9.22.11

I am unsettled.

So here I sit, sneaking a Hershey's Kiss I liberated from someone's candy bowl in St. Louis, pondering.

It's September, which means change is afoot. Facebook rolled out a bunch of craziness last night, the iPhone 4s or 5 will be here shortly, Where All the Dead Lie is out in the world, my to do list has grown a third head, and it's getting cooler out. I don't normally do well with change. I'm a Taurus. We like to have things a certain way, and don't want people messing with our stuff.

All right. To be honest, the day after a release is always a bit of a downer. You've spent all your time and energy pushing your new baby out, and now the nurses have taken him away to that faraway display bassinet, and you're left with your overfull breasts and sore body and an overhwlming desire to sleep which is countermanded by your biological need to reconnect with your child immediately.

Sigh.

Change. It does suck.

I'm done traveling for the foreseeable future, which means I get to unpack. We are going to redo the kitchen - and as I brewed my tea this morning, I will admit to standing, mouth agape, I'm sure, staring at the old refrigerator (white, dented, broken icemaker, basically a chilled stand for a set of overfull cabinets, paper plates, bread and potatoes) wondering what it's going to look like when we do built in shelves and replace it with stainless. And wondering if you can remove granite countertops in one piece without demolishing them? I'd like to give mine to Habitat for Humanity, but don't know if they'll come off well.

Then I wandered into the dining room, which we're also going to redo, and realized that once we take off the previous owners' grass mat, which resides below the chair rail, and repaint the room, (it's red now, and I'm sick of it) and sell the furniture, it's going to look MUCH bigger.

And we are buying a new car - and let me tell you, this is not an endeavor we undertake lightly. When I sold my beloved 4-Runner two years ago, it had just turned 18. And Randy's car just turned 11. We keep our stuff around for a long time, becoming quite attached. I cried so hard when I sold my truck. I hated to see him go.Last night we were literally fingers on the keys ready to drive off, but something stopped us, and we decided to sleep on it. Good thing we did - a deeper check into the car showed a bad accident that wasn't on the Carfax. So it's back to square 3 tonight (there's another in the running.)

We are not accumulators. We don't buy stuff just to buy stuff. We are doing our damndest to live a more minimalist lifestyle, with events instead of material goods. We gave away half our household last year, and damn if it doesn't seem like we need to do it again. Because of all the travel this year, things feels terribly cluttered.

Settling back into a work routine is messy as well. I was up until 1 AM two nights ago trying to sort through what has to happen now, what can wait until next week, and what waits until next month. My priority is the final edit on the May '12 book, due October 3, but I also had to do a line edit for a short story appearing next year, (Done and crossed off list - yay!) edit and bring pages of the sandwich book to group last night, plus do all the attendant release writing, publishing, tweeting and facebooking, plus juggle two other major projects I'm working on.

OK. I admit it. I am overwhelmed. And when I get overwhelmed, I shut down.

Hence the comforting bit of chocolate, and pondering. Which led me to the following, apropos of nothing, outside of the fact Facebook now wants me to categorize people, and I don't know which category name to use. And I know there are more like me who wonder. So. Help a sister out and take the poll.

And for you readers, when you take the poll, how do you refer to us? If you were going to say it aloud, which would it be - So and So is my favorite _________.

Share, chickadees. Give me something to distract myself.