Making Space

I finally bought some new furniture (Ikea does not last forever - 15 years seems to be the max). Of course, that means getting rid of the old, which means sorting through stuff.

It turns out that the furniture I bought is a little bigger than what I had, so I had to make room, which means throwing stuff out.

I had three desks in the office/den area where I work, so I decided to get rid of one and consolidate. I got rid of the huge copier from the 90's and replaced it with a compact one (that is also a fax and a printer - the 90's copier cost $4000; this one $100 - amazing!!!) and moved the second desk into my office. But I still had to get rid of more stuff to do that.

I have spent the better part of the last week sorting and throwing out, and I am amazed at what I held on to.

I had thought I would be able to keep up my reading while doing this, but I was wrong. I was just physically exhausted by the end of the night. I have also learned that sorting and parting ways with stuff (even if it's old books I will never read again and fax machines I don't need) is stressful.

So I had 7 partials and manuscripts that I had hoped to read over the President's Day weekend, and I only managed to read 2 and a half (I did finish the third, but now I have to look at it again for an edit - one step forward, two steps back).

And I have two lectures this weekend.

Meanwhile, the erotica submissions were many and quite wonderful. I read through all of them and passed them on to my very excited intern.

If you don't hear from us in a week or so, it means that my spam filter got your email and decided to erase it (there were one or two submissions that I think got winked), so please resubmit.