Diary #497

I drove back from Sunset last Thursday to find a couple of gifts waiting for me; one was a book named A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder, sent to me by Jeremy Dunn.  I had a rather quiet weekend (except for going to a special Doctor Who screening on Sunday with Lorelei); aside from writing and getting stoned (because I believe in keeping Christmas going for the full twelve days if at all possible), I did a bit of planning for an upcoming overnight with one of my favorite gentlemen, and I finally got the cover art for The Essential Maggie McNeil, Volume I completed!  I originally planned to use a photo, because I wanted a different style of cover for my non-fiction books.  But we just couldn’t get any photos to work, so Shannon Reeves (who did the art for The War on Whores) did a sketch based on one of my photos instead.  I think it came out very well, and as soon as I’m finished examining the proof the book will at long last be ready for sale!  So I should be announcing that soon.  Because, as I mentioned last week, Grace has been in poor health, I decided to run back to Sunset for one night earlier this week so she wouldn’t have to be alone for such a long stretch; while I was there we did two more bookcase units, which completes the main work for that set of shelves.  Chekhov will be back tomorrow, so they’ll start on the finish work and staining, and before much longer I’ll have a real library again!  We want to do a few more sets of shelves for DVDs and CDs, then after that Chekhov is going to put new flooring down (the existing flooring is 90 years old and quite worn), and then Jae will do the rest of the decorating; by spring we’ll finally have the main room finished.  And after 25 years of waiting to have a nice place of my own again, that’s going to feel so wonderful I’m honestly not sure how I’m going to react to it.