Deborah Kalin's Blog, page 24

ebooks and excerpts, oh my

FIRST

You do all realise there will be random and intermittent Mongolia stories for some time to come, right? Never fear, they won't be your typical I did such and such, saw such and such, and am now cramming seven gazillion photos and details into one drawn out day type posts, mainly because I'll bore myself shitless if I even so much as tried that.

However, tonight I have other news, writing-ish news, which I should impart first. This brings me to:

THIRDLY

The PodCastle contract for "The...

all the tiny moments of waste add up

So I'm having a little trouble with mustering up the organisational skills required to slot back into my normal routine.

Trams, being the junkies they are, require the regular feeding of metcards. Guess what I forgot to buy (and what you can't buy cheaply (or at all, if you don't have coins) on the tram itself)? Houses, once locked, require keys in order to be unlocked and yield up their comforts (said comforts being an empty pantry, but that's entirely beside the point). Guess what I left...

there are consequences

I could tell you that I have amazing friends, one of whom staged a stealth pickup at the airport yesterday, and didn't flinch from hugging me even though I hadn't showered since May.

I could tell you that Mongolia is Big Sky Country. Or that I am currently sporting the darkest tan I have achieved in the past twenty years. That I came home to a gloriously pretty copy of Shadow Bound. That the temperatures in early-summer Mongolia are colder than those I've so far found in Melbourne winter.

All...

not sure what i was thinking — but i'm sure it was good

Okay, Internets!

I have to go away for just a little bit.

It's not you, it's me. Honest.

(Although while I'm away, by all means feel free to examine your constant, compulsive need to try and sell me things.)

Promise I'll come home all bouncy and refreshed and full of renewed appreciation for all things hot-shower and electronic-related. Perhaps in return you could think about that new world order Tessa requested? There has been alarmingly little raspberry jam of late.

packing status: still borked

Good news, landing just before I flit off to lands untrammelled, is that PodCastle will be publishing "The Wages of Salt" in an upcoming issue.

So, if you never did manage to track down a copy of PostScripts #18, or if you did but you'd also like an audio copy of the story, keep your eye on the PodCastle site.

Yay for the little story that could!

t-minus 4 sleeps and counting

I hate packing. But after a day at it, I have shoved most everything I'll need into the rucksack. I'll have to wear my hiking boots onto the plane, and carry my warm jacket, and clearly I'm not buying ANYTHING while I'm away because there isn't a skerrick of unused space in said rucksack,1 but by and large it's done.

No doubt I'll spend the next few days unpacking and repacking in a vain attempt to jettison something, because that's normally how I roll.

The only major task outstanding is take ...

i owe you emails. they're not landing any time soon.

Dear Australian Dollar: Yeah, thanks. Really.

I hate foreign currency. Estimating how much I'll need, trying to figure out ways to access it while I'm away, and then the whole debacle that is changing from one currency to another just so that I can change to yet another currency in a few more days. Not to mention the fact that the US dollar, the ugliest monopoly money on the face of the planet, always gets up and kicks the Aussie dollar's backside precisely when I need to actually buy some...

and the mome raths outgrabe

Sometime last year, my bank (in a fit of promotional madness) sent me a couple of free movie tickets. I can't remember why — I think I answered a survey or some such inanity. Anyway, not the point. The point is that the free movie tickets were for Greater Union cinemas, of which Melbourne has exactly … one. Which I simply never get to.

Yesterday, determined not to waste a free movie ticket, and being near town, and having wanted vaguely to see Iron Man 2, I redeemed one of the free tickets.

Whi...

one day i might even not feel mildly guilty about it

Today's blog post was going to be about finally wrangling that (currently) most stubborn of stubborn short stories into shape. Unfortunately, today involved illness, and the story didn't get any less stubborn by my putting it aside in favour of sleep, so I am unable to report as planned.

I can tell you that daytime soaps have not changed since the last time I snoozed through them. I'm betting this won't come as a surprise to anyone.

Instead I will share with you that today, I did something...

and yet another weekend goes by without ironing

I have 98 AA batteries for the trip to Mongolia. They may well take up the majority of my baggage weight allowance. The perils of trying to calculate how many batteries you'll need to see you through 3 weeks of a potentially avid photography spree.

I've also spent the weekend collating all the medicinal and toiletry stuffs I'll need. I'm a shampoo and toothbrush kind of girl, mostly, but travel to remoter places always requires so much more. First aid kits, emergency antibiotic kits...