I didn’t spend Wednesday in bed. But I haven’t been reading the Boston Globes, either–just bringing them inside and stuffing them in a pile face-down. I’m going to have to catch up with them pretty soon, but I’m going to carefully extract all the post-election coverage and use it to line the bunny’s cage on Tuesday. Too bad I don’t have a copy of the nude centerfold Scott Brown did for Cosmo in 1982, I could put that in the corner the bunny pees in. :-p I can print out one online, though! (No, I’m not bitter, no, why would you think that?! Of course not!)
I got my income taxes all done and mailed, federal and state. I’m not trying to gloat, I do them this early because I have to. This year I’d paid almost exactly the right amount of estimated taxes through the year, slightly more than I needed to–but I’m applying the extra to 2010’s estimated taxes rather than ask for a piddly refund. I’d just have to give it right back! I paid BLUM’s 2009 sales tax online, on the day it was due, January 15. I always seem to do that! One of these days the Mass. DOR website will be down on the due date for a quarter and I’ll be screwed!
I’m going to be mailing out my very first 1099-MISC form. Look, mom, I’m a real publisher! 🙂 I just wish I’d thought this through sooner, turns out I have to order paper forms from the IRS, I can’t get them online like I do just about everything else. More learning curves!
After I finished with taxes, I got to work on the manuscripts and queries queued up in my To-Do list and I’ve been making solid progress. That always feels good! The proof for the Advance Reading Copy of The Longer the Fall arrived. It looks fine, so I just have some minor corrections and I’ll order the review ARCs.
I ran errands in South Nashua yesterday, even though I hated to take so much time when I was building up momentum on my To-Do list. It takes a couple of days to give a full manuscript a good, careful reading (and the more certain I am that I want to buy it, the slower I go). But I needed a couple of reams of paper at Staples. I spotted a new business on Daniel Webster Highway–something called Used Book Superstore. I decided to stop and check it out.
It’s just that, a big store full of steel library-type shelving, stuffed with used books. They also sell DVDs, VHS tapes, CDs and vinyl LPs, but I wasn’t in the mood for that much browsing. I was very glad I’d stopped, though, because I went through the history section and staggered to the front desk with a basket full of books on the 20th Century, especially the 50s and 60s, which are exactly what I need as I ramp up my research for All the Shadows of the Rainbow. I was thrilled to find so much cool stuff! I also nabbed a hardcover copy of David McCullough’s biography of John Adams, which I’ve wanted for a while. I got eight big books, including two huge coffee-table books, for less than $20. I’ll have to go back after I’ve done some research and made lists to see if they have some older fiction I’d like to find.
It’s nice to see any book-related business doing well–at least that means people are reading! Used Book Superstore has a couple of other stores and they’re opening a new store in Salem next month, they told me. The Nashua store just opened the previous Friday. They don’t buy books or give credit but they take book donations. I think I’m going to give them a couple of “hurt copies” of BLUM’s titles that I’ve got. If they sell, that’s advertising!
When Dell pushed back the estimated delivery date of my new computer, they obviously were just covering their ass. The computer arrived today! It would have been here yesterday, but I missed Fedex by 15 minutes, and it required a signature. (Everyone pause for a moment of amazed silence that Fedex came to the right address, two days in a row. *wry look*)
I haven’t opened the cartons yet, though. I’m funny that way. I’m not one of those people who gets something new and shiny and can’t wait to rip open the boxes and unpack it all and start playing. No…when I get something new, I’m in awe of it (partly because it happens so seldom). I always think about it for a while before I open the box. I have to set the carton(s) down and consider them solemnly, sometimes for a couple of days. Eventually, the implications sink in, and/or the bunny starts eating the corners of the carton, and I find a box knife and start opening. But opening up new stuff is a process for me, and the more expensive the stuff, the longer it takes. I’m already impressed by one thing, though: the boxes feel so light! I’ll have to get into them pretty soon. The special touchpad thingie I bought separately arrived weeks ago.
Besides, now I have to learn Windows 7 and get all my software ported over and go through all that transitional stuff, and I have GOT to clear up these manuscripts and queries! (That’s why I’m writing an LJ post right now, yep, um-hmm…I’m halfway through a mss and taking a break, okay?)
It is now harder for me to skip a workout than to do one, even when I’m feeling totally unmotivated and don’t want to work out. On Wednesday I was so focused on my taxes all afternoon and evening, I thought I might just skip cycling, but I got so squirmy and fidgety that I couldn’t stand it, and wound up queuing up a tape and doing cycling late. Usually, if I absolutely have to miss a workout, I make up for it by doing two full workouts the next day, or I just can’t stand myself. I know that a major reason I enjoyed Albacon the most of the ten conventions I’ve attended since November 2007, is that it was the very first convention at which I got down to the hotel’s fitness center and did a real workout. (Of course, the evening that I climbed all those stairs at Anticipation–a total of 34 flights up and 17 flights down–was a pretty serious workout, but it wasn’t the same!) I was higher than a kite for the next 18 hours or so at Albacon, even I was amazed at how it impacted my mood.
We’ve been having very nice weather for a couple of days–cold, but sunny and clear–but…I knew they were forecasting a rainstorm Sunday and Monday. I guess they’re expecting quite a storm, because there’s already a flash flood watch posted!. I hope it really does stay as mild and wet as forecast, because if all that turns into an ice storm, we’re toast. 8-(