We so need to get the pictures from our trip to Canada developed. Niagara Falls is a beautiful natural wonder. You don’t really appreciate the power of that much water succumbing to gravity until you’re standing at the prow of a boat with white water roiling beneath you, spray churning around you, and the heavy roar of millions of gallons falling down towards you, glittering with a thousand tiny rainbows.

I’m on another new laptop – an early Christmas present from Hikaru. I’ve destroyed yet another one; my Dell just went belly-up last week, and I had a hell of a time recovering any data that wasn’t in my last backup. The new laptop is spiffy and sweet, and Hikaru is the most wonderful boyfriend ever for getting it for me. Now if only the touchpad wasn’t an off-brand rather than a Synaptics, as the drivers don’t include touchpad controls, I can’t turn off tap-to-click, and I’m going batsnot bonkers with my clumsy hands making it do a thousand things I really don’t want it to do. On the plus side, I’m exercising my creativity coming up with inventive new ways to curse the damned thing.

I’ve applied for a few editorial jobs, just supplemental income for my daily writing work, though a couple are full-time (so the writing would end up being my side work I’d do in off-hours). The full-time ones are actual office jobs, which gives me a little quake of fear. I haven’t done the office thing in years, and I’ll admit: I have a slight phobia of leaving the house for too long after my robbery-at-gunpoint incident, and especially of going places alone. But I think I can handle it, and it’d be good for me. Wish me luck that I get called in for an interview.

I need to update my “on the shelf” thing in the sidebar. I finished ELS ages ago, and it was a lovely book – well-written, imaginative, with wonderful characters and an amazing world. I’m currently reading The Evolution of God by Robert Wright; it makes me think of Sujit, oddly (only Sihaya will get that, I think).

Also, next month they announce the winners of the Esquire contest. I’m allowed to hope, right?

Guess who isn’t dead?

Oi, where in hell have I been?

Well, to put it shortly…

1. Tooth pain. Bad tooth pain. One of my molars is now nothing but an L-shaped shell that has blessedly been numbed entirely until I can get it pulled out.

2. Months of mental exhaustion from a combination of work and pain that tried to carve my brain cells out and eat them.

3. Months of playing World of Warcraft to distract myself from the pain, and then getting sucked in until it killed what few brain cells I have left.

4. My computer crashing constantly, which was 90% because of #3.

Basically I’ve been kind of slogging through life on auto-pilot. And I got entirely sick of it a couple of days ago. It feels like waking up from a dream where even in the dream I’m sleeping, but it’s good to feel alive again (and not to be in pain anymore, and not to be wasting any more time on a game that really can be like an addiction; I’ve 95% quit, and only log in for about 5 minutes a day).

I have been working on revisions in that time, though, and I’m almost done. I’m not going to start querying with the new version yet, though. I still have to proofread it with a fine-tooth comb, for one, and get some feedback from beta readers to see if it works or not. Also, I still have a couple of fulls out on the old version. It’s a one in a million shot that either agent will want to represent me (isn’t it always?), but should either of them express interest, I think it’d be rude to say, “Oh, you know that manuscript you just wasted a couple of days of your life reading? Well, I have a better one now. Sorry to waste your time!” If someone likes it as-is (well, obviously with revisions–there are always revisions once it gets into an agent’s hands, as they have the professional perspective to help shape it)…well, it’d be stupid not to trust their judgment.

Still, it’s a tricky situation. When I started querying, I thought I was ready. Someone asked about that in the Twitter #askagent chat last night, actually – about what to do when you thought you were ready to query, and then end up rewriting until it’s practically a different, better novel, and if it’s all right to requery. Most were pretty positively responsive, as long as you wait a decent length of time to requery. I don’t know. I don’t even know if I’m going to query with the new version. Depending on the response I get from the agents with fulls, I’ll make a decision on where to go from here.

I miss writing. I’ve been doing a few little drabbles the past few days; nothing really important, but just warming up unused muscles.

As if the entire ramble wasn’t random enough, let’s close off with a completely different topic:

I really wish people would stop making such a huge fuss about President Obama bowing to the emperor of Japan. When in Rome, people. When in Rome. It’s called politeness and mutual respect, and if we’re going to expect everyone to conform to our customs when on our soil, then we can have the courtesy to respect their customs when on their soil. It’s not a sign of weakness or deference, and the kind of close-minded centrism rising around that sentiment is why half the world hates us.

That’s all. So. How’re you? (…if there’s anyone even left in this ghost town…)