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Leaving for NIH

My cab should arrive in about a half hour. I’m a nervous wreck. I don’t get nervous about traveling, but I do get nervous about whether I’ve remembered everything I’m going to need, what will happen during the trip etc.

I’ve been up most of the night. I had to finish several stories for work, although I’m not sure how great they were. My publisher might read them and think I’ve gone around the bend. To say I was a bit distracted by my trip would be an understatement. I also had to get the newsletter posted to the printer’s Web site so it could be printed while I’m away.

The good news is we seem to have found a good deal on printing the newsletter. But, I’m a little nervous about the newsletter its self. First off, I had to cut some stories I really wanted to run because we had to keep the page count down to 12 for budget reasons. We had so much news about science and the various research protocols and the conference that I couldn’t run as many stories about HPS’ers as I would have liked.

I’m also nervous that there’s some big glaring spelling mistake that I haven’t noticed because I’ve looked at the thing for so long. I did have four people proofread this time, but still, as I was sending it to the printer last night I found two more booboos! Just for the record, I may work as an “editor” but my talents are not in “copyediting.” I’m great at content, developing story ideas, working with writers etc. but I’m certainly not a grammar god. (Just in case you haven’t noticed from reading this blog!)

When I finally got to bed last night, about 1:00 am, I couldn’t sleep. I went ahead and packed up my CPAP so I wouldn’t have that to do in the morning, so I have a feeling every time I started to fall asleep, I was probably having an apnea event. Then, about 3:20 am, I heard what sounded like gunfire! There were two loud bangs together, then a pause, then two more loud bangs. I shot out of bed, made sure all my doors were tightly locked, and then I sat on my couch trying to decide if I’d dreamed this, if it was a fire cracker, or should I call 911?? I don’t know what I could have told them. I wasn’t even sure where the sound came from, only that it woke me up. As I contemplated, I heard sirens. I can’t see the street from my windows, but I guess someone else was more on the ball than I was. I have no idea what it was, or if it was indeed shots. There was nothing about it on the news this morning.

But, needless to say, then I really couldn’t sleep.

This morning I’ve been running around doing last-minute things for the trip.

The film folks are meeting me at the airport. Despite the fact I got up this morning and actually styled and set my hair, it already looks a mess. It’s so hot here!

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