The last word

This is my last day to be working a second shift for, I hope, a long long time. Yesterday I had little to do, so I actually finished an entire book--Poison Study, by Maria Snyder. It's good. I'll get the second one when it comes out in paperback. I'd be tempted to get it now, except that we already spent lots of money on books recently, plus I have to pay for our Thanksgiving tickets, which means taking money out of savings so that I can also pay for the mortgage. I believe I'm carrying more than half of the household costs right now. I'm not too worried about it but at times like this it would be more convenient to have a shared account. Oh well, in eight months we will.

I restarted Shoelace again yesterday. I got an idea that made the initial conceit (so to speak, at least I hope) work much better, and after all I finished Poison Study with three hours left in my workday. I did make some calls, mostly leaving messages that didn't quite say "I'll call you back" since I won't. I talked to about seven people and I was struck, as I have been, by the fact that people are rude on the phone. If they weren't saying, "You're talkin' to him" or "Who are you?" when I asked to speak to X, they would say, "This is."

I suppose this is more ungrammatical than rude, but it grates on me every time. "This is she" is proper. "This is me" or even "This is her" I'll take. But "This is"? That's not a sentence. I always resist the urge to say "This is what?" or "No it isn't" or "That's very philosophical, but I'm calling to talk about your future as much as your present." Where did people get this? Is it so hard to use a pronoun? Are they that afraid of mixing up their subjects and objects? Is their breath that precious.

Grr. However, only sixteen more hours to have to deal with it all. And maybe I'll get some more writing done. Failing that, I found a new (to me) Nero Wolfe book in the thrift store that would take up an hour or two.