Elegy for a Flat-Wristed Sea Lizard
Cold and cloudy, and later it will be colder and mostly not cloudy. A foul winter this has been so far.
Today I drop from a 225 mg. of Lamictal to 150 mg. today. I am exceedingly anxious, and my emotions are a rocky place, but at least I don't feel flat.
Yesterday I went back to "The Peddler's Tale, or Isobel's Revenge" and spent about three and a half hours reading, proofreading, correcting, deleting bits of text and adding bits of text. The word count stands at 7,547 words, and I'm calling it finished. I'm pleased with it. If you've read "Pickman's Madonna" (Sirenia Digest #93), that story might be seen as a prologue to this story. Or this story might be seen as an enormous footnote to "Pickman's Madonna." Truly, the two are slightly different versions of the truth, overlapping but standing one apart from the other. I suspect there are more stories about Isaac and Isobel, Elspeth and Sorrow.
Also, I worked with my editor at Dark Horse on some details of the Alabaster: Grimmer Tales hardback, due out in April. And I'm looking for a title for Volume Two of the "best of" collection. I won't be rushing into one.
Generally, yesterdays was a pretty decent day. Which should have told me something awful was on its way. On the way to dinner last night we stopped to check the mail, and there was a notice that a package had arrived without it's contents. Turned out it was the package that had contained the Platecarpus skull cast Spooky ordered me for Xmas. All we got was an empty...well, not a box. Which is where this all gets especially infuriating. The man she bought the cast from supposedly knew what he was doing, and it never occurred to him that I should provide instructions on how to pack the skull. Wrong. It was shipped in a sort of giant cardboard envelope Frankenstein'ed together from a couple of boxes and hardly taped at all. It must have come open almost immediately, but, regardless, was lost after it left Miami (or while being processed in Miami). The "box" was empty when it reached Providence. It makes me ill. We're getting a full refund, and we also got an apology, but the guy didn't even acknowledge having been a total fucking idiot. It was a valuable and unique piece, and who the fuck knows what's become of it. If only care and time, a little of each, had been taken packing it, all would be fine. Do a thing fucking right or do not fucking bother doing it.
Oh, and the sky was pouring icy rain. The gutters were overflowing.
We were going to have dinner at Tortilla Flats, but it was inexplicably closed "for vacation." So we went to Andre's, instead, a Greek restaurant on Thayer Street. It might have been good, if I hadn't wanted Mexican. I got a Coke that tasted like prunes and an edible - but odd - burger. And we came home. And whee.
Enough For Now,
Aunt Beast
Today I drop from a 225 mg. of Lamictal to 150 mg. today. I am exceedingly anxious, and my emotions are a rocky place, but at least I don't feel flat.
Yesterday I went back to "The Peddler's Tale, or Isobel's Revenge" and spent about three and a half hours reading, proofreading, correcting, deleting bits of text and adding bits of text. The word count stands at 7,547 words, and I'm calling it finished. I'm pleased with it. If you've read "Pickman's Madonna" (Sirenia Digest #93), that story might be seen as a prologue to this story. Or this story might be seen as an enormous footnote to "Pickman's Madonna." Truly, the two are slightly different versions of the truth, overlapping but standing one apart from the other. I suspect there are more stories about Isaac and Isobel, Elspeth and Sorrow.
Also, I worked with my editor at Dark Horse on some details of the Alabaster: Grimmer Tales hardback, due out in April. And I'm looking for a title for Volume Two of the "best of" collection. I won't be rushing into one.
Generally, yesterdays was a pretty decent day. Which should have told me something awful was on its way. On the way to dinner last night we stopped to check the mail, and there was a notice that a package had arrived without it's contents. Turned out it was the package that had contained the Platecarpus skull cast Spooky ordered me for Xmas. All we got was an empty...well, not a box. Which is where this all gets especially infuriating. The man she bought the cast from supposedly knew what he was doing, and it never occurred to him that I should provide instructions on how to pack the skull. Wrong. It was shipped in a sort of giant cardboard envelope Frankenstein'ed together from a couple of boxes and hardly taped at all. It must have come open almost immediately, but, regardless, was lost after it left Miami (or while being processed in Miami). The "box" was empty when it reached Providence. It makes me ill. We're getting a full refund, and we also got an apology, but the guy didn't even acknowledge having been a total fucking idiot. It was a valuable and unique piece, and who the fuck knows what's become of it. If only care and time, a little of each, had been taken packing it, all would be fine. Do a thing fucking right or do not fucking bother doing it.
Oh, and the sky was pouring icy rain. The gutters were overflowing.
We were going to have dinner at Tortilla Flats, but it was inexplicably closed "for vacation." So we went to Andre's, instead, a Greek restaurant on Thayer Street. It might have been good, if I hadn't wanted Mexican. I got a Coke that tasted like prunes and an edible - but odd - burger. And we came home. And whee.
Enough For Now,
Aunt Beast