Dandelyon's Worlds

Sometimes life is unnecessarily difficult, and especially so when dealing with people who don't answer the question you asked, insisting instead on answering some other question that they think is more important.

Ever since they replaced the dead hard drive on this computer and I got home only to have to drive all the way back to the store to have them install the wireless driver, my wireless has been unreliable. Having to turn the computer off (or pull the battery) to restore function is annoying when it happens once a week, but maddening when it happens a half-dozen times in a night. Like last weekend, when I was trying to do stuff to make the house less crazy-making, the Muse Fusion, and get ready for Worldcon all at once.

So, yesterday I got up early (for a non-work day) and headed off to make them re-install the driver. To get there, I drove on a highway, and was reminded that on the trip to Muse Con, the car had made an intermittent strange, not-loud (but not right) rhythmic noise if we hit about 65 MPH. Except that now it was doing it if I got to 50. Erg. In dealing with the infection and root-canal in two sessions, I'd totally forgotten about that noise.

So I went to the computer store, where I had to talk to a manager to get them to just reinstall the driver instead of making me choose between them doing nothing at all and them keeping the computer for a day or two to do full diagnostics. While they had the computer signed in, I drove back to the Firestone I'd passed to say "Hi, I got my tires at your now-defunct downtown location, and now I have this noise..." Hours in a hot waiting room with nothing to write upon but my Kindle and $200 later, I have a new tie-rod, rotated and rebalanced tires, and no noise.

So then back to the computer store, where a sympathetic couple said, "you haven't been here all this time, have you?" and I got the computer back. It would have been more fun to have been there, actually, since the computer store is clean, has free wireless, and air conditioning (and no Judge Judy clone-shows on a TV you aren't allowed to touch). Oh, well, I got several hundred words written.

Then I had other errands--cat food, people food, program My Angel's phone so she can call the lady she's working for at the con to confirm when she's needed--Oh. 24 hours earlier than she remembered. Glad I took the whole week off! Better give up on housework (except can't leave the fish filters another week, oh, and this stuff needs to be out of the 'fridge and in the compost, and...) um, yeah. Time to pack in a hurry AND do other stuff.

So, I never got the words transferred over from my e-mail to Word, and the internet in the room costs money, so here I sit in one of the lobby areas, where the internet is free and the sun is shining in a skylight onto my face so I'm glad I learned touch-typing, and

I HAVE MY BADGE. Fans I know (and fans I don't know) keep hurrying by, taking luggage to their rooms or engaged in the important business of setting things up. Soon, I'll need to go back to my room, where I can see the words I wrote yesterday and weave them into the story I'm working on, because there's no way to plug the thing in here where I'm sitting. But for now, I'm here, and as far as I'm concerned, the con has started.

If you're here, feel free to stop by and say hello! You can leave a message at my room, find me at Filk things, at the Broad Universe table, at programming I'm on, or "around". I would have said "at the pool", but sadly there isn't one!

Thu Aug 30 1:30-2:00 pm.....Writer Under Glass #4 in the Fan Lounge

Thu Aug 30 4:30-6:00 pm.....Storytelling the Old-Fashioned Way in Buckingham

Thu Aug 30 9:00-10:30 pm.....The Exploration of Gender Roles in SF in Dusable

Fri Aug 31 12:00-1:30 pm.....Art in an Ebook Market in San Francisco

Fri Aug 31 3:00-4:30 pm.....Broad Universe Rapid-Fire Reading in Grand Suite 3

Sat Sep 1 12:30-1:00 pm.....Reading: Deirdre Murphy in Dusable

Sat Sep 1 3:00-4:30 pm......Autograph Session 10 in Autograph Tables

Sun Sep 2 1:30-3:00 pm......Where's Thursday? San Francisco

That last, by the way, is just WRONG. Thursday was always in Chicago, or perhaps a near suburb. Saying it's in San Francisco--what were the programming planners thinking? That's like saying your favorite superhero is Adrian Monk.

So, what are you doing this fine Worldcon week?

Sent out one of my stories again today--finally, when I looked at Fantasy Magazine, the note that they were closed to submissions was gone. Then started to look for where to send others, and found a new anthology: Fat Girl in a Strange Land

http://crossedgenres.com/announcements/fat-girl-in-a-strange-land-submissions-open-for-new-anthology/

So far, April was the only month I made my goal of ten submissions, though I almost filled up March's remaining slots, as I submitted more than ten in April.

What--I didn't post this yet? Well, I was interrupted. Someone broke into my car (3 windows) and stole the radio. I may end up driving to Wiscon without a radio--I fear scheduling that repair around a new job will be problematic. At least the auto glass people come to you.

And--while talking to police and the insurance company (over the phone, the police don't actually come to look at the scene of the crime), I got one more story submitted to a new market. Multitasking is my friend!

Next--got to clean the glass out of the car, since I'll have to drive to work in it as-is, and do some work on the yard in the shadow of my half-demolished garage. Perhaps I'll plan a story, with car thieves as the villains...the only punishment these guys will probably ever get is vicarious. *sigh*

Onward!

So, I'm still unemployed.  Yesterday, went to meet a different head hunter, who I really liked, and then took my Angel to a doctor's appointment and to the pharmacy.  The brakes had suddenly acquired a quiet grinding sound I didn't like, and I directed her to listen to it.  It was mostly not apparent on the way to the doctor's, but became louder and started doing things like continuing on for a bit even after I lifted my foot from the pedal.  So then we wondered if it might not be the brakes, but rather that ice and/or potholes had caused something on the undercarriage to be dragging.  Angel looked at the brakes when we stopped--no, it was indeed the brakes, and in her words, "this should have been fixed last week at the latest". 

So I got up earlier than I wanted to take the car in to get new brakes that I sure hope I'll get a job soon to pay for.  But job hunting without a car, in the winter with asthma that's activated by cold is not a good idea.  So, I spent the bulk of the day sitting in a waiting room (a nice clean waiting room, at least) painting.  When I returned, and had eaten dinner, I thought I could get online to do things.  About then, the cable connection went out, quite thoroughly--no TV, no phone, no internet.  They came on in time for my girl to get back from dinner with her Dad and to need the computer.  Sigh.



Painting in progress.

So, I'm in the middle of the second of The Sharing Knife books, but I drag myself out of the drama to take my kid to the cell-phone store to replace her phone, which has stopped charging unless you hold the charger in just right.  Which she did this morning, long enough to talk in astonishment with her good friend about her friend's high-school-style drama (involving the friend's boyfriend and his best friend, and being seen at a mall, but not the one she said she'd be at, if the snippets I caught while I was calling the cops)--ah, I got ahead of myself.  The charging of the phone was supposed to be for transferring the memory to a new phone, so I dragged myself out of my good book and we went out into the cold to hurry off to the store and stopped in dismay.

Someone broke the driver's window on my car last night or this morning.  So I sent her in for a bag to clear glass into and called the cops.  And went in for plastic and tape.  And called the insurance company.  And we went to the store, finding that the first bit of plastic really wasn't large enough, but at least the store isn't that far.  And I find that the soonest I can get the window fixed is Monday, messing with plans for shopping and getting together with people.

And I have been wanting to replace my own phone, as the ear-bug function and speaker function are both working poorly.   So, we get there and can set her up with a new phone, but I can save $100 by waiting six days to replace mine.  So I still have the same frustrating old phone, at least until Friday.   And I have to pay for a new window for the car, since they expect the cost to be under the deductible.  And I don't get to go sell young fish, to get store credit to get new filters, that store is far too far away in this weather without a window.  

And now I wish I'd decided to splurge and go to GAFilk--it probably would have cost about as much as the new car window, and then I'd still have the car window.  It certainly would have been a heck of a lot more fun as a way to spoil this month's budget--and I haven't even gotten to pay for my expensive asthma meds yet (the new year's huge deductible for that is now in effect too, though with no guarantee that if I start paying this one I won't have to start paying another soon, seeing as how the old insurance plan has dropped Aurora (ALL of the Aurora hospitals and clinics and doctors in the area...hmm, that probably means the Aurora pharmacies too, sigh, which means I'll most likely need a new pharmacy to spend my deductible at), and so the firm is looking into possibly switching health insurance carriers, depending on what kind of quotes they get as to premiums...)

Perhaps I should go bury my head in my book again!  There's no snow in there, at least not in this chapter...