Chewing a Toothpick and Hating E-bay

Late night, last night. I went to a party at my friend's house on the South Side—the very far south side of Chicago, so far that if I traveled any farther I wouldn't have the right to say I was in Chicago anymore. That south side. The party was fun: bonfire and a lot of wonderful new people who I can't wait to see again. I stayed up until about six in the morning talking with my friend Cat about all the things that have been bubbling around in my head for the past couple of months. It was cathartic, but at the same time it just left me with more questions to percolate.

I finished my rewrites on "Daedalus, In His Mirror, Icarus" on Friday, after a mad marathon push of typing, pacing, thinking. And when I flicked on the television (to distract my jumbled thoughts so that I could focus on the writing) I discovered that there was a Farscape marathon on. So naturally, I was overjoyed. I put "Daedalus" into manuscript format yesterday and will be sending it out to Asimov's today sometime.

Last week, I bought a computer on e-bay—a used laptop, not state-of-the-art, of course, but it was fast enough for my writing purposes and it also featured a DVD drive. Which was very exciting. The person from whom I was buying wanted a money order or a cashier's check mailed to him, so I went out and promptly got the necessary cashier's check for $270 and mailed it out to him the next day in San Francisco. He still hasn't gotten it and is beginning to get antsy. So now I don't know what's happening: am I out $270? Did someone else get the money, or is it just lost in the mail? Can I cancel a cashier's check and have one reissued? Am I completely fucked? The whole thing just has me annoyed in a huge way. What's worse, my poor roommate, whose e-bay account I used to buy the computer, has to be the bearer of bad news and therefore has to deal with me being annoyed. Sorry, Ian. Anyway, here's hoping it all works out and I can go home with a new computer in tow.

And in one final note, happy birthday to my brother Mike. He turned 29, I think, on Friday. Happy birthday, Mike.