x-ray vision

[devi]

I had The Fear last night. By which I mean that I found myself lying there in the dark, staring crazily at the ceiling and viciously scratching my head till it bled, my brain spinning down and down into ever greater depths of angst. Why last night, I don't know. Yesterday was great in many ways: end of term, won argument with shop assistant over Matt's shoes, Thai food, Garden State (which I loved). But suddenly, click, off went the light and on came the usual parade of thoughts of inadequacy and restlessness and self-doubt. When I got to the old reliable "maybe this is all there is, I should stop trying to write books and resign myself to being a two-bit teacher and nothing else, I have no imagination and my only skill is regurgitating simple facts", I knew there was nothing else for it but to get up and medicate myself with hot fruit tea and the internet.

On which I found a message from Andy Cox at Interzone, replying to a prod I gave him last week, saying yes, they are still supporting the James White Award and are definitely going to publish my story. Which is some encouragement. But he didn't say when.

I wrote an epic whinge, then thought better of it at the last minute (sometime around 3.30 am) and didn't post it. Thank goodness, now that I read it again. Instead, a weird moment from yesterday:

Two men were sitting in Coffee Republic, both in shiny bomber jackets with buzz-cuts. They didn't particularly look like doctors, in fact they looked more like builders or rugby players - but they were holding an X-ray of someone's pelvis up to the light, pointing at parts of it, and collapsing into giggles.

Comments

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Heh. Well, at the weekend we went to Red Sun in Camden, where Matt bought some nice boots, having been told they were size 10. He thought they were a bit snug, but I supposed that was because new shoes often are, and his old ones are so stunningly decrepit that they're far too loose anyway. He set off for the library the next day, found himself in foot agony, and on closer inspection discovered that they were in fact size nines.

I brought them back yesterday, because I had more time on my hands and because they know me in there, as I've bought almost all my recent shoes from them. So the argument consisted of me saying 'you've been so reliable in the past, when you say something is a certain size we're inclined to believe you,' and them getting all shirty that Matt hadn't wiped the grit and London grime off the soles before packing them back up, and me offering to wipe them myself if that was the only problem, and repeating 'but you said they were 10s and you were wrong, you wouldn't want to lose my custom, would you?'

I didn't think I'd get away with it, but somehow I did. And I didn't even have to do any wiping.

[femme-letale.livejournal.com]

I was concerned because I followed the shoe story up to the point where Matt feet hurt. You know what? Your were absolutely damn right and if they didn't acknowledge that they would have lost my potential custom too!