Summer has been here for a while but starting this weekend with Storn’s wedding, it feels like things well ramp right up to a week off with Janaki and some travel. I’m looking forward to it.
Reading: I finished Embassytown and was underwhelmed. The book kept me interested but I never really cared about it. I’m intrigued to talk it over with friends at some point. On a whim I picked up The Vaults by Toby Ball, a 1930’s noir-ish thing taking place in the City. I’m intrigued and its fast, summer reading. Interesting books is one of the perks of the job.
Planning: I have a bunch to do after work today, food to buy and a room to tidy up. I broke a lamp on my way out the door and didn’t want to be heinously late.
Writing: I’m putting the finishing touches on my Technoir Transmission and looking over my resume as it quickly approaches fighting shape. Next week that sucker goes out.
And you?
Githyanki Diaspora 
Reading: The Seville Communion by Perez-Reverte, which can’t quite seem to decide if it’s a philosophical thriller or a slapstick comedy. Not his best, I’m afraid.
Planning: Shakespeare in the Arb tonight, then off to Vermont for a conference all next week. Should be relaxing, and I’ve got a stack of fun books to read while I’m there. Between papers for work and contemplating schlepping a week’s worth of paperbacks through airports, I’ve almost convinced myself to buy an iPad…
Writing: My boss seems to have this idea that somehow the 3 almost-papers worth of data I have now will magically condense into one uber-paper if I just do 6 months more of not-very-well-connected experiments. It’s starting to drive me nuts.
Have a good weekend!
Too bad about Embassytown. I keep seeing it at the bookstore and almost buying it.
R: C++ Programmer’s Guide to Standard Template Programming. Middle English poems helped by the Tolkien Professor’s podcasts.
P: Now I’ve got a reprieve from crunching, I’m hoping to start updating my blog again.
W: With more time, I hope to finish my damn “pulp baby” flash fiction.
Reading: Finished Mira Grant’s Deadline just before my birthday (with time off for Bloomsday — Fionnula Flanagan’s been Molly Bloom to us for years), and am currently reading the novellas up for the Hugo. Current front runner, unsurprisingly, is Ted Chiang’s The Lifecycle of Software Objects. The other two I’ve read are certainly solid entries, but Chiang has always set a high bar.
Planning: Origins. We’re in the throes of packing. Also various paperwork legal stuff for my parents’ estates. After Origins is Contata, the filking convention we’re helping run, and then DexCon, then a break, then Confluence, where we have a concert and kind of need to rehearse a lot. Filkers are tolerant, but we want to be good enough that this isn’t a necessary feature.
Writing: Finished up my zine. Some emails. A lot of comments in Seanan McGuire’s live journal, both because Mira Grant is her pen name and I read the entire “spoilers go here” thread, and because she replied to a couple of posts I did some time back about what one can do when stepping in it hard — oy, it’s late, and I cannot figure out how to explain without going on at length, which I’m just not up for. I’ve hit the state where my head is starting to shut down because it wants sleep.