Mixed bag o' thoughts

It's Monday and it's snowing just a little bit. Funny, but I always know when it's snowing even when I'm sleeping. Must be something about the difference in sound. Snow softens and deadens sound or maybe it just insulates everything and pushes the rest of the noisy world away. I don't know for sure, but I know when it happens even when I sleep.

I had a semi-productive weekend, finishing off all the library books and three books I need to review, one for my new horror site. I'll be writing more articles and replacing the old stuff today and tomorrow, getting ready for the new launch. I'm getting excited now and anxious to move on. The urge to crawl under the deck and stay there until the shouting and arguing are over (from when my parents were here) is gone and I'm back to feeling normal.

You have no idea, or maybe you do, how sleeping in a too soft bed where you can hear every single snore, gripe, moan, groan, and complaint wrecks my sleep. It took me a while to catch up, but I'm back and the psychic bubble has burst. Time to burn some sage and sweet grass and clear the air.

I knew the psychic bubble had burst on Friday evening when I got a call from Ginny at Atriad Press to tell me she had been trying to get hold of me for two weeks to let me know they were buying one of my stories for their anthology. That's two weeks, bookended before and after my parents' visit, where two of my stories have been bought and checks are being sent. Good news overall. Saturday got better.

I found a strange name on Yahoo Messenger and, since the person was online, asked them who they were. I vaguely recognized the name, but not really and had not had YIM on for at least two years. We began talking and it turns out he was looking for a writer to do something unusual. He hired me for $50 a 2000-word story and the contract could turn into something really big and lucrative. Bingo! Regular money and lots of it. There is one small hitch to the deal, he seems to have developed an affection for me after we talked on the phone. I told him that I wanted to keep things friendly but focus on business since I'm not in the market for a lover/boyfriend/significant other. He seems to think he can wear me down, but 41-year-olds are like that, especially the entrepreneurial types. Oh, and I did eventually remember him when we talked.

On a last note, since the snow seems to have stopped drifting past my window, I received an email about a situation about which everyone should be aware. Ever hear of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy named Mohammed al-Dura who was gunned down by Israeli soldiers? Well, truth is stranger than fiction, but it is evidently fiction the PLO and Yasser Arafat is creating and passing off as documentary journalism. More people should be from Missouri.

That is all. Disperse.