Finally finished the Endless Index, on the far side of mid-afternoon — that’s after starting at 5 a.m., after having worked till 10:00 p.m. last night. Gasp!
WHAT a job. Really, I think it’s one of the most difficult editorial jobs I’ve ever done. Not that there was anything terrible about it — the author has really done quite a tour de force. It’s hard to even imagine how long it must have taken her to write the thing. It’s huge.
She covered the ground. Then she went back and plowed it up. Then she raked it down. Then she planted it. We’re talkin’ major acreage here.
The result is content that is extremely dense. Every page has indexable data embedded in it. It’s not one of those things where you can go “widgets, history of, 236-242.” You have to read every paragraph, find the index terms, and relate each one of them to piles and piles of other terms. What’s she’s writing is as intricate as a web. Each part of it links to many other parts, and you’ve got to organize the stuff for the index in a way that a reader can make sense of it and track down whatever s/he is looking for.
In other words…your attention dare not wander.
Anyway, now I’ve got to get back to Honored Client’s book, which is now in page proofs. That’s 431 pages to plow through — again! — proofread, mark up, and fix. Again.
He’s been out of town for the weekend, but you can be sure he’ll be hot to trot tomorrow when he gets back in.
Chinese graduate student continues to suffer. She has a totally brutal dissertation director…it’s amazing the guy gets away with what he does. I guess things must be tilted a little more in favor of faculty in Singapore.
We had an inquiry for another project — stateside — from LinkedIn, but it looks like nothing is gonna come of that. Just as well.
I planned to farm it out. But it still would be one more thing to supervise.
However, if work continues to flow in the way it has over the past three months, it would provide all I’d need to live on, when added to Social Security. It really doesn’t cost much to live, with the house paid off and the antique car still running.
I would so love to earn enough to rent a car and go over to Santa Fe for a few days. Or hell, even to drive around Arizona — it’s been forever since I’ve been to Bisbee or Patagonia or Jerome and waypoints. Yea verily: years.
The gas grill is busted — its starter won’t start. And no, new batteries don’t help. So I’ve fired up the ancient charcoal grill…and that’s pretty amazing. It is, we might say, weather-beaten.
§ § § §
But it still works! 🙂 Overcooked the hamburg a bit, but roasted the potatoes and the asparagus to perfection.
It’s been so long since I’ve used that thing that the plastic bag holding the hardwood chips had rotted away inside the charcoal bin. There was more than enough charcoal loose in there, though, plus a whole new, unopened bag of mesquite charcoal. So that’s good.
It’s a little more hassle to light up a charcoal fire than it is to flick a switch and turn on a gas grill. Had to bum some newsprint from the neighbor for the charcoal “chimney” lighter, since I no longer subscribe to the Times. No problem, though: they had a bunch of it in the recycling.
Chimney gadget still works. Grills still need to be scrubbed. The wood parts of the thing are falling apart — but I expect I could build some new ones pretty easily.
That would be a good project.
§ § § §
I have got to walk those dogs. The poor beasts haven’t been outside the yard in days and days.
Me neither, come to think of it…
And so, away.
Index cards: Deposit Photos, @adroach
Sounds exhausting. Maybe your dogs should take YOU for a walk…