The Vow last night–and it feels now like they are dragging it out to eight episodes when six would have been plenty. But it’s still entertaining enough–although scary to think had former Dynasty actress Catherine Oxenberg gotten involved because of her daughter, they could still be plying their merry cultish ways.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines and hope I have a terrific day–and the same to you, Constant Reader.