Rage Against [ ]
Sunny today. Our high was 76F. Good spring weather.
I woke an hour and a half late, and within - this is not a joke - five minutes of waking was at my desk typing in line edits, keenly aware I'd lost an hour and a half. I managed to make it through "The Man Who Loved What Was," "L'homme et la femme terribles," Untitled Psychiatrist #5," "The Woman Who Blew Down Houses," "Threnody For Those Who Die December Deaths," "Heart-Shaped Hole," and "The Jar" before I had to wake Kathryn at 8 a.m. I skipped breakfast. I am now a little less than halfway through the book, and Kathryn and is going to help me tomorrow so maybe we can get it done. This sort of work goes much faster when someone with two functional eyes is helping me. After that, I asked Mike's opinion on a mosasaur I was having trouble IDing (turned out to be a tylosaur, which I;d suspected). After that...the world went to shit. Also, I began reading Yascha Mounk's The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time. I am a longtime admirer of Mounk's
I won't go into details. I'm too tired, and it would be unsightly. But anger that began last night, over money, over Lydia's death, over my health, over mine and Kathryn's future, over a LOT of things, began shutting me down. Last night, it was a quiet simmer. Today it was very near volcanic. I have spent the evening trying to calm down.
So, not a lost day, but a day I intended to be far more productive.
Last night, we saw the new episodes of The New Look and Constellation. The former was very good. The latter was fucking brilliant. I would say, Constellation is something that Jeff VanderMeer could produce at novel length, while I could only hint at it in short-story form.
Nothing else, I think, worth talking about right now.
I'm going to repost some stuff about money from yesterday, because I need to do so. Sadly.:
"So, yeah. Between horrific vet bills, and my horrific dental bills, and the way our rent keeps going up, and the way I'm paid pretty much in 2024 what I was paid in 1997, and the fact that I am no longer able to the write the vast amounts of fiction I once did, and the skyrocketing price of goceries, and politics, and on and on and on and on...we can presently use whatever help charitable souls feel inclined to off. I am going to start a GoFundMe in a few days, hoping to raise just enough to cover rent for April through June. I pray (figuratively that it goes well.
"Meanwhile, there's the Dreaming Squid Sundries shop, and there's FREE COLOUR monster doodles with Vile Affections.
"And, too, Kathryn's Patreon is up, and I urge you to take a look, and think about supoorting it if you can.
"But these days, everyone is hurting, and I am not special, and I understand that. Still, I have always been most proud of those stretches (most of the nineties for example, and much of the time we were in Providence), when I was able to support myself with no assistance. I don't care what gasoline costs, I still feel like a failure at times like these.
"Fuck it. Doesn't matter how many books I've published or how many new animals I've named; all that matters is the bank account, and my education and IQ (149) won't save me."
And so it goes,
Aunt Beast
8:28 a.m.
I woke an hour and a half late, and within - this is not a joke - five minutes of waking was at my desk typing in line edits, keenly aware I'd lost an hour and a half. I managed to make it through "The Man Who Loved What Was," "L'homme et la femme terribles," Untitled Psychiatrist #5," "The Woman Who Blew Down Houses," "Threnody For Those Who Die December Deaths," "Heart-Shaped Hole," and "The Jar" before I had to wake Kathryn at 8 a.m. I skipped breakfast. I am now a little less than halfway through the book, and Kathryn and is going to help me tomorrow so maybe we can get it done. This sort of work goes much faster when someone with two functional eyes is helping me. After that, I asked Mike's opinion on a mosasaur I was having trouble IDing (turned out to be a tylosaur, which I;d suspected). After that...the world went to shit. Also, I began reading Yascha Mounk's The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time. I am a longtime admirer of Mounk's
I won't go into details. I'm too tired, and it would be unsightly. But anger that began last night, over money, over Lydia's death, over my health, over mine and Kathryn's future, over a LOT of things, began shutting me down. Last night, it was a quiet simmer. Today it was very near volcanic. I have spent the evening trying to calm down.
So, not a lost day, but a day I intended to be far more productive.
Last night, we saw the new episodes of The New Look and Constellation. The former was very good. The latter was fucking brilliant. I would say, Constellation is something that Jeff VanderMeer could produce at novel length, while I could only hint at it in short-story form.
Nothing else, I think, worth talking about right now.
I'm going to repost some stuff about money from yesterday, because I need to do so. Sadly.:
"So, yeah. Between horrific vet bills, and my horrific dental bills, and the way our rent keeps going up, and the way I'm paid pretty much in 2024 what I was paid in 1997, and the fact that I am no longer able to the write the vast amounts of fiction I once did, and the skyrocketing price of goceries, and politics, and on and on and on and on...we can presently use whatever help charitable souls feel inclined to off. I am going to start a GoFundMe in a few days, hoping to raise just enough to cover rent for April through June. I pray (figuratively that it goes well.
"Meanwhile, there's the Dreaming Squid Sundries shop, and there's FREE COLOUR monster doodles with Vile Affections.
"And, too, Kathryn's Patreon is up, and I urge you to take a look, and think about supoorting it if you can.
"But these days, everyone is hurting, and I am not special, and I understand that. Still, I have always been most proud of those stretches (most of the nineties for example, and much of the time we were in Providence), when I was able to support myself with no assistance. I don't care what gasoline costs, I still feel like a failure at times like these.
"Fuck it. Doesn't matter how many books I've published or how many new animals I've named; all that matters is the bank account, and my education and IQ (149) won't save me."
And so it goes,
Aunt Beast
8:28 a.m.