Wednesday, August 13, 2003
I was so wound up last night that I had to take something to get to sleep (not unsual) and now, of course, I need to be wound up again and awake and because I've sworn off caffeine, gaurana, taurine, etc. I can't simply take the antidote to last night's sedative and awake up and if you're actually waiting impatiently for this sentence to end you're probably in worse shape than I am. But sleep I did, which was good, because I needed it. I'm thinking about putting some of the excess skin beneath my eyes on the black market; I'm sure there are people in need of grafts who could use a few feet of it. Spooky even read me McElligot's Pool last night, my favorite go-the-hell-to-sleep-Caitlin story (which is why it appears in both Threshold and Low Red Moon).
Yesterday is a blur of html and ftp and Photoshop and ImageReady and so on and and so forth. Today will be likewise. Right now, the website looks like Swiss cheese. I worked on it all day and much of the night, and Jennifer put in a good two or three hours on it last night, as well. Spooky helped me with a new image map for the front page (as long as I'm having to piece it all back together, I may as well add something new). If I work on it all day and night today, we should be functional and online again by tomorrow morning. The problem of setting up a new discussion forum still hasn't been solved, but I'm optimistic that it will be solved today. Unfortunately, all the posts to the old forum will most likely be lost. And, obviously, I'm having enough trouble with Murder of Angels and certainly didn't need this dren to gum up the works even more.
Almost anyone will tell you that the very last thing I am is lazy. I have the work ethic of a frelling Puritan farmer - but - there's nothing, absolutely nothing that I loathe, detest, and resent more than having to do a job over, especially because of some else's incompetence. Which is the situation I find myself in at the moment. None of this is necessary. None of it. And I won't get into the gory specifics, because that would be neither appropriate nor politic, but I am extremely pissed that I've been forced to sacrifice time to rebuild the website, time that should be spent on Murder of Angels, because someone can't be bothered to act like an adult.
Of course, were I not such a damned control freak, I might have given this to someone else to do for me, and the time would not have been lost, would not be lost, but I am a control freak, so there you go. I am the Supreme Duchess of Micromanagement. I'd micromanage the movements of every dust mite on my skin, if only they'd listen.
UPS is supposed to bring me copies of The Five of Cups today. And here's an example of my propensity for micromanagement. All of my books from Subterranean Press have had matte finish dust jackets, because I hate those glossy things that get stuck on a lot of books (see the unfortunate covers of the Gauntlet editions of Silk and Tales of Pain and Wonder, for examples). And Bill Scahfer has been very obliging. But the cover of TFoC is almost entirely black and there was concern that the ink would not take well on matte stock and I was going to have to settle for glossy on this book. He called last night to say that the printer was able to do matte after all, because he knew it would cheer me up. That's the sort of thing I mean. I doubt many of my readers ever give half a thought to the paper stock used for the cover, but it's stuff like this that keeps me awake at night. Well, that and fears of alien invasion and global warming and unchecked human population growth. I'm anal, not shallow.
Spooky just came in to tell me her eyes are "all gooey," and I don't even want to know what the heck she meant.
And before I go back to uploading and fixing broken links and suchlike (sucklike), just let me say that I thought the season (and possibly series) finale of The Osbournes was ingenious. Brilliant. And just exactly what a planet mindlessly obsessed with "reality tv" desverved. It's nice to see someone benefiting from this idiotic mania turn around and thumb his nose at us all. And this morning people are scratching their noggins and asking nervously, "So, if that episode was a fake, was it all a fake? Or was it all real and they just want us to think it's a fake? Or . . ." Nice move, Ozzy.
|
|
