Okay, so it's been a week. I suppose I should really do an entry. I don't even have the excuse of being off trying to have a life. Just a million little things happening at inconvenient times.

I did receive the Most Depressing Rejection In The World the other day though. I know that the editor did not in any way mean for it to be as disheartening as it was, and it was actually a very nice letter, but the editor rejected my story because the core idea was too similar to one that was published several months prior in another major magazine. And (this was the part that slayed me) even though my story was better and more emotionally affecting than that other story, the editor just couldn't buy it. Argg.

So, not only was I in a depressed funk over the fact that even being a good writer doesn't mean diddly-squat, but when I tried to call various friends to bitch and whine about this rejection, I couldn't get hold of a single one! Not a damn one of them was home. Argg.

Then I decided that I would go out to the firing range and vent some frustration on innocent paper targets. I got my range bag together, packed up my stuff, loaded my magazines and drove the twenty-or-so minutes to the range.

It was closed. Argg.

But things did brighten up later that day. Daniel called me (after I'd sent him a whiny email) and told me that I should send the story to the Other magazine where the Other story had been published. "See," Daniel said, "you know now that [editor] will buy that sort of story!" I suppose it would be pretty damn funny if it sold there.

I can totally sympathize with Tamela about not being allowed to talk about trying to lose weight if you're already somewhat slim. I think I ranted about this once before in my journal but since I don't have the energy to search through the archive and find the exact entry, I suppose I'll just have to rant again.

See, I believe that you should be allowed to do anything you want to your body as long as you are doing it for yourself and for your satisfaction and it does not jeopardize your health. Weight loss? If you feel better about yourself at a particular weight, then by all means, go for it. And I would never discourage someone from physical fitness to reach that weight loss. (Again, unless it is to the point that health is being jeopardized.) So, why is it criminal for a 130 pound woman to want to lose 5 pounds, but it is perfectly acceptable and encouraged for a 170 pound woman to want to lose 50 pounds? If I gain five pounds a year, in five years that's 25 pounds, and that's a lot of inchage on the hippage. But it seems that for dieting and weight loss to be "acceptable" you have to wait until you actually have all of those 25, or 50, or more pounds packed on. You're simply not allowed to try to lose the five pounds before they become ten.

And speaking of weight loss, my diet has been going pretty well. I'm not really weighing myself, but I am tracking the inchage with the ole measuring tape.

One pleasant discovery I made was Boost shakes. They're not marketed as a diet shake--more as a junk-food-replacing energy drink, however they only have a few more calories than Slim Fast and other diet shakes and they're certainly packed with nutrition. The vanilla and the plain chocolate are actually Not Bad, however, there's something about the taste of the chocolate/raspberry that must have reminded me of something medicinal because I simply couldn't stand it. So, I have been using them for the occasional meal replacement along with controlling the rest of my dietary intake. But the seriously cool thing I discovered about Boost is that it really does give me a pick-me-up. I've started drinking one right before the drive home from work, and ever since I started doing so I haven't had a single instance of trying to doze off at the wheel. That alone makes them worth buying, for me.