My goodness, people can be paranoid. :) I received a number of emails from people tendering apologies just in case they were the asshole referenced in my 2/24/99 posting. Very sweet of you all, but now, to ease your minds and provide clarification, I must say that the asshole in question is no one online, no one in the writing community, no one I work with, no one I am now or have ever been related to, and no one who reads this journal.

But I have been in a bit of a funk this week because of the assholish incident and other related incidents. I've been horrible about working out; I think I've been to the gym once this week. And vacation bills are coming due so money is tight right now. Yeah, I overextended myself a bit (a lot), though it really was worth every penny. Saved my sanity, that did. (At least temporarily! Some things are lost causes. :) ) Thank the powers that be I got the promotion and raise. It's heinously tight now, but at least I can see that it'll be fine in a few weeks. I just have to make a few of those "Which bill has to be paid right now?" decisions.

However I did do a rough draft of my taxes the other night, and discovered that I'll be getting a nice little bit back. Which makes up for the trouble I'm having with my mortgage company. I got a call from them the other day saying, "Where's your February payment?" 'Scuse me?? Luckily I had Quicken right in front of me and told him that had been mailed mid-January. "Oh no, that was your January payment." No, I replied, my January payment was mailed near the beginning of December. "No, that was your December payment." Oh no you don't, I replied. I have a letter right here in my hand that states that my first payment was due 1/1/99. So, since I don't have a fax, or access to a fax (and I've some horrid experiences using fax machines at places like Office Depot) I snail-mailed them a copy of the letter along with a politely worded demand for them to get their act together and to also make sure that there've been no negative reports made on my credit rating because of this. Annoying and frustrating. I suppose it was too much to hope that my run of good luck would last through the end of the month.

Okay okay, some good stuff is happening too. Let's try and maintain perspective here, Diana. I bought a new washer and dryer which were delivered and hooked up yesterday. I ended up buying the largest capacity they had at Sears--Super Capacity Plus--capable of laundering small nations in one load. I told a friend at work about it and he rolled his eyes and said, "You're single! You live alone! What the hell do you need that much washing machine for?!" Hey, a girl can dream, right?

Some progress on the new novel, very tentatively titled The Shattered Sky. I didn't get much work done on it today due to many dorky errands and general malaise, but I think tomorrow I'll be able to finish Chapter One.

I see my hit count climbing at an unreal pace. For those of you who check several times a day to see if I've posted, I should save you some energy and tell you that I usually post late in the evenings before I head to work. At least I'm assuming that many of my daily hits are repeaters. It boggles me to think that I could have 150+ different people reading this silly piece of exhibitionism.