the World of Webmistress Ming

And the tale unravels.

No answer from publisher for 24 hours. When it does come, this morning my time, yesterday afternoon their time, it professes "disappointment".

Well, yes.

So far, the exchange is mild, and thankfully, emotions are muted. Publisher wants to the end of the week to look at the budget and see if adjustments can be made.

I wrote back, making matters clear: there's simply no time to do the job. Let's hope that's an end of it.

I did some reading online this afternoon. If the tenor and tone of my research is to be trusted, NO WRITER EVER TURNS DOWN AN OFFER FROM A PUBLISHER.

Tomorrow, therefore, I goeth into battle. Or, more properly, battle may (or may not) come to me.

It is going to be an interesting day. Just about five hours from now, my "no thank you" is going to hit the fan.

In 12 hours, I may or may not have a reaction.

So now that Martini Boy has gotten the martinis out of his system from Thursday night (and had a nice morning with me at the yearly crafts show AND a nice afternoon with the neighbor men playing poker), we move on to the next step in the great Book Two disaster: DO I have a price?

Idea being that once my "no thank you" hits where it hurts, do I have a duty to listen to more?

Where I want to leave it? I AM NOT AVAILABLE.

Sorry to depress you all, but if I can't vent here, I can't vent.

Today was a significant, substantial, red-letter day. And what happened?

I make a decision that is ballsy, brave, self-affirming, yada, yada, yada. And within three hours, I am reminded of My Place.

Friends write to find out why I haven't RSVP'd to a political fundraiser disguised as a fashion show. "But I thought it was junk mail!" gets me nowhere.

My volunteer activity? THEY write to say, "Where are our computers?" As if I have them up my sleeve?

And my spouse.

No.

Have to say, they made it very easy for me. It would have been a lot harder if a fair and reasonable offer came over the wire.

But it didn't. For this book--twice the size of Book One, to be completed in half the time--they're offering lower royalties. As an inducement, they've upped the advance, obviously hoping that I either don't know how the world works OR that as a vulgar American, I'll snap at a bad deal if it dangles a little cash my way up-front.

Such a month, and all of it a whirl.

Work nonstop, then switch gears to play Mom-cum-Nana for a 10-day visit with my son, daughter-in-law and grandsons.

Dive from that overextended state into a week of solitude ("Ahhhhh") as husband takes a week in Vegas to play poker.

Come up for air--and husband--only to find that my dysfunctional publisher DOES TOO want a new book from me.

In record time, as in 190,000 words in six months.

It's been like pulling teeth to find the time, but it's done (enough for government work):

My new studio is finally out of the "packing crate" stage.

Today at 4:45 p.m., I made a late-afternoon run to the hardware store for the last piece of the installation puzzle. Between the "Simply Shabby Chic" balloon shades and the newly-installed window air conditioner, I realized that what I'd created was ...

A Hot-Flash Haven.

Yes, despite our central air conditioning, there is a just-installed-today window unit pumping COLD air into a room that is surprisingly "girly".

This afternoon, I had a heavenly privilege: I was present when two of our community's "talented" youth were given a stage to strut their stuff to support the local opera.

It was the oh-so-familiar pitch to people like me. Prestige address, gourmet snacks, pretty view, talented youth ... and the whole gestalt is there to prompt me to "support our local opera society."

Never fear. I did my bit for the local opera company. Before I left, they had my name and phone number, and my promise to build them a cutting-edge web site;

Sorting out the office, I got inspired when I found this shot of me and my tricycle, circa 1956:

I remembered browsing a very interesting photoset, called Youngme - Nowme, in which users find a photo of their younger self, then duplicate the shot in the present day.

I didn't set out to do this with this photograph from 2004, but thought it was pretty close to the meme:

It's quite relevant, and quite serendipitous:

The heart thinks constantly. This cannot be changed, but the movements of the heart-that is, a man's thoughts-should restrict themselves to the immediate situation. All thinking that goes beyond this only makes the heart sore.

Doing the morning chores, which include checking the Drupal site for new modules, I stumbled across a new module for keeping an I Ching journal.

This snip caught my eye when I surfed to an example site.