I am still alive.
This fall held a series of big changes and an overabundance of work...and I've been behind the curve on a lot of thinking and decisions. It's not depression, per se, but a sort of backlog of to-do items, both physical and not. I grew up on a hobby farm with horses - if you don't clean the shit out of the stalls regularly, it takes an astoundingly short amount of time for a mess to become a mountain. Seriously you guys, I've had this GIANT Ikea bookshelf installed in my guest room since August and it stood empty, glaring at me, until last week. Did you know librarianizing* your fiction after moving a couple of times leaves you with a list of missing titles you're SURE you used to own and have no idea where they ended up between here, Texas, and back here? Infuriating, and likely to be expensive. Sigh.
Honestly, everything writing-related has taken a back seat to sleep, including this blog. So, in effort to get back on the carpal-tunnel horse I'll include a few random items in this post. And tomorrow, I'll post the overdue Tiffany Reisz review I owe.
- I have ALMOST successfully completed my legal name change, and certainly this process after a divorce is a room in hell for the most banally evil sorts. I mean really...with a marriage certificate you just need to send a single piece of paper without any explanation. When I went to Wells Fargo, I sat down and said "let's just start here: I'm changing my legal name, here's the documentation, I'm divorced, and I'm not sorry."** I'm equally annoyed and amused at explaining that their pity response is misplaced. The WF guy was cool, and said "ok, congrats then, let's fix this!
- I have a bunch of new books to read and review for Ancient History Encyclopedia. I also have that Tiffany Reisz book...and I need to decide pretty damn quick if I'll keep publishing under the old name or the new old name (I went back to my maiden name...technically I could've gone to ANY name, but "Awesome" seems too obvious and "Settergrendel" would only confuse people MORE than my actual last name, which is pronounced exactly as it's spelled and yet mispronounced about as often as I'm called sir. So, at least weekly.
- I got my updated social security card AND my updated passport within 2 weeks. My driver's license is now 8 weeks and counting: good job MN DMV, you're officially months slower than the feds. My stupid TSA Pre-Check number has an expected wait time of NINETY DAYS before they even call to tell me what to do next to change my name.
- Angus is a horrid and adorable homicidal fluffball who has scarred the shit out of my arms and legs. I'm considering getting him a puppy. I'm also considering putting together a book out of the Evil Overlord Facebook posts I've done (and those I have in a list waiting to be posted).
- I now have five months to lose enough weight to be relatively comfortable on a flight from MN to Iceland to Glasgow. Shit. Related: I upgraded the gym membership earlier this week so I can continue not going to any gym but feel guilty when I see the receipt once a month.
- I totally should've gone with Settergrendel.
*Yes. I made up that word. What else accurately describes obsessively not only alphabetizing my books by author, but ensuring they're in correct SERIES order? That's right: Librarianizing.
**As previously documented in this blog, while ex-husband and I are quite good friends to this day, the divorce wasn't a terrible thing, and ultimately better for us both. We had a celebratory dinner at Fogo de Chao the day we filed.
