I love my bed

And it is a great relief to once again be able to sleep in it, but I hat ebeing jet-lagged!

I went to bed around 1m, but couldn't sleep, so got up and answered soem email until 2:45am, and went to bed again. Only to wak eup at 5am, and was wide awake until, maybe, 7:30 or 8 this morning, when I went to sleep again.

Until 4 pm.

Oops. Much longer than I expected to sleep until, and I woke up really groggy.

I did manage to go next door to visit Sara's mother, who had collected my mail for me. She also had the boxes of my copies of THE FLYING PILGRIM and LA GOLONDRINA PEREGRINA, Sara and my picture book about the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.

Other bits of mail:

*a copy of the German book IM SHRANK, an anthology about clothing, which has a sort-of-comic by Sara and me in it titled "The Well-Dressed Wolf: A Rhetorical Journey Through His Wardrobe in Fairy-Tales" (we're the only non-German speakers in the book, although there is an American who live sin Berlin who wrote something, but in German). The English version will be out in LADY CHURCHILL'S ROSEBUD WRISTLET in November.

*contracts for reprinting three poems in Pretty Things Press' VELVET HEAT

*contract for reprinting a story I wrote in collaboration with Mike Resnick (DisIllusions) in THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF SORCERER'S TALES

Some other bits and pieces, but those're the most salient bits, I guess.

Meanwhile, my friend Jonathan shows up tomorrow at 9am, from Australia, en route to the Barcelona Film Festival where his first full-length film is a selection.

Which means I've got to clean up the apartment!

Which was overdue for it anyway.

And my brain isn't up to much more than that.

I have been trying to find shelf space or stacking space for the 42 books and 20 cds I brought home with me from this trip.

I think I need to buy a new bookcase!

mention

I was scanning the latest issue of IN MADRID, the free english-language monthly in Madrid, and there was a little squib about our book THE FLYING PILGRIM and the English translation of the other book Aldeasa published (about Altamira). No author/illustrator names are mentioned, just the titles, but any sort of mention for kidzbooks is so hard to get in "regular" (non-specialty) media, and it does quote from the opening of THE FLYING PILGRIM... so not about to complain. :-)

I was especially surprised since they'd said they'd review the book in September, so didn't figure a mention, even so brief, in June.

At the same time, I think the mention now is better for us than a Sept review, since this can maybe still catch the summer pilgrimage crowd, whereas Sept would've been late.

I did see the book in Casa del Libro today, too; they had 4 copies in Spanish on the new release table in the children's section.

I forgot to look if they also had the English edition, especially since I just poked in en route to the supermarket before it closed.

I guess my vanity is easily satisfied. :-)