those distant bells

It's almost the weekend...a concept that means so much more now that a weekend day is tangibly different from a weekday day. Sucks.

But it doesn't *really* suck. I'm finally feeling like I'm getting up to speed on my job and that I have a clear sense of what my mandate is (if mandates exist in a place as chaotic as this one) - and I'm also feeling lucky that I was there for seven years before, which made this ramp-up way, way easier than if I was coming in blind. If I sound exhausted all the time, though, it's probably because I'm living and breathing publishing in a way that I never was before. Both my day job and my writing job require a lot of creativity and thinking about the industry and researching what's going on, and I love all of it, but every single day is like a race to see how much I can accomplish on all fronts. And this will either make me amazingly productive and position me to be a leader in the entire publishing world someday...or it will burn me out and force me to live as a hermit in the wilderness. Which would be hard, since I would rather die than live in the wilderness. Iowa I can handle; foraging in true wilderness (or stealing food from people in the neighborhood), not so much.

sssanyway. The day job was good today, even if I had to get there at 8:45. I slogged hard all day, with a break for lunch with Alaska Matthew (who remains Alaska-y). I stopped at six, and was going to brainstorm a new series for forty-five minutes before eating dinner on campus, but instead [censored] with [censored]. Then I grabbed dinner, caught a shuttle (I have a v. love/hate relationship with the shuttle), came home, talked to Terry, etc., etc.

And now, I should sleep. But I may spend another ten minutes brainstorming, if I can muster the energy; I came up with a great idea as I was falling asleep last night, and upon ruminating over it during my spare brain moments today I like it even more than I did then, so I shall continue to ponder. Goodnight!