Peer-reviewed, cold and bookish

Sorry no updatey last weekend…I got the funniest email Saturday morning.  It went something like, Hai!  We didn’t tell you that your upcoming publication was in a peer-reviewed newsletter, but it is!  Roflcopter!  So, here’s your peer review by the guruyest guru we could find in the field, cuz it’s totally fair to throw undergrad papers at him hahahaha.  Have your changes ready by Monday kthxbai!

*sigh*  It’s done, though.  And actually the review wasn’t half bad.  And it’s probably a blessing, looking at it, that I didn’t know this was going to be reviewed, or by whom — that probably saved me at least one heart attack.

It’s also two degrees outside today (if you don’t count the wind, which is blowing at almost -20), which in my humble opinion ought to mean that no-one can legally be made to leave their bed all day, unless it is to move to a location with more blankets and/or access to a TV.  Yes I’m from Michigan and yes I’m used to cold, but this is cold enough to be in Good Grief Who Ticked Off The Ice Demons territory.  Nobody gets used to cold that freezes the inside of your nose!!

But of course, I’m at work (while editing and posting this, if not for all of the writing).  BUT I’m also going to Taiji tonight with new kung fu shoes, just the kind I’ve been wanting, which were a present from my awesome husband for my birthday.  (It’s not my birthday yet.  He’s awful about keeping presents until the actual day they’re due to be given.  I always have to make him buy me lots of little things so that he can appease his weakness by drizzling them out over a couple of weeks.  Tell me that’s not a cute character flaw.  ;)

Actually, yesterday was a family dinner that sort of combined my daughter’s birthday and mine (we’re only a couple days apart — which means that yes, a few years ago my birthday present was "not being pregnant anymore"!), so I got a couple neat things.  My boy also got me an awesome Japanese-art coffee mug for my office, nice chopsticks (I rule with chopsticks) and a I Ching hexagram charm (he, at least, doesn’t mind my dual fascination with things Japanese and Chinese) — but he’s holding onto something else for my actual birthday, I think.  I got a potted plant, a candle, two shirts, a Taiji book (the basic cheesy kind, but hey, it was a good thought), and something else I’m forgetting, too.  And my girl made out like a bandit — not that this surprises her anymore.  I do think it’s cool that she gets stuff now that she doesn’t realize how cool it is, because she can’t understanding the packaging, so the person who gave it to her gets the "mandatory thank you" and I’m the one who actually gets to experience the excitement, later on when we use it. 

Yes, I’m greedy.  Going through labor makes you feel entitled as hell.  ;)

Something else exciting, though:  this morning I wrote the end of the Ubersleep text-proper, woohoo!  Of course, I still have to write the resources appendix, do some basic citations (you’ll pardon me but this isn’t school, so I’m totally going to skimp on the citations, at least in the first edition), build the index and do the final format…but it’s getting darn close to done, now.  Even I’m kind of amazed at how much information there was to put in the book!  My worries about it being too premature or too sketchy a subject to deserve a book were definitely unfounded (even though it isn’t a particularly big book, granted).

My plan, which you are all welcome to critique, is to offer the Ubersleep book as a softcover you can order online as well as a downloadable .pdf which will probably cost \$5 or less.  Since there will likely be followup editions as I learn more and more "happens" in the world of polyphasic sleep, I’m going to issue a guarantee that if you buy either format and save your receipt, I’ll give you free electronic (.pdf) upgrades to new editions as they come out (if you ask).  Sometimes editions are necessary, but I hate the idea of double-charging people for the same thing.

Also, this means that my bigger plan, to have Ubersleep done by the time I graduated so that I could work on my novel during my time off before grad school, is apparently, at least for now, on schedule.  And you’ll pardon me but that feels like a heck of an accomplishment too!

Also also (wik), just to keep up on the general updates, sleep is going well (Telepixie is my new hero!!); I get yawny and slow periodically but I’ve got a twenty on that being the #&!@ing weather.  Schedule is going great on weekdays — writing, exercise, music practice, homework; everything’s getting done rather startlingly like clockwork.  Evenings are a little sketchy as I have to fight the urge to hibernate on the couch underneath my weight in blankets, and weekends are pretty well a shambles — but I haven’t had a normal weekend in over a month now, and next weekend I’m traveling again!  So fixing that up will have to wait. 

Hey, if you’re somewhere warm, go stand in it a minute for me, eh?