Byzantium's Shores: chronicling the misadventures of an overalls-clad hippie

One of my favorite literary characters is Professor Roderick Childermass, from a series of children's novels by John Bellairs. Professor Childermass is a cranky teacher of literature who has adventures involving ghosts and other nasty things with his young friend, Johnny Dixon, and much of the humor of these books is derived from the Professor's temper and his inability to keep it reined in when he should. The Professor has in his house something called a "Fuss Closet", which is a small walk-in closet which the professor has equipped with gymnasium-style padding on the floor and walls. Thus, when he is in his home and feels a tantrum coming on, he takes off his glasses, goes into the Fuss Closet, and proceeds to get it all out of his system.

Last night I could have used a Fuss Closet.

I mentioned earlier in the week that I mailed out four short stories on Monday. (Actually, three went out in the mail; the fourth was an electronic submission.) Last night, I went to do one last quick check of my e-mail before going to bed, and I discovered not one but two rejections from that batch of stories, from the e-sub market and one of the postal-mail markets (in the latter case, now I'm wondering what they're going to do with my SASE). Both messages came in the space of about forty minutes.

A Fuss Closet would have come in very handy just then.