The Petty Tyranny of Possessions

After work yesterday took I took my (still nameless) car to Charlie's Subaru in Augusta, because the check-engine light came back on, curst device. There were a couple other matters that needed attention, too, which are now taken care of and the car is back in my hands, considerably improved in behavior.

In the meantime, my favored pocket watch -- well, belt-loop watch -- had some time ago run its battery out, and had been sitting on the kitchen table waiting for me to get around to buying it a new one, which I hadn't done because I Am An Indolent Author and besides, I have another, though less-favored, belt-loop watch that was still doing its job.

This morning, I reached into the jewelery box for the everyday silver crescent, only to discover that the o-ring that (ought to be) hooking the rest of the chain to the magnet had gone missing sometime after the last time I'd worn it. Muttering, I put the necklace on the kitchen table with the dead watch, found another necklace and went to work, only to find, once there, that the back-up belt-loop watch was now out of battery and Rolanni had no working timepiece.

Sigh. I will go to Waterville tomorrow after work and attend to these minor chores. No, really. I will. Also, I need to stop by Goodwill and see what they may have in the line of men's suit vests. Might as well make an afternoon of it. I'm sure, if I put my mind to it, I can think of something that I must have out of Sign of the Sun.

In the meantime, since we were in Augusta and all, Steve and I stopped once again at Barnes and Noble and yea, Fledgling had arrived in-store only that afternoon -- at approximately the time I was getting off work, in fact. We signed all four, and I hope and trust that they will not long tarry on the New SciFi shelf, but will speedily find convivial homes. And that B&N will remember to reorder.

Now, dishes! And dinner! And finishing the book I'm reading so that I can start reading another.

Books Read in 2009

The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Laurie R. King
Larklight, Philip Reeve (decorated throughout by David Wyatt)
Sabriel, Garth Nix
New Amsterdam, Elizabeth Bear
The Mirror Prince, Violette Malan
Narbonic Six, Shaenon K. Garrity
Conspirator, C.J. Cherryh
Thirteenth Child, Patricia C. Wrede
Nine Years Among the Indians, Herman Lehmann, J. Marvin Hunter, and Dale F. Giese
The True Meaning of Smekday, Adam Rex
Edison's Eve:  A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life, Gaby Wood
Undone, Rachel Caine
From Dead to Worse, Charlaine Harris
Shambling Towards Hiroshima, James Morrow
Codespell, Kelly McCullough
Cybermancy, Kelly McCullough
Carousel Tides, Sharon Lee (manuscript)
Fine Prey, Scott Westerfield  (re-read)
Web Mage, Kelly McCullough
Uhura's Song, Janet Kagan

In Which Time Flies

A magazine has written this evening, asking for a photo. We, of course, have no recent photo of ourselves and have spent the last, oh, hour, looking for a photo of the two of us together in which we look somewhat older than 12.

We did find a couple pictures -- one of us (as Writer Guests of Honor) at the stuffed animal tea at Penquicon 4.0, April 2006. That's...only three-and-call-it-a-half years ago. It seems like a decade, what with everything that's happened.

...and here I thought we lived a bucolic existence in the country, occasionally tearing ourselves away from milking the hummingbirds and slopping the cats to scribble a few lines which we send on to Madame the Agent, so she can spin them into gold.