Last night we had a surprise baby-sitter[1], which means it was date-night with my wife. We had a terrific dinner at Palermo’s in Ballard, did a little boring shopping, then walked around the neighborhood having an actual uninterrupted conversation.

It was nice, even if I was a little distracted. I’ll admit that I’m stressed about the release of Game of Cages and we talked about that quite a bit.

You know what? I am no damn fun at all. Other writers dance around and get giddy when their books come out. All that hard work finally coming to fruition, right? But all I do is fret.

I so very much need to get over this. I’d really like to be a person who was easy-going and optimistic, but damn, that just isn’t my response.

Comments are turned off because sympathetic or encouraging responses make me uncomfortable.

[1] How I define “surprise”: We scheduled the date with her and then got so wrapped up in our lives that we forgot she was coming over.