Sunday, 17 June 2001

My dad and his wife Katy came to East Lansing to take me to lunch. We went to Sultan's, the best of the few restaurants I've been to in town. (I've been mostly eating in the Owen cafeteria.) Lunch was great. We spent some time together, wished one another happy birthday, and I wished him happy father's day. We went to a little art gallery in town called Mackerel Sky where there was an exhibit of weavings by a woman Katy knows named Nancy Crampton.

Some anonymous classmate put "happy birthday" on my door on multi-colored post-it notes. Everybody wished me a happy birthday. It was perfect.

A bunch of us went out to dinner (the Owen cafeteria is closed for dinner on Sunday). Guess where they all decided to go. Yep--Sultan's. It was actually okay to eat there for two meals in one day. And, of course, it was great company. There were about a dozen of us there, including Rick Polney who not only said I could mention him in the journal but spelled his last name for me so I could be sure to get it right. It's great to have Rick about three-quarters of the way around the circle when we're critiquing. He can usually be counted on to find a different slant on a story than the rest of us, so when you start getting mostly "Ditto what John, Karina, and Beth said," it's good to have Rick to suggest another view on a story.

I printed out a copy of my new story to hand in Monday. I'm thinking of trying to get a story done for Thursday. If I do that, maybe I could get out of the rut where I write a Steven Barnes story for Kelly Link and then a Kelly Link story for James Patrick Kelly. Maybe I can write a Jim Kelly story by Thursday, get it critiqued while he's still here, and then continue on with stories completed later in the week, after we've spent some time with the instructors. It would be nice to demonstrate that I've learned some of what they're trying to teach.

It's a good plan, except I don't know what my next story might be.

I've critiqued the stories for tomorrow (we got a second one, but it will still be an easy day). So, I think I'll go to bed early and get caught up on sleep, because I'm sure there'll be a bunch of stories turned in tomorrow.