I’m at home today. Jessica was scheduled for an EEG, so I was set to work from home and keep an eye on Sophie, but someone was sick at the hospital, things got re-prioritised, and we’re back on the wait list for Jessica’s test. If it wasn’t a precautionary thing, if it were in any way urgent, it would be a real problem, but it’s not, so we’re going to see if it can all be rescheduled before school starts up.

Given that I was going to be home anyway, I decided to get on with my recommended reading essay for the February issue of Locus. I’m late with it, as usual, but have a pile of notes so I thought I’d get started. Because it’s school holidays here, Marianne decided to take the girls out to SciTech for a bit of a day trip and give me a bit of quiet to work. They’ve been gone for about four hours, and so far I’ve paid some bills, had useful discussions with Gary and Jack, had three visits from the kids next door looking for playmates, and spent some time analysing the recommended reading lists and drafting paragraphs for the final essay. If it goes like it tends to, at some point soon I’ll line these all up in row, set the list of my own recommendations down along side it, and just write over the top until it at least reads smoothly. The main thing I’m struggling with now is how to treat material that is on the list which I happened to work on. I worked on several things that I’m very proud of and will mention, but it feels like there’s a conflict of interest in doing so. sigh.

Other than that, I’m actually listening to music played on a stereo system with real speakers. Don’t let anyone tell you that iPods and such sound the same. They don’t. Not even close.