maureenkspeller @maureenkspeller@wandering.shop

Tonight I shall be emerging from admin hell. This is a good thing. There may be a future.

Hello, new people following me. Not sure what's caused the move from the other place right now, but hey. And I need to practise being here more often.

Ion, I have had a root canal this afternoon, I have an editorial report to write, and we're supposed to be seeing The Limehouse Golem this evening.

The weather is suddenly hazy and the sun is very red. . It's either dust from the Sahara or smoke from Portugal. I live in Kent in the UK. This is not normal.

I have also failed my other cat, in ways so deep and complex only she can articulate them but chooses not to because she has other more important things to get on with, and anyway wants me to feel encouraged that I might not be entirely useless, while knowing full well that I can never satisfy her needs. Because she is Rosa and I am a mere human being, although I am her human being.

Things I have learned this morning. I have failed as maitre d' to my cat.

I seem to have broken this. It says I'm not following anyone. I thought I was. This can go with the display on my travel alarm dying quietly in a corner; my printer coughing out worrying bits of plastic (though it's still working so far), and trying to get the other printer to talk to the system.

Later, we are going to see Despicable M3, because … :-)

Today I am editing, and being grumpy about people who think word counts don't apply to them because they are mysteriously special (my sekrit power is editing the shit out of that kind of nonsense :-) ) and differently, unrelatedly grumpy about people who won't understand the functions of criticism even though they are perfectly capable of doing so. So, all in all, back to normal. :-/

It is the middle of the night and I am awake. We got home from our holiday yesterday afternoon, but somehow I am still out on the motorway, driving, driving, driving.

Still here, but much to do before I go on holiday next week, so not really here, if you see what I mean. :=/

Been busy surviving an election in the UK.

Early a.m. I have watched dawn break, and it was good.

Am surely due another translated into English using Google Translate. (I try not to think about the last one – it took four days to render it even vaguely intelligible in English and required a crash course in the philosophy of continental fashion design to get there). I've edited forty-odd articles for this journal, of which precisely two showed any sign that the authors had made an attempt to follow its style requirements. Both grad students. Professors are the worst.

Mind you, they have managed to add a hundred footnotes to a remarkably slim article. Sigh. Reminding myself to be grateful that they have not done inline citations as well (see person who manually added endnote numbering) as this could get really complicated. These articles arrive in threes, so nervously awaiting the third, because these look surprisingly straightforward.

That feeling when you notice that the author of the academic article you are about to edit has somehow managed to make each section into a bullet point, and you nervously inspect the endnotes to see if they've numbered-listed them (it would not be the first time), and thank god, they haven't. (Still recovering from the person who manually added the endnote numbering in the text, and got it horribly wrong.)

I have done major adulting today, networked for some freelance work, and cleared an inbox. I have also refrained from burning down parts of the internet, though god knows it was tempting, very, very tempting. I am now going to continue being responsible for the rest of the day.

Minnow is pronounced fit and well and the proud owner of precisely one tooth: a canine.

After which I am planning a nice quiet day of admin and work. I know, I am a fool to myself. Yesterday we made a 330-mile round trip to go and eat grilled meats with a friend. This would be considered excessive by UK standards, perhaps, but we had a good time and I enjoyed the driving immensely. We have another road trip in a month's time, when we go on holiday, so I am nicely limbered up for that. (I do all the driving. It's safer that way.)

Today we are taking Minnow to the vet's for the check-up arising from her check-upafter her initial visit, because her last molar had fallen out. You may recall that when we went for her first post-check up she lost another tooth. We're fairly hopeful that this time we will be signed off, unless she loses what I think is now her last tooth. We are naturally agog to see what happens this time, though I approve of auto-dentistry if it heals nicely.