Brain Dead

I am exhausted, physically and mentally. Yesterday, I had a most unhappy conversation with my rep from the do-it-for-yourself publishing company: even though I sent in a very complete, comprehensive book dummy along with a letter spelling out what I wanted the book to look like, it was all pretty much disregarded. So now that I'm on round two of the galley corrections and I let them know that I want the font size to be the original size that I specified, they want $349.00 to change it. I don't fucking think so. I never asked them to enlarge the font size (which of course makes for a longer book which of course makes more money for them, so they think), and I also didn't okay weird spacings in the text.

So I've gone from being upset because I've worked so hard on the book, etc., etc., only to be ignored to being determined that I will find an outlet for this. And while I've been exploring online self publishing options and figuring out how to reconfigure my book, we're having extensive work done in our front and back gardens.

Keep in mind that living in downtown Philadelphia it is extremely unusual to have both a front garden and essentially a large back yard. Every 7-10 years we spring for having professional work done to bring things back to life and make our non-gardening lives more enjoyable. So all this has coincided--the book (which is major mental disruption) and the garden overhaul (which is major physical disruption). What it all means is that I am housebound while the workers are here--nice as they are, I'm not leaving my house open to people I don't know (and who all wants to wander in). Plus I have to catch and lock two of the cats in our bedroom with their food and litter and I get to listen to them pound on the door and scream all day. It is very wearing.

And then I have to answer questions from the contractor when that's the last thing I want to deal with. And the fact that our outdoor water pipe is broken. But the contractor can get it fixed. Just pile on the money. What the fuck.

So it is 8:15 at night and I am wrung out and have to get up early to deal with tomorrow's go-round of gardening. I know that when this is all over it will be great, but while it is happening, I am so fucking sorry I ever said let's do this.

But let's throw a little bit of knitting in here: I did finish the second hat for the Tops & Toes book so I'll be able to get those out to the publisher next week (if it should rain one day!).

Ah, life: if it isn't this, you're dead.