The Dismal Diarrhea of Defeat!

I thought I would end July with a productive week.

Alas, not so much.

I spent last weekend at ConGregate, a Winston-Salem con, and had a great time. I was on eight or nine panels, chatted with a lot of NC writers I know and discovered an excellent coffee/tea shop across the street (really good loose leaf tea). The hotel restaurant was reasonably priced. I also picked up some good used books at a sale table (two Philip K. Dick, one Andre Norton) though that kept me from buying anything new from my friends.

There was also a nice moment on one panel — I forget which one — in which I was commenting on how many of my stories get turned down of late, and John Hartness of Falstaff Books commented “and yet, you’re in this side of the table as a published author.” I think I needed to hear that.

Oh, and I sold one of my books after one of the attendees heard me give a reading from The Wodehouse Murder Case.

I came home Sunday and decided to devote Monday to various tasks around the house, such as finding a contractor to fix a small siding problem. Then back to work Tuesday. In hindsight, not the best call … and not productive on the task side either. Neither of the contractors I asked for quotes were free to do the job.

Monday afternoon, Trixie began demanding to go out and crap every couple of hours. The poop wasn’t as runny as in some times past, but it was semisolid at best, and in remarkably small quantities every time. Knowing this could keep up a while, I volunteered to sleep with Trixie in the spare bedroom (the shot of her in the laundry basket has no relation to her being ill, it just looks cute) so that TYG could get some sleep. Sure enough, every couple of hours Trixie decided she needed to go out. I’d thought I might be able to work in between walkies as I wouldn’t get back to sleep but various matters distracted me so no sleep and no work.

Needless to say, I was a total wreck Tuesday, unfit for work; besides sleeping I think I might have done some blogging, but not much else. We tried making an appointment for Trixie but had to settle for Wednesday. Tuesday night passed without problems and I slept like a log. So soundly I woke up late which left me off-balance the rest of the day. I know it’s a weakness but I really need a couple of hours before the dogs join me downstairs if I’m to get my head in the game.

As Trixie seemed fine we canceled the appointment, then guess what happened Wednesday night? I slept through it with an Ambien — I was going to drive the car to our dealer for some servicing and I wanted to be awake for that — but we canceled that and made another appointment for Trixie that day. The doctor decided the antibiotics from her UTI might be the cause. We have her on a concentrated probiotic regimen for a couple of days. Last night she slept with me in the spare room again, just in case. She had no problems but as often happens the night after I take Ambien, I didn’t sleep well.

So the long and short of it is I got next to nothing done. What I did accomplish included proofing the golem article I worked on last year and doing some promotional work for Questionable Minds. I signed up for a blog tour to promote it so I spent Thursday getting a lot of details for that in place. We’ll see if it gets results down the road.

I didn’t get my exercise routines or most other routines done this week either. Though looking over my July goals, I got way more of them done than usual, and all the important ones done. That’s cool, even if this week doesn’t feel that way.

#SFWApro. Cover by Jack Kirby, all rights remain with current holder.