Yikes

Posted on June 19, 2012    Posted by      82 Comments

I think all the travel fatigue I’ve been putting off has finally caught up to me. I feel like my brain has just turned into cement.

While I sit here in a daze, tell me: How are you?

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82 Comments on “Yikes”

  2. Tired… after a day of herding teenagers who did not want to be herded… but it still probably does not compare to the effects of jet lag…

  3. Excellent. My Kickstarter for my crazy 12 for ’12 plan ended Sunday night and broke all expectations. Hope you’re rested and back at it again soon!

  4. Awesome. I have no work today (subject to change), money in the bank, and nothing but a blank word processor with a nice unfolding story in front of me. The weather in so cal is lovely, and the cats are sleeping.

    Sorry to hear about your cement troubles. Perhaps Jimmy Hoffa has been dumped between your ears. ;)

  5. I’m pretty excited.. for tomorrow I head to MN to prep for 4th Street!

  6. Looking forward to vacation, starting tomorrow.

    Anybody have any restaurant recommendations in Boise, Idaho? I hear that it is a hotbed for Basque food.

  7. Pretty good. The students and most of the teachers in the schools I support are gone for the summer, so now I get to really accomplish some stuff. Lots of computer re-imaging in store for me over the next five weeks or so.

  8. Still a little dazed myself. Our twin toddler daughters woke us up Sunday night/Monday morning and so we only got 4 hours of sleep, and then one of them was sick and we had to take her to the doctor. So it’s only Tuesday and yet I’m still recovering from all that.

  10. Oh yeah… I’ll also have four day work-weeks and a full week of vacation in July, so that means some more time to spend with our 11-month-old son and hopefully some time to work on my novel too!

  13. Pretty good. Just purchased fancy pasties and “fashion tape” for some finishing touches on my Mermaid Parade costume. I mean, a day with pasties is a decent day, right?

  16. Reasonable, myself. My four-month-old, however, is letting me know in no uncertain terms that he did not enjoy this morning’s immunizations.

  19. Pretty good–end of school celebration for my now 1st and 3rd graders complete; wife just called from hospital to say biopsy of mass on spleen completed without excessive red gushy stuff; high confidence non-malignant and coming home tomorrow, and baby is not sick today!

  20. Um. In a daze. feverish. I have a cold and came home form work beacause I wasn’t getting any work done and could hardly focus.

  21. Doing well, my 3 mo old actually slept most of the night. Trying to decide between self-publishing or sending submissions to a publisher. Glad to see more of my wife now that she has returned to work (we work in the same office). And looking forward to picking up my son from daycare in a few hours.

  22. so when do we get a comment thread to discuss the book? maybe a big spoiler warning so we can go nuts? that would help my day a lot.

  23. Sore. I was home sick yesterday. Some sorta stomach bug that seemed to have run it’s course by the afternoon. Figured I’d do some work around the house and started tiling a hallway. Today, legs are SORE! Not used to real work. Have got soft and flabby punching a keyboard all day.

  25. @kizzbeth said:

    Pretty good. Just purchased fancy pasties and “fashion tape” for some finishing touches on my Mermaid Parade costume. I mean, a day with pasties is a decent day, right?

    Yeah! There’s a food cart here that makes their pasties with pasture-raised lamb and organic veggies…

    Oh, wait. Never mind.

  26. A little annoyed really: I made management at my job at my College, but it’s not exactly a dream of mine to be middle management, well…anywhere really. Kind of frustrated with how long this whole University thing is taking quite frankly.
    But other than that I am good, hope you get rested good sir!

  27. Convalescing after particularly pernicious pneumonia, read Red Shirts for the third time during the worst of it because laughter is the best medicine. And thanks for asking, truly.

  28. Brain’s a little fried from spending all day looking at a computer monitor.
    I’m usually like this in the late afternoon… not a good thing, in the long term.
    Need to change.

  30. Sent the page proofs for Dragon Ship back to the publisher yesterday; finished and sent in a commissioned short; picked up sick (but mending) cat from the cat hospital; and lived through the first session of physical therapy. Today, talked on the phone with the nice woman who will be narrating Local Custom, Scout’s Progress, and Mouse and Dragon for Audible; shared the mid-day meal with my beautiful husband of many years; took an impromptu nap on the couch; and am now futzing around on the internet instead of finishing up short story the second so it can be posted to Splinter Universe.

    Naps are *not* in any way overrated.

  32. Bread is in the oven, 2 year old is happily stacking cushions “like a forklift” and hubs came home early. Today has been good. :)

  33. I’m awesome! I managed to tug on the tail of the Dean of the Arts Dept. today by asking him some reasonable, relevant and uncomfortable questions in a public forum. Hopefully I never actually need a favour from him – but otherwise I’m feeling good about it.

    Also I only have 4 more days of work, then I’m off for the summer with my beloved offspring for lots of making things and getting dirty outside time. What is better than that?

  34. Recuperating from my broken baby toe on my right foot, which I stubbed–after stubbing my left baby toe three days earlier (without breaking it).
    Floundering around trying to figure out how to query an agent/publisher re my memoir manuscript.
    Dreading the sudden heat due to arrive in less that 24 hours with temps in upper 90’s.
    Summary? I’m a flounder with a broken toe that dreads being fried.

  35. Not bad. Things are actually running smoothly at work today. This doesn’t bode well for the rest of the week, But I’ll worry about that bridge when I have to jump off it. For today things are working the way they are supposed to be working , which means the day went quick, and now I get to go home and read. Hope you are enjoying your well earned rest.

  36. I’m on vacation with my daughters in southern Utah–Bryce Canyon at the moment–so life is pretty good. Toasty warm and all, but good.

  37. To Ben Henick, at 4:34
    “Technical Difficulties”?
    Wow! They are–or were–a great filk group! Got a couple of their CDs. Must find them somewhere in all the remaining moving boxes, and play them.
    Er…but probably you meant the un-fun kind of TD. Sorry, Ben!

  39. Just wanted to say that yesterday’s signing in Lansing was very enjoyable. I especially enjoyed [REDACTED], which made me feel [REDACTED].

  40. I’m feeling grateful. Two members of my chorus just volunteered to help move music & file cabinets this Saturday. One other is already committed to bring a truck, and a fourth is serving lunch. Ain’t life grand?!

  41. I’m WAY too distracted by Prometheus/Alien stuff today after watching (and being moderately disappointed in) Prometheus last week and re-watching (for the umpteenth time) Alien last night. I really should be working-working and/or working on my Redshirts review for my teensy-weensy blog.

    Focus, focus, focus…

  42. Doing pretty well today, thanks! Lunch out with friends and then a very productive afternoon preparing to be off next week for vacation. Disneyland and Legoland!

  43. Today, the electricians arrived to start putting up a solar panel array on my garage roof. Soon, I will be making MILLIONS!

    Seriously, John, with all that acreage on your estate, and the big federal tax incentives currently available, have you ever considered putting up an array of your own? Or has the coal lobby in Ohio banned the use of the sun to generate electricity as a tool of the devil?

  44. I’m exhausted. I didn’t get any sleep last night, and then today was absolutely horrific. Actually, so was yesterday. There’s a bloody mary waiting for me down in the kitchen. Wth am I doing still sitting in front of the computer then??!?

  45. Unfocused. That’s probably a good summary. Two weeks ago, my husband and I mutually agreed that remaining married was not doing either of us any favors, and it was best to split while we still had some hope of remaining friends. A week and a half ago, he packed a bag and decamped to a friend’s. The past week and a half have been spent adjusting, and trying to figure out where to even *start* unraveling.

    Longer form: Sad. Mad. Scared, or at least a little nervous. Baffled about what to do next and how to begin. And on the flip side, a little relieved, because I don’t think either of us realized how much tension there’d been under our roof until one of us was out from under it. Oh, and proud, because our two teenagers have stepped up and been really great about helping out and dealing with all the upheaval.

  48. Sore. Velcro organ surgery was on Friday and today was the first day back to work. On the plus side, CSA pick up means lovely green things in my fridge.

  49. Back at my home library after a week subbing at a neighboring library. Management, although I can do it, is not my forte. Just discovered the flyers for next month’s performing group have the wrong dates on them — all 200. Summer Reading Program is in full cry. Otherwise nothing caught fire, fell over, and/or sank into the swamp.

  51. I’m almost caught up on sleep after spending the weekend in Huntsville at the 50th annual DeepSouthCon. Lots of funs, lots of old friends, lots of old time fans. I spend a couple of hours Saturday night handing out beads at the CONtraflow DSC in 2015 bid party. We lured them in with beads and plied them with food and bourbon milk punch. The boudan was excellent! And it was amusing just to see how eager some people were for a string of plastic beads.

  52. Thanks for asking. Do rest your brain! I continue twice-per week physical therapy sessions in exotic West Covina, gateway to Irwindale. Today I passed the 40,000 word border to MWA-metric (and SFWA-metric) minimal length for a novel. Hence Batshit Crazy is my 14-th Facebook-serialized novel. It has recently had scenes in Pasadena (where you signed), Boston (where you signed), Ho Chi Minh City, and the story-within story is an imaginary opera performed by the Bangkok Opera adapted from passages of an English translation of the 1964 Soviet novel “World Soul” — perhaps the very passagers that Ted Sturgeon loved, as he wrote the Introduction to my edition. [Mikhail Tikhonovich and Eremei Parnov; translated by Antonina W. Bouis, introduction by Theodore Sturgeon, MacMillan 1978]. Oh, and I see that you’ve convinced Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to seek political asylum from Ecuador.

  53. Mixed news:
    1) Friday I passed the final exam and got my BSc in Library- and information-science
    2) My mother has been to the hospital briefly and I stayed with her for a couple of days after, to be on the safe side and to have her not be alone right after coming home. She’s pretty much back to her own self again and – more importantly- it probably won’t return.
    3) My country, Denmark, has finally legalised gay marriage. I’m happy that now they can get married too.
    4) I finished reading The Hundred-Year-Old-Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson. It’s a light get-happy book, despite the number of people dying in it, because of the way it’s told
    5) Have vacation and planning to visit some friend in the UK, but accidentally booked plane tickets to the wrong dates, because I had other things on my mind, so I will have to correct that tomorrow.

    So – how I am doing? Happy and worried and relieved and tired and somewhat overwhelmed. Oh – and my home seriously needs some cleaning. Tomorrow. The laundry needs to be done too before new life forms develop in it and demand the right to vote.

  54. I’m realizing I need to explain blowjobs to my 14-year-old son. He heard me laughing my head off whilst reading Redshirts, and now he wants to read it. Tonight’s dinner conversation shall be…interesting.

  55. It’s amazing when you get rid of one child for the summer. And that child is earning money for college. It’s so much quieter with just two of them. I’m trying to convince one of my other children to read Redshirts. He’s a big Star Trek fan. He has to read it. I guess I may have to demand he read it.

  58. Sir Scalzi, I am doing as well as a person who has been joblessfor 1 1/2 years can be. I’m alive, breathing, and I have family who I love, and am pretty sure who love me. :D Not great, but hell, sometimes life is a mixed bowl of broken glass and soft pillows.

  60. Why, I’m good thank you kind sir :)

    Thanks to one kind anonymous donor I’ve upgraded my software for creating my zine. This is both fabulous and stressful: now I have to learn an upgraded software package where even basic stuff like master pages has changed, but the program works with Windows 7, which means the menus etc have been tailored to be bigger font sizes. This is a huge step forward for me as I’m vision impaired and I struggle even with my big monitor set up really close.

    The books keep flooding in for review but I haven’t received a copy of Redshirts *sniff* probably because Tor is US and I don’t have a relationship with them *sigh*. Comedies tend to land on top of my TBR pile simply because they’re a break from the usual fare. I’m struggling with the idea of buying Redshirts, feeling guilty because I have about 20 other books to review.

    The Australian national SF convention was great the other week but hardly anyone knew who I am. I finally submitted and changed my avatar to a photo of me. I’m not happy about this, I like to be Dark Matter *not* me as an individual, but if it is a better way of building networks it’s necessary. As I generally can’t recognise people I’ve never met from photos (vision again) this can help them to recognise me. I need the networks, it’s how I land interviews with authors.

    My wall of fame on my website is up and growing fast. I’m still putting up old interviews, then I’ll start on new ones. After being put down for being a fanzine, I was recently told on Twitter I’m a podcaster now because of these interviews. Um…okay… I don’t have a problem with that. I’ve never been one for following tradition, it’s just funny: I’m an accidental podcaster. Now I need to learn more about this podcasting ‘busy-ness’.

    Am thinking *shifty eyes* any chance of interviewing you, please? Once you’ve recovered from your touring shenanigans? That would also provide justification for reading Redshirts ;) TWOFER!

  61. We had a sweet little earthquakelet here (SE Australia) yesterday evening. Only 5.3, but since we don’t get them all that often, it was quite the novelty. A thing fell off a shelf somewhere; there are pictures in the paper and everything.

  62. Doing pretty well, actually. Also, just wanted to say I enjoyed your Boston appearance immensely, and my Mom was thrilled with the copy of Redshirts you signed for her :-)

  63. Well enough. Very busy with complicated things.

    Probably ought to read the paperback copy of “Fuzzy Nation” that’s been sitting on the desk accusingly since my spousal unit finished in a few months ago. Looking forward to “Redshirts” when I get that far (might be a while.)

  64. Hi John,
    Just reread Redshirts, more slowly this time, and enjoyed it even more – especially the codas. Pathos man pathos!
    Mine copy is an ARC – just out of curiosity were there any significant changes made between the ARC and published version? Congrats on trying something so different and pulling it off so well, and to such acclaim.
    For myself I’m glad you keep trying new thing rather than churn out endless OMW universe sequels, much as I enjoyed them.

    Jeff

  65. Damn – Truly I do comprehend grammar – but my fingers dont! Must learn to preview.

  66. Girl child has been at nerd camp for one full day and I don’t know whether I miss her or envy her more!

  68. Not bad. My husband is in a bit if a daze himself, given he’s finishing up a run of working 7 overnight shifts in a row. He normally works 3rd shift on weekends, and he has worked more than 5 days in a row before, just not both at the same time. (My last FT job was on 3rd shift, so I have some sympathy for him.)
    My part time job ended, so I’m back to looking, mostly for office work. Also working on getting the lawn into shape. Wish me luck with that.

  69. Brain also in a cement-like state. Typhoon weather here in Taipei, making the air humid and stifling warm, even at night. Have an esports column due this week, and it’s beating me a bit. The climate here’s making me feel like the clothes are rotting off my back as I wear it.

  70. Doing fine. Finished ‘Redshirts’, liked it. Next up, ‘The Knight of the Red House’ by Dumas.

    The color thing is coincidental, I think…

  71. Similarly dazed after driving from east of DC to Virginia Tech (ugly rush hour traffic and I-81 closed when we were only 12 miles from our hotel. Sigh. It’s time for the college tour for the oldest offspring. Which is wearing in its own way.

  72. Too bad about the “cemented” brain, John. Normally it’s one of your finest features. Bought and received Redshirts on opening day if you will. Didn’t start reading until this morning. I am mesmerized to say the least. I love you, Mom

  73. Not too bad, but definitely too warm. Recovering from being sick with lovely asthma exacerbation times, which has prompted me to start a personal project/blog/thing to keep myself focused on that which does *not* suck (in lieu of all the things that feel like they always *do*) over at http://gratefullittlevictories.blogspot.com Handwritten note cards with something – big, small, whatever – that I felt accomplished for doing (or not doing) during the day. It’s both easier and harder than it seems.

  78. Fairly well, considering I, along with 200+ wonderful journalists, photographers, artists, HR folks and more have just been informed en masse that our services will no longer be required at the new, improved “robust” three day-a-week version of our daily newspaper as it goes to a mostly on-line presence. I think I have to get a paper version of your book–and not read it electronically.

  79. I’m doing alright, Mr Scalzi. Thanks for asking. I hope you’re out of your travel-induced daze soon.

  80. Fine John, thanks for asking – although also kind of brain dead. I have been travelling on business teaching seminars 4 of the past 5 weeks and going to the Cities (Minneapolis/St Paul) for in-law family stuff each weekend. Two weeks of vacation starting next week (first time off since last September)! Looking forward to the time off. See you on Saturday at Uncle Hugo’s. Oh boy – my first vacation activity will be to read my brand new signed copy of Redshirts.

  81. for Dwight Brown (and anyone else going to Boise…)

    My Basque-American cousin says:
    Kath and I like Bar Gernika in the Basque block downtown Boise. Informal good basic basque food. If they want a nice restaurant style meal Epi’s in Meridian is really good.

  82. I had some of the last books you signed in Chicago. I had put the post-it with my name in one, but I didn’t put a post-it in the second one. We did the little chat while you signed Redshirts, and when you got to the paperback of Fuzzy Nation, you looked up at me with tiredest look I’ve seen since my daughter was tiny–you could barely hold your head up and eyes open to say “Remind me of your name again?” I wanted to give you a hug and assure you that there were only 5 people left in line

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