3/10/03 MON (upstairs notes):
---Another abrogated Sunday--spent cleaning the house, trimming the beard, watching the Six Feet Under DVD, reading magazines, etc.; when I should have been readying Catalog 145 to take to the printer today. But still, with enough orders still in hand to keep me busy and various and sundry loose ends yet to tie up, the pressure, need, urge to have that catalog be out seems to have shriveled up on the vine. Maybe next week! Meanwhile, time to make amends by lowering my shoulder to the grindstone to get the week started with a big push.
---Part of the problem yesterday was the extreme cold. I even had to turn back from an attempt at going for a run, with a strong frigid headwind making my face freeze, especially with beard freshly shorn. That means the cellar office would be mighty cold too. I should have broke out the vornado space heater a couple months ago to at least take the edge off the chill down there. Today it is supposed to get to ten degrees warmer (or less cold) but that is still well below freezing. Right now (8:21 AM ) it is still plenty cold. Checking the Legion Hall’s flag across the way, it is just hanging there, so maybe not such a wind to contend with. When I go out to the post office in a few minutes I will get a better idea. This time of year, at least the sun should be warming things up a bit more than it was two months ago. But with a decent layer of snow still on the ground it is hard to get above freezing anyway. All in all I prefer it to the humid, insect-ridden, moldy-corner time of year in summer, because just as it may be intolerably cold now, it will be just as intolerably hot come July and August. Iowa does not have a temperate climate.
---But eating my oatmeal just now, turning on the TV briefly to check the current temperature (12 degrees), I see that it is projected to reach 60 degrees by the weekend, with Wed & Thurs in the 50s. So I guess spring will be here soon! (The basement will still be cold, though.)
---Magazine read yesterday--REASON: contains an interview with future-guru and erstwhile SF author Howard Rheingold on mob-blogging. I did not realize the Miss World riots in Nigeria were fueled by hand-held text pagers (“smart-mob technology”).

---The hc of SPECTRUM 9 from Underwood just arrived. I was wondering about that. The tpb has been here for a while. Check out SPECTRUM for information on the series, but the link only gives info through SPECTRUM 6.