The day began with an email from Gin Petty, with helpful instructions (and not a whiff of oh-you-dummy) for getting my Pub 2003 to talk down to Peggy's Pub 2000. And when I didn't understand, she wrote again. The second time I got it, and five minutes later (how simple could this be? how could I not have understood this from the very beginning?) I am sending my file off to Peggy and repenting of yesterday's temper tantrums and all the Bad Things (very bad) I said about Bill Gates. Well, not all of them. Just what I said about Publisher. The rest of it stands. Thank you, Gin--I hate to think how much time you spent chasing this information across the Internet. To see all the totally wonderful things Gin does when she isn't helping dummies learn their software, go here. She is also the Big Mama of the papermaking list-serve, which introduced me to the pleasures of papermaking. That's how I met her. Isn't the Internet wonderful?
And to those who wrote me all those wonderful there-now-it-will-be-better-tomorrow emails, yes, it is, thank you very much. China came through with a drug-sniffing Rottweiler named Rambo. And while she hasn't yet told me exactly how she, Sheila, and Rambo plan to interdict that truckload of smuggled cocaine, I am confident that it will happen. Tomorrow, please, China, if you don't mind. We are already up to 82,000 words, and you still haven't captured the Bad Guys. And there is the papermaking workshop to do at the end of the book.
Bill says he still feels like a ranch hand--he's cutting cedar out of fence lines, but it's warmer today (up to 56 degrees this afternoon!) so it's bearable. I finished my holiday knitting last night--got that last cap off the needles and intend to retire from caps until next November. Now I am ready to go back to the vest I am knitting for mememe.
Reading Note, from William Trevor: I believe in not quite knowing. A writer needs to be doubtful, questioning. I write out of curiosity and bewilderment.