Random Bullets of Crap

• I think that I sprained my thumb in my sleep last night. It was fine at bedtime - totally - but upon waking, it now hurts to bend it. I feel like if I were a knuckle cracker that cracking the knuckle might make it feel better, but as I don't actually know how to crack my knuckles really (terrorized by mother about how trashy such a habit was throughout my childhood, as well as cautioned that it would give me big unladylike knuckles which would make my hands hideous), this is no solution.
  
• Here's the thing though about the above admonitions of my mother: I don't think I have particularly "ladylike" hands anyway. My hands are like little kid hands. I don't have long slender fingers, and there's a freckle on my right hand that my mom consistently mistook for dirt throughout my childhood, thus trying to scrub it off and me yelping, "It's not dirt! It's a birthmark!" to which my mother would say, "You never had that when you were a baby!" only finally to realize that yes, indeed, the freckle would not be removed with a good washing. And my middle finger on my right hand is deformed from how I hold a pen. So yeah, it was never like I was going to be a hand model.
  
• Am going to return to Target to return some things from my trip yesterday. I hate having to go back to Target in shame. Thus, I shall go to a different Target.
• I'm really looking forward to my trip to the salon today. Perhaps upon my return I shall tell you of Shana, my stylist. On the menu for today is a mani/pedi (I'm not a high maintenance girl who has these as a regular part of her repertoire, but I do like to indulge every now and again), eyebrows, and a haircut. It shall be an afternoon of beauty! Hurrah!
• I heard back from my publisher with suggestions for revision of the manuscript (but a positive review overall! hurrah! they will not rescind the contract! not that I thought that they would, but it was always a fear, given the way that advance contracts work!) and I have a LOT of work to do upon my return from the UK. Actually, I've got a lot of work to do while IN the UK, in terms of reading my ASS off and making many notes. But anyway, I'm feeling many mixed emotions because a) I am really happy to have heard back before my travels because I was beginning to get antsy to hear, b) I'm freaked out about how I'm possibly going to do what I need to do with this thing, and c) I'm excited because now it seems like the book really will happen! This is a lot to be feeling at one time. And I feel a little bit sick thinking about all of that. Just saying.
• Re: the reader's report - and other reader's reports I've received - is it wrong that I'm both pleased and bothered at the same time by the way that the STYLE of my prose is praised? I feel like I'm kind of an asshole for feeling bothered at any praise, but it brings me back to the primal scene of my first year-end eval. in my PhD program where part of my critique was that my seminar papers lacked "sophistication and complexity" but that I was a "pleasure to have in class." And you know, I realize that I do tend to have a pretty single-minded approach to the way I write about literature, and that's why I really need readers to tell me, "dude, you need to address x, y, and z in addition to hammering home the stuff about a and b" because I honestly don't even SEE x, y, and z when I'm in the zone, but then I feel like they just "enjoy" reading me but that I'm actually a stupid person who needs to be told how not to be stupid. Ok, I'm shutting up about this now. I need to be happy that people like anything about what I'm doing, address the suggestions (really great ones, actually), and then the book will be both enjoyable and solid scholarship and nobody will know that really I'm all style and no substance.
• I'm going to address comments to yesterday's post, but not until later when I'm working on my conference paper, as then I will be in the proper frame of mind to address them.
• Ok, time to ready myself for my day and to get out of the house. If I'm not careful the whole day will get away from me!