I am sick. I hate being sick. I'm so weak I have to sleep/lie on my bed for an hour before I can do a half hour's worth of activity. I also look like crap, which is not good given that I have an apt. for my headshots to be taken today at 4:40pm. But I wrote close to seven pages the last two days, thus proving I am a real writer. If I can be disciplined when all I want to do is roll into the fetal position and die...then I am a real writer. Even if everything I wrote will probably end up getting cut/re-written anyway :)

Oh, and I couldn't find a sub to teach on Monday, which means I will have to run from picking my brother up at the airport to teaching in Boston. Kick-boxing, while I'm sick. Yeah. Shoot me now? Please? :) Hopefully by then I'll be feeling better. Actually, I am, I ate some oatmeal - and kept it down! - and have started to feel like I'm not as close to death's door as I thought I was. And I rented two most probably awful movies to watch tonight. And am refusing to feel guilty about wasting my time on the latest action-plotless-zero-character-development-with-token-big-breasted-female-sidekick-flick. After all, I wrote (now) close to ten pages in the last two days. And I'm getting closer to the first hundred pages/fourth of the book being done. That's the easy part, though :)

Need to go lie down again. Bye.

- D

Good Dena! (pats herself on the back).

I finished edits of Soul Stone today. You may now join me in singing the Hallelujah chorus. Of course, I realize that this is a temporary reprieve...but it feels nice just the same ;P And I wrote almost four pages in Magpie. Yeah, pages! I am a real writer, after all :) Posted the latest chapter to the OWW and am waiting - fingers crossed - for the first crit.

Made an apt. to have headshots taken this Sat.

Went to a potluck last night and had a lot of fun. The food was great - poulet fines herbes, crab wellington, all this fancy stuff that people made from scratch. And there's me with my half a batch of brownies from the box ;P Ah, well. Elaine's condo is gorgeous, the wine was good, I talked to a couple of my friends I hadn't seen in a while and got to know at least two girls better who seem really cool. So maybe I'll have someone to hang out with again. Had to say good-bye to Anna, which was very sad. Neither of us wanted to let go :( But I know I'll be going down to Chicago to see her eventually. It's not the same as having someone there every week, though.

And then I went home and crashed. Woke up feeling like someone hit me with a mac truck. I think the cold's winning :( I may go home from work early, just because I'm really feeling the need to sleep for hours. And I don't want to be sick when my nephew's here. And I have this audition in a week...that I have to sing at...and since I don't think they're looking to cast Kermit the frog...I need to get better. Oh! And I have to make a voice lesson apt.! But I remembered to pay my car pyt. today! Sigh. Do you ever have one of those weeks/months when you feel like yelling - "Stop the ride, I want to get off!" That's me right now.

- D

Whew!

I'm mentally exhausted. I think I've been working on Soul Stone for over four hours. The majority of the day, at least. I re-wrote the ending, took care of lots of nitpicks, and basically took a machete to the manuscript. It feels good, in a weird sort of way, because most of the tough stuff is out of the way. Only now I'm worried about continuity - ie, is something I reference in one scene now no longer in the manuscript? or, does this still make sense? - and too close to the manuscript to see it for myself. I'm e-mailing all the changes I made home and combining it with the changes in the manuscript on my hard-drive at home tonight. Then I'll print it out tomorrow and ask my roommate to read over it. She's really good about catching those continuity things. The manuscript is still too long for YA, about 57,000 words, but I'm thinking that might be all right. The word counts are flexible, and the story has been pared to the minimum I could do, IMO, while still having it make sense. It's only fifteen pages longer than the revised Shapeshifter's Quest, so hopefully I'll be okay. I can't wait to put the damn thing in the mail.

I believed in the story, and still do, but I don't think I'm going to tackle a "re-writing/expanding" from an old manuscript project again :P

But - yeah! - almost done!

Did something soooo embarrassing today. My phone rings at 12:22 and it's my boss at the gym. "Hi Dena. Did I forget that you have a sub today?" Nope, I'd lost track of time while editing and had forgotten to go over to the gym to teach! I threw on my jacket (snowing in Boston - again -grrrr!), grabbed my gym bag and booked it over there. I felt so bad. I was only fifteen minutes late, but still! How spacy can you get?

Have to go to a potluck tonight for my small group bible study. Two of the girls are leaving. I made brownies on Monday but have already eaten half the batch, so I'm bringing a tupperware container with five brownies in it ;P I am a dork! But I'm just hanging out at work until it's time to head over to Cambridge. I've got two hours to kill, which sucks, but I didn't feel like going all the way home and then driving back into the city.

Found a place to get headshots taken - thanks Eric, you rock! - and am hoping to get over there Thursday night. Except that I look my best right after I've done my hair/make-up in the morning, not after a long day at work. And I have a huge zit by my mouth :( So maybe I'll wait until Sat., by which time it may have cleared up. Course, by then I could have another one...sigh. Do you know what's one of the most frustrating thing of being in your twenties? Buying both zit and wrinkle cream! I mean, come on, already! That's just not fair!

And - in the "I am a blonde" department - I realized today that I forgot to pay my car payment this month. Why? Because two weeks ago my checkbook fell out of my open purse in my car and I just scooped it up and threw it in the console. So every time I remember I have to pay that bill, I don't have my checkbook on me! I'm writing this in part in the hopes it will help me remember tonight to put my checkbook back in my purse. But I'm not holding my breath on that one :P

Wow. I am a space cadet. Must be the cold I'm fighting. (Hear that, cold? I'm fighting you! That means you are not yet victorious and I am not sick! So there! Get back, cold germs, back, I say!).

Uh, I think I'll go do something intelligent now. Just to prove to myself I'm not losing it :)

- D

A girlfriend of mine sent me this quote. Maybe this explains it...

"I think - therefore I'm single. - Lizz Winstead."

:)

Whew! Long and busy weekend :)

Friday: The show went well and was fun to do. Afterwards, a bunch of us (Moriah, Dave, Annelisa and Michele) headed over to Burkowski's for food - yummy! - and alcohol. Then we hooked up with Joel (he was dropping the Conservatory kids off) and went over to Dick's Last Resort. Got there just in time for last call but couldn't drink my beer fast enough so I made Joel finish it for me ;P I'm a wimp, I admit it.

Saturday: Woke up around 11am, early for me ;), and called Lisa. She very sweetly offered to drive me over to the mfa so I could park at her place (and thus not have to pay for parking at the mfa). So I drove into Boston, parked, and she drove me over to the musuem and got me in for free (thus saving me $15! Thank you, Lisa :)) I spent three hours doing research. They have a huge Asian arts section and I found a lot of the information I needed for my book. Sketched a few vases, tea bowls, and other items that I'll use as setting details (I use the term "sketched" loosely. I am NOT an artist ;P) and took notes on a lot of the displays. I was greatly inspired and wrote four pages in the dressing room while getting ready for the show. It went fabulously well, Jess and Mike came and they both loved it. Afterwards we tried to go out but couldn't find parking, so we ended up at Mike's with a bottle of wine and Chinese take-out. Joel was supposed to join us, but got lost :P, and since he'd had an absolutely awful day, he just decided to go home and sleep. Which was probably wise, since we were all up until 4:30am! Jess and I crashed in Mike's bed while he and Joe took the two couches.

Sunday: Woke up :( Not fun. Went to Jess's to shower and borrow clothes and sneakers, then followed her car over to Artesani Park for the MS Walk. It was a sunny but windy day, but at least it wasn't rainy. Doing the walk - all three miles of it - was a bittersweet experience. It made me think of so many things that I'd pushed out of my mind for a long time. Like Matt (my ex, who has MS), what happened in our relationship, and how much I hope he's doing ok. And that they find a cure. One of the hardest things to deal with in growing up - IMO - is learning to hold people with an open hand. To be grateful for the time God puts them in our life without holding them too tightly. Being able to let go when it's time for them to leave, even if we don't want them to. That was a tough one for me to learn. Learning how to lose, and lose, and lose all the people you love without growing bitter or angry, and then having the courage to go out there and love someone new. So, obviously, I was in a pensive mood for our last show ;P

The energy was a little scattered, and I screwed up one of the dance numbers, but other than that it went well. It was just sad to think this was the last time we'd be running these numbers. Afterwards I talked briefly to my friends who came to see it (thanks guys!) and then dropped Eric off at the T. Talked briefly to Joel, but I was in a weird mood, and he was in a weird mood, so it did not go well. Or maybe I should say...I didn't know how to read him. So I don't know if we'll keep in touch now or what. I'm cool either way, though of course I'd rather have a friend ;) Then we had the cast party, but a lot of people had to take off, so I left kind of early and got home by nine. Checked e-mail, folded clothes (so that I'd have a bed to sleep on), and crashed. Hard core. Walking three miles, running a show, and hanging out on the amount of sleep I got (and with the slight hangover I had) does not make for a happy body :P

And that's about it. I'm still in that pensive, contemplative mood, over-analyzing and over-reacting to everything, so we'll see how today goes. I have to teach, and I'm sore from all that walking (you think you're in shape until you do something different! :P), but hopefully it will go well. I'd like to finish editing Soul Stone (yup, still not done) and work on Magpie tonight. Definitely going to spend the evening in quiet activities. It's 10am and my bed is already calling to me! :)

- D