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Yesterday morning, finished packing and got in cab to airport. Trying new cab company whose office is a couple blocks from my house. Turns out that's just some kind of secondary business office, but still, local in some sense. Driver told me he was taking computer science classes at Mission College; when I asked what classes in particular, he told me Search Engine Optimization. We chatted (well, mostly he chatted) about Google and local search for the rest of the trip to the airport.

Flight was uneventful. Someday I will write up my experiences (three so far) with Enhanced Patdowns. Napped for probably half the flight; also read some submissions and some of a novella from the latest Asimov's: Kij Johnson's “The Man Who Bridged the Mist,” which I like so far.

Arrived at M&K's around 8ish p.m.; kids had just been put to bed. Curry for dinner; chatted with M for a bit; she went to sleep, and I stayed up doing assorted computery things.

Around 2 a.m. Chicago time, I figured it would be a good time to go to sleep, attempting to transition from my home schedule to a two-hours-later time zone while also attempting to get onto a somewhat earlier schedule so as to have some overlap with Mary Anne, who often wakes up at 5 a.m.

Spent the next two-plus hours trying to get to sleep, using all of my usual remedies. Wide awakeness plus sore shoulders made it impossible.

I think I finally dropped off sometime after 4. (Thanks, NyQuil!) Woke up around 9 or 9:30.

The day was a mix of playing with the kids, chatting with M, eating meals, reading more of the Johnson novella, and rejecting submissions. Also spent an hour or so sitting with M and writing (each on our own projects). I decided a week or two ago that before I proceed with the second draft of my awkward-length novella/novel, I could start writing a much shorter story in the same millieu, but in a different mode and subgenre and with different characters. I wrote 1300 words on that in an online hangout with M last weekend (I think?), which was as far as I had plotted; today I sat down to write with some apprehension because I had no idea where things were going next, but things flowed fairly smoothly, and I wrote about 500 words of notes (figuring out characters and next plot steps) and about 500 words of story.

Also made a bit of progress on my to-do list, but still lots to do there.

Anyway, so far so good. M has gone to sleep; I'm gonna do some more magazine work, then try to get to sleep relatively early and hope I can sleep. This trip will probably be more fun if I don't spend the whole time six to eight hours out of sync with Mary Anne.

Tomorrow: more of the same, most likely. And going to English dancing in the evening; am apprehensive about that (because it's rare in my experience to encounter someone who teaches dance in the word-focused way that I need it taught), but M assures me I can leave early if I don't like it.

(Think I'm going to leave the time zone on this blog alone, so just add two hours to the timestamp for entries this week.)