Mixed bag

What a couple of days it has been!

So, on Saturday evening we went to dinner at a friend’s place (which was lovely) and then everyone decided that they wanted to go dancing. I thought, ‘Sure. I’m down with dancing till the wee hours of the morning. Bring it on…’ And so we did just that. A fun time was had by all, until 3am rolled around and we had to traipse across hell’s half-acre in order to find a taxi home. Eventually, a taxi pulled over to let someone out, and we managed to wrangle a lift (after we had already decided to walk home, and were really only about 10 minutes away from our place. But still. My feet hurt.)
Now, for some reason, I had ludicrously agreed to meet my friend, the notorious Miss Black, at 9:00 at the gym to do not one, not two, but three classes.  So, after a mere 5 hours of sleep, I found myself jumping around with a bunch of crazy Sunday morning exercisers, whilst dreaming about my bed.
I decided that I was too old to stay out dancing till 3am by 9:15… and I decided that three classes in a row was a bad idea at about 9:16. But still, I survived them all and am now suffering from residual tricep pain just typing this post.
(It hurt brushing my teeth this morning. It hurts lifting my hand to touch my face.)
My body decided to remind me that I am no longer 18, and no longer capable of abusing it in such a ridiculous manner, by making me fall asleep before 9pm last night. (I know, I’m too cool for school.)
***
Today, I awoke refreshed and with muscles that scream their hatred of me with every move I make.
But on a happier note, my friend TB and I ran a very successful seminar at Flinders this afternoon (about writing theory chapters and literature reviews in PhD theses) which drew the largest crowd I think I’ve seen all year at one of these sessions. It was great! Plus, I managed to speak to some of the head honcho professors without blushing as I did so! The day just got better and better.
Then, I checked my email and discovered a link to a review of Canterbury 2100:

http://www.asif.dreamhosters.com/doku.php?id=canterbury_2100

The best part is that the reviewer said that my story is a tour-de-force, and is one of her favourites in the collection! Hooray! (The worst part was that she called me L.L. Bennett instead of L.L. Hannett, but that’s an easy–and understandable–mistake to have made. No biggie.)
In other great news, I have had some very positive responses to my call for donations to our Movember Quiz Night! A couple of generous Adelaidean businesses have agreed to donate goods and vouchers that we can raffle off on the night, so I’m completely stoked.
In other great news (which starts off as scary news, but gets better): my sister and her boyfriend, who both live in Canada, had a terrible accident on the weekend when their little car collided with an enormous deer (with full rack of antlers) at 100 km/h. The car is totalled. The deer died instantly. Terri and Nials, thanks to the Toyota Yaris’ excellent design, came away from the collision without a scratch. Terri said that the scariest part was when the airbags deployed with a spark and a cloud of smoke: she thought the car was on fire, and the door was so crushed that she couldn’t get out. Meanwhile, I’d like to say a big fat THANK YOU to the person who designed the sparking, smoking airbag because it saved my sister’s life. (Not to mention the fact that the airbags probably had a lot to do with preventing her from getting stabbed to death by the deer’s antlers as it crashed into her windshield. So many people have not been killed by the impact, but have suffered mortal injury because of the antlers. So scary. I imagine that big balloony airbags would probably have deflected these antlers-of-death, so THANK YOU YARIS DESIGNER!)

And now, I’m going to settle down with ‘Sister, Sister’ (even though I should be reading the boring review book from hell, which simply refuses to end.) Today has been too good to spoil it with boring review books. It’s ‘Sister, Sister’ for me! 🙂