Went to Sinema last night intending an hour's stop, even drinking wine so as not to get in a pint-by-pint thing with one of the others. Unfortunately, I was lured into stopping by the promise of Dougal and the Blue Cat (blue is beautiful, blue is best), then a free bottle of Chardonnay. We ended up watching Valley of Gwangi instead, which is a classic of the cowboys vrs dinosaurs sub-genre. Although it had far too many cowboys and not nearly enough dinosaurs for my taste. The main t-rex was also worryingly purple, thus causing a certain amount of Barney-fear.

I thought I actually really needed a night relaxing and chilling but it turned out Chardonnay and me should not mingle as I got exceptionally miserable and grouchy when I got home. Thankfully, I sent my unhappy grouch to a friend and not here. The polite gist is that I have two very big jobs on at the day job, with deadlines over the next month, plus Warring States which has a deadline at the end of summer. And no-one who really gets things that amuse/entertain me in the way my Current Ex did. And I do truly miss writing without my darling moosifer sat on my lap and occassionally rolling over the keyboard: it's hard to get over twelve years of a work routine like that. I used to pause, when struggling, and rub him under the chin or give him a few strokes, or play rum-tum-tugger with him. Then I'd carry on writing. So, I just don't know what to do with myself now.

Naturally, I have assaged this grouchiness by buying:

• a bigger mem card for the nikon
• sunglasses which I think make me look suitably mod-like when in my black blazer jacket but may have been a mistake
• a victorian style black bracelet (fake jet, obviously)

I'm planning to dig through some old drawers of stuff until I find a good badge for the blazer (I think, sadly, the prefect badge is missing).

I've also found that a good way to release the frustration over the amount of writing (day job and novel) is to beta-read friends' work, so a handful of people have been getting very thorough critiques. I think it's because I spend all day and night having to cross-check* my own work, so it's a blessed relief to just be checking someone else's and not having to come up with any more words.

Maybe I should use one of the toy Bagpi (the plural of Bagpuss) as an erzatz cat?



*what does "cabin crews to cross-check" mean, anyway? I realised I've been flying too much when I found myself using "cross-check" in a conversation about critiquing. I assume it's something involving checking the doors really are locked.