I haven’t made a lot of noise about this but one of the things that’s been hard for us over the past year has been the bizarrely difficult time Rob has had finding a job. Some of this is circumstantial; we arrived right before the writers’ strike started and Rob works in film and television.

He’s had some gigs through the year, but nothing that lasted more than a couple of weeks. The perils of freelancing, you know?

Last week, he started working as the assistant winemaker at City Winery. Remember that film and television thing? Yeah, well, he has a completely separate career as a wine maker. We both find it ironic that he left his wine-making job in Oregon to come to New York and will be doing the same job here as there.

We are much relieved. In particular because I’ve had to take every job that came my way. This means I can turn things down occasionally.

It also means that I lose my house-husband and, after a year, I’m a little spoiled.

Here’s a bit of wine-maker jargon for you. Our friend Wayne is in town for a couple of days. He and Rob have been talking wine and wine making like they’ve both been starving. I’ve been listening and mostly staying out of their way. But this, this I had to share.

We were at dinner and they were talking about this new winery that Rob has started working at¹ and he said something about how all the grapes were going to be delivered in FYBs.

I said, “What’s an FYB?”

Wayne looked at the table next to us and then said, “Well. F stands for something that’s not polite to say at a restaurant.”

I stare at him for a second before I get it. “Really?”

“Yes. With an -ing. Then the other two are Yellow Bin.”

Rob confirmed. Apparently the F***ing Yellow Bins are so universally reviled for being hard to work with that this is an industry standard term. Everyone calls them FYBs.

1. Did I forget to mention that? [↩]

I fell asleep before the plane even left the ground and slept most of the way home. I woke up about half an hour before we landed and amused myself by reading Zoe’s Tale. Yes, I know that makes some of you jealous and it should, because it’s a darn good book.

Since my flight had been delayed by about two hours, it was about 1:30 when we got in. I opted for a cab instead of taking the bus. I picked up a lot of books while I was gone¹ and a plaque.

Despite having food poisoning, Rob had managed to get flowers for me and had them waiting on the dining room table with a note. Made me all weepy.

Today, I had planned on working on the springer spaniel, but didn’t wake up until ten o’clock and then took a nap later today. I had trouble sleeping the entire time I was at altitude and I think my body really grooved on having enough oxygen at night.

Anyway, I’ll be diving in to building the dog this week and will hopefully have some process posts for you.

1. Mainspring, Ragamuffin, The Opposite of Life, Children of Amarid, Heaven’s Bones, plus a bunch of astronomy books [↩]

I spent the train trip alternating between writing a new short story and reading Ekaterina Sedia’s Alchemy of Stone. I say “alternated” by which I mean that I took a break from writing the story, read half of Alchemy and then we were in NYC.

The apartment is empty without Rob, again, but he left me a note¹ and dinner in the fridge.  I caught up on SFWA stuff over cold sesame noodles and now I’m headed off to bed.

1. No. That’s private [↩]

• @twitter help #
• On the train and will try to sleep. Supposed to get into the Boston station around eightish. #
• Next time, I’ll plunk down the extra $30 to go to business class so I don’t have to hear cranky baby. #
• Also, why is the train so freaking cold? #
• Just went to cafe car. There are, no lie, 9 kids on this car. It explains why I kept hearing cranky kid. I’m in the nursery. #
• In Boston. Now to explore local transit. Wish me luck. #
• Well, I’m at the bus mall and so far everything seems to be working. There are even other people waiting, which gives me hope. #
• One stop too far on the bus, but that’s not so bad. #
• Doing a reading in VT until two. Come after Jeff Ford. #

• Watching Act II of Dr. Horrible! #
• Act II of Dr. Horrible is as good as I’d hoped. #
• My husband is home. Giddiness ensues. #

We spent the last two hours or so catching up and hearing the stories of the film shoot. He’s taking a nap now and I’m going to finish the last of my packing. Heading up bright and early to Readercon tomorrow to be there for my kaffeeklatsch at noon.

I’m still up and, thinking about how often and easily I stay up this late, I’ve decided to take the 3:15 a.m. train to Readercon on Friday.  I miss Rob (just in case you couldn’t tell from the schmaltzy posts this week) and would rather be tired during the con than miss seeing him by an hour.

This plan may change if he calls me in the morning and says that they are extending the shoot.  Which, given the French Farce of our travel plans, seems likely.

• Had octopus at dinner that looked like Cthulu. Elder god is tasty when flame-broiled. #

I’ve been writing love letters to Rob every night and tucking them in places that I know he’ll look when he gets home.  There’s one in the refrigerator.  One under his journal — but not inside, as that would have required opening it.  One on his computer.  I’ll leave one on his pillow.¹

I used to do this when we were first courting and I’d head off on tour. It’s been a while since I’ve taken the time to write my fondness for him down with pen on paper.  I’m enjoying the tangibility of these expressions.

1. He doesn’t read my website so I may safely confess such things to you, dear reader. [↩]

I talked to Rob very briefly tonight.  The area he’s in gets spotty cellphone coverage, at best, so I’ve had one text message from him, but otherwise it’s been radio silence.  He found a place tonight where, if he didn’t turn his head, I could hear him.  le sigh. I miss him.

Which is absurd, when you think about it. I mean, I worked in Iceland for six months without him.  For the first three years of our marriage we spent about half of it apart due to our varying schedules. Being separated is not a new thing.

But, it’s the first time I’ve been alone in the apartment without him and all the near misses of our schedule for the next month are comic.

We just had the realization that even if I take the last train from NYC to Boston, it will still depart before he arrives back from the film shoot.  So now I’m trying to decide if I want to take an early train on Friday or just give in and go up Thursday without seeing Rob.  I say again, le sigh.

Alas. We could not fit all of the gear on the bike and leave room for me. I will be in town this weekend after all. Rob headed off safely.

I’m only home for fifteen days this month. Yesterday was the only full day that Rob and I will have together until August 11th. He’s leaving to go to Canaan for a film shoot today and returns the 17th, the day that I leave for Readercon. We might overlap that day, but likely not.

I return from Readercon on the 20th, which is the day Rob leaves to go to the IPNC. We won’t overlap that day.

He returns from IPNC on the 30th, which is the day I leave for Launchpad. We might be able to see each other at the airport. I’m not kidding.

Launchpad and Worldcon are back to back and I return on August 11th.

All of which is leading me to think that I should go up to Canaan with Rob today and spend the night. BUT, I have twelve days left this month in which to build a realistic wounded dog puppet¹ On the other hand, I haven’t received the petty cash to purchase supplies yet and if I don’t do that today, then it will be Monday before I can work. Ten days to build a dog. Doable, but only just.

1. This is a side effect of having a dead dog in one’s portfolio [↩]

After two fun-filled weeks of writer’s retreat and a medical emergency, I’m heading from one home back to the other. I’ll see Rob tonight and get to spend two days with him, before we begin a month of out of town trips, each of which has us poised to arrive back in NYC on the day that the other one departs.

See you in transit

I totally missed this last week. But we moved to NYC on June 28 last year.

It’s been an interesting year.  I’ve been so busy that I can barely breathe, but Rob spent then entire year looking for work.  And that’s almost literal.  He sold his first article a bare two days before our one year NYC anniversary.  He’s got a couple of other jobs coming up, so I’m really hoping the dry spell has broken.

It will be interesting to see what the next year holds.