Wednesday,
December 31, 2003
NEW YEAR'S EVE
Bye-bye, 2003 (and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out)
Work was absolutely dead today, which was pretty much expected and a good thing, as well, since I got some great critiques on the Antho from Hell story last night at FutureClassics and want to get to work on that so I can submit it before the deadline (the editor knows it's inbound, so the postal timestamp isn't that important). Better yet, Steve called and lured Mike and me out to lunch at On the Border, so we spent an hour talking about politics, FOUR BUBBAS OF THE APOCALYPSE and doing a Middle Earth riff on getting security clearances and Homeland Security types setting out from a greenly glowing building in Washington, stopping along the way to hiss, ". . .McKinney. . .Staton. . ." I then asked Steve if that meant he was a hobbit, and he refused to dignify it with an answer. Hee.
As for tonight, it looks like we are going to the Greek Isles tonight to watch Isis dance, so that should be a lot of fun. *happy sigh* It's beautiful out there, and I have Dave Matthews on the CD player, and all just seems right with the world. . .
And you know what? It was!
It was a quiet NYE, but an extremely nice one nonetheless. Lyndon let me take a nap when I got home while he got cleaned up, then we headed out to the Greek Isles for dinner. I'd made a reservation a couple of days ago for 8:00 PM -- things were somewhat backed up, so we had to wait ten minutes for a table, but when we did get seated it was at a corner table with a great view of the room.
Which was just fine, since we were there to see Isis perform. After dinner (Greek appetizers, medallions of pork for me and grilled chicken for Lyndon), the lady herself came out in a swirl of copper and black, and just took over the room. This was the first time I'd ever really gotten a chance to see Isis perform, and she was wonderful -- went up to all the tables, got audience assistance for various bits like sword dancing and veil work, all kinds of great stuff. If Lucille Ball could belly dance, you'd have Isis -- redheaded, huge smile, with a killer sense of humor and timing and the performer's ability to grab your attention and hold it spellbound. If I could learn how to do that, I would count myself very fortunate.
While she was dancing the busboys completely cleared our table, which we took as a not-too-subtle signal that they needed the table for more customers. We paid the bill, stopped off to chat with one of the other Star Dancers who was assisting Isis, and headed home for an evening of the Law and Order: SVU marathon on USA. Yeah, I know, but considering that we were stuffed from dinner and still tired from the trip back (I think we're both coming down with colds, judging from the symptoms), that was a perfect cap to 2003.
Speaking of caps, let's do a roundup of 2003, shall we?
On the personal front, Lyndon lost his job and is still looking for a new one, and we're about to go into a budget crunch as I now have to pay for medical insurance though work. But at least we have medical insurance, and neither of us are seriously sick, so knock wood that things will improve on the job front in the near future.
I lost fifteen pounds over the year and managed to keep it off -- now I just have to keep this up, and I will be a happy Mellie indeed.
2003 may have sucked from a financial point of view, but from a writing point of view it was one of my best years -- I finished eight stories, sold four of them ("Female of the Species" and "Happily Ever After" to Quantum Muse, "A Rose By Any Other Name" to FOUR BUBBAS OF THE APOCALYPSE, and "That Time of the Month" to FUNDAMENTALLY CHALLENGED), I'm close to finishing PHARAOH OF THE LONE STAR STATE, and I have a new book on the back burner. Not too shabby.
I'm still waiting for that third pro-level sale so that I can finally, FINALLY get my Active membership in SFWA, but hey, I figure I'm paying my dues with the semi-pro sales first. All will come in its own good time, I figure. Now all I have to do is finish PHARAOH, edit it, sell it and contract an agent, and I will be quite pleased with myself.
And in closing,
here's hoping that 2004 will be a huge improvement over 2003 for everyone. And
remember -- DEAN IN 2004!