Maybe I Am a Workaholic?

In the last few days, I copyedited a couple of books and sent them off to the authors for review, and I did a little more work on the American Library Association database . . . and I currently have nothing to work on. Total panic! What do I do with myself? With free time? It feels so . . . unfilled, unpressured, unstructured! This can't be normal.

I've got a new manuscript coming in early next week. The two books in author review will come back. More work will come in. I still feel odd.

Is this what it feels like to need a fix?

Not that I don't have work to do -- housework. Lots and lots of cleaning desperately needs to be done in this house. Last time I focused on housework, I managed to get three rooms clean: the kitchen, the main bathroom, and the dining room. Those rooms were really nice. Nice to look at. Nice to be in. Nice. Now they're a mess again. Maybe I'll get them clean again -- and a fourth room? Can I get four rooms at a time clean? Check back next week to find out!

Election: Needless to say, I'm thrilled that Barack Obama is the president-elect of the United States. I don't expect miracles. I'm not that hopeful, and I know that the more things change, the more they stay the same. I do expect things to get better: our moral standing in the world to improve, our socioeconomic structure to rebalance in favor of the middle class, the Supreme Court and other federal courts at least not to get any more conservative (yes, I'm very socially liberal, though fiscally not so much), increasing environmental protections and a regearing of industry to be more environmentally progressive (if we don't take the lead on this, some other country will, and they'll become the economic power of the 21st century). The national debt and annual budget deficit drive me crazy. For those, I don't see a solution coming any time soon. We had a major interstate bridge fall into the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis -- there's some investment that needs doing.

I can't quite wrap my head around the financial crisis. Do that many Americans buy houses, and that many home buyers get mortgages they can't pay, that the whole world is going into an economic tailspin because of foreclosures? And I can't understand most of what Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says. Throw money at it. Don't throw money at it. Does it matter? I suspect we're like a snake that's just eaten a pig -- we're just going to have to stretch out somewhere until it passes through.

Fun:

• Super-complicated cryptic acrostic puzzles from the Atlantic. OMG! Some of these are so hard! You have to be good at cryptic (British-style) crossword puzzles even to get started, and then these have an extra wrinkle to them.


• And check out Japanese figure skater Mao Asada performing this layover camel spin. Yes, she is spinning in place, meaning she's balanced over about an inch of 1/4" skate blade that's in contact with the ice. She's also got an amazing triple axel, which she's landed numerous times in competition. She'll be competing in Paris today and Saturday, and we'll get a chance to see her Tatiana Tarasova-choreographed programs. Tarasova has the ability to bring out the best in her skaters -- should be exciting!