Three weeks, two days

Just sayin'. In twenty-three days, I shall be en route to California.

Potlatch, FogCon. Are you coming? If not, why not? ("Inappropriate distance" is not an excuse; I myself live at a wildly inappropriate distance, and I'll be there.) I do now have my FogCon schedule, which I will post in the traditional manner, but I'll give it a few days to settle in case anything changes. At the moment it's looking like two panels and a reading, yay. Please come to my reading! It'll be Friday afternoon, if it doesn't shift. There may be cupcakes.

In the meantime, between now and then, between here and there - well, I have to finish a novel. I have not flung myself quite into a death-or-glory charge at it, because as we know I am not good at that; but a steady fifteen hundred words a day will bring me in on time if I can bring it in to length. As we know, I am not good at that either; I always overrun, word-wise, in the first draft. I am mad keen not to be late with this, though, so I may up the daily rate. If I can write fifteen hundred, I can write two thousand, right?

Also, a plot would be nice. I'm just sayin'.

Also, I have to make marmalade. I have almost all the oranges. (I wish that help-yourself greengrocers would view it as an obligation to have a scale to hand, for weigh-it-yourself purposes. I wanted two kilos and came home yesterday with 1.7, because I couldn't weigh the bags before I reached the till, and by then I wasn't going to queue again for four oranges more. For the love of four oranges, though, I will go back today.) I have sugar, and jars, and technique. And pretty labels. And waxed discs. And time. Of course I have time. There's always time for long slow cooking.

Between now and the marmalade, though, lie twelve hundred unwritten words. I will reach 50K before I leave the library. Just sayin'...

[ETA: there will be early copies of Hidden Cities by Daniel Fox at FogCon. We have been promised this. You can be among the very first to own one, two weeks ahead of the common populace. All you have to do is be there, and waft a few dollars in an appropriate direction. Still not coming...?]

Living relics

Now that he's Pope, Ratzinger's organ donor card has been declared invalid. The Vatican is worried that if/when he's declared a saint, any donated parts of him would become relics in other people's bodies.

Which is an idea by which I am entirely entranced. But it must presumably apply to other people also, because anyone can become a saint; being Pope is not a prerequisite. Therefore, presumably, the Vatican is saying that all organ donation should cease, just in case of future sanctity? [I do not think that they have thought this through.]

But honestly, regular common people walking around with holy relics in their system? That's such a cool idea. There has to be a story in it somewhere...

(Also, the URL for the above link? Is the stupidest URL I have seen thus far in my so-long life. It is I think longer than my life.)

Phew!

Just for a minute there, I nearly had an alcohol catastrophe.

I went downstairs for another glass of wine, to find the bottle empty.

Oh, I thought, a little blankly. Okay, then. Gin!

But! The gin bottle! Empty!

Shriek.

I went to the alcohol-cupboard more in loss than desperation, utterly confident that there wouldn't be a spare bottle of gin, because there never is; and, y'know what?

There was. Hiding in among the whiskies and the rums and vodkas. Phew. So gin it is...