Paksworld

Yesterday, Tuesday,  I finished the short-short (currently titled “Point of Honor” and I don’t know when it will appear), the intro for the short-short, and about half the essay, which I then looked at with utter loathing.  It may’ve been the headache.   New glasses last night make for better seeing, though not yet (thanks to many other things on the to-do list) to a lot more done on the book.  Less squinting, though.

While at the mall bookstore (a Borders) day before yesterday, after putting in my request for the new glasses at the optician’s a few stores away, the store manager had asked if I’d be willing to do a signing.  I said sure (as in, “Does water run downhill?”)  and she said “Let’s do it on a military payday weekend,” and I said “That makes sense.”

Surely you spot the flaw in this progression…no?   Well both of us were supposed to have gone through layers of Corporate before we–the people most involved, who will actually be there–could even meet.     Corporate A (publisher’s publicity rep) talks to Corporate B (bookstore chain HQ) and then tells writer C  “Be there at X.”  Corporate B talks to store manager and says “Writer C is coming at X.”    It’s chain of command stuff, in corporate terms.

Sigh.  This store manager and I have known each other for years–at least in the bookstore/writer way–and we were both right there, face to face,  arranging something convenient (and profitable) for both of us.   We thought. Very much sergeant from A and sergeant from B getting together and swapping out stuff they don’t need for stuff they do.   Illicit, complicit, and…it works.    If you don’t get caught.

Then I headed for the eye doctor’s, to order the other glasses (I need more than one pair–I just wanted one pair quick, before this weekend’s convention.)   Then on to the city to a list of  things unobtainable elsewhere.  Forgot cellphone.  Stopped a friend’s house to call home and say “Not available by cellphone) and when I stepped outside it was sleeting.  Sleeting! It wasn’t supposed to sleet until late in the night.  But it was, with the occasional snowflake.

Down to Lamme’s Candies for Valentine’s and other gift stuff.  Across to Mission Restaurant Supply for long overdue Christmas present (large steel bowls for meat grinder to put meat into.)   Up to REI for new long underwear and fleece socks (for slippers.)   Farther north for printer ink cartridges (bought wrong kind, darn it!) and gas.  Then home, by which time it wasn’t sleeting where I was (good!)   New glasses a big help–much clearer vision than before.

Now–at 5:30 pm–I can finally start writing, if my brain has any functional neurons left.   Must go to bed early, because must get up at 5 am to drive offspring 20 miles to the bus terminal (hoping it’s not sleeting/snowing/ice-storming on that stretch at 6 am.)