Building the Perfect Beast
I must have finally gotten to sleep about 5:15 a.m. or so, when kava #2 finally took effect. So, today I am a wreck, more or less. Not awake. Not asleep. My head swimming with half realised dreams and poorly perceived bits of the waking world. My meeting with producer D may have to be postponed until tomorrow, if I can't snap out of this. Six hours sleep. But, tonight there will be "Ambien," so I can go to sleep when I lie down. I just have to hope it keeps me down. Babble, babble, babble. Bear with me, kiddos. I'm not myself this afternoon. I'm not sure I'm much of anyone this afternoon.
At least I finished "The Steam Dancer" on schedule yesterday. It only took an additional 857 words to find THE END (which means the story's total length is 4,650 words). It will appear in Sirenia Digest #19 (subscribe, subscribe, subscribe), along with "The Daughter of the Four of Pentacles." I am pleased with "The Steam Dancer", I think, though it ended on a somewhat more melancholy note that I'd intended. I blame a ghost which visited me early yesterday, unexpected, unbidden, casting my mind places it's best off not going. I've yet to read the story all the way through, start to finish. Maybe later today. I have to send it to Vince to be illustrated. Oh, and it occurred to me as I was finishing the story that I was actually writing about me, almost directly, which I hardly ever do. Always, I am writing about me, yes, that's true, but usually it's all pretty well disguised. This is the first story I've written about how the things that have gone wrong with my feet have affected my life. That kind of took me by surprise. My health is something I tend to keep to myself.
Late yesterday afternoon, there was a wonderful thunderstorm. Spooky and I lay together on the chaise by the living-room windows and watched the rain and lightning. I pressed my fingertips to the window, savouring the vibrations from the thunder. I am never "nearer" to Nature than during a violent thunderstorm. Then it rained again last night, about 3 a.m. We need every bit we can get.
Ah...what next?
Oh, yeah. Good thing I make notes.
Some thoughts on Second Life. I've been on almost two weeks now, and I am beginning to see curious patterns emerge. Perhaps the one I find most puzzling is how, on the one hand, a minority of what I've seen displays tremendous ingenuity, care, and imagination, but...on the other hand, almost everything and everyone in Second Life seems afflicted with the stultifying monotony that has so afflicted this First Life. For example, here is a world wherein you may be almost anything you can imagine, especially if you're willing to work at it, and yet almost everyone seems to have adopted avatars that differ in no significant way from their "real" selves, or from the norm, or from the idealised versions of Homo sapiens advertisers spend so much time and money trying to sell us. I have seen so much badly rendered tanned skin I could puke. Almost everyone is Caucasian and clearly human. Meanwhile, I'm so driven to shake off the constrictions of this skin I'm trapped inside that I have already crafted six distinct incarnations of Nareth Nishi, six versions who not only look different from one another, but who think differently and are leading very different existences. And I think there will be at least a couple more before I'm done and turn to the matter of building things. I'm not saying this well, because I'm not awake. I'm not being articulate. But I am perplexed at the sameness. At the people who slap on a tail and a pair of cat ears, or a piair of wings, or neon-green liberty spikes, and think they've become something else. Yes, I do think people should use this tool as best suits them, but, at the same time, the lack of imagination baffles and disappoints me. Sometimes, it seems that a lot of people are using Second Life to create a more cartoonish version of herhisits First self.
Crap. Maybe I'll try to say this again when I'm not so damned zombiefied. Sorry.
All alone in space and time.
There's nothing here, but what's here's mine.
Something borrowed, something blue.
Every me and every you.
Every me and every you,
Every me...
Here's a link to the hand-corrected Silk auction. Have a look. This one's special, if I do say so myself (and I do).
Today, it has been one year since Sophie died. I am grateful to have Hubero, but I do miss that grouchy old beast. Some days I miss her almost more than I could ever say.
At least I finished "The Steam Dancer" on schedule yesterday. It only took an additional 857 words to find THE END (which means the story's total length is 4,650 words). It will appear in Sirenia Digest #19 (subscribe, subscribe, subscribe), along with "The Daughter of the Four of Pentacles." I am pleased with "The Steam Dancer", I think, though it ended on a somewhat more melancholy note that I'd intended. I blame a ghost which visited me early yesterday, unexpected, unbidden, casting my mind places it's best off not going. I've yet to read the story all the way through, start to finish. Maybe later today. I have to send it to Vince to be illustrated. Oh, and it occurred to me as I was finishing the story that I was actually writing about me, almost directly, which I hardly ever do. Always, I am writing about me, yes, that's true, but usually it's all pretty well disguised. This is the first story I've written about how the things that have gone wrong with my feet have affected my life. That kind of took me by surprise. My health is something I tend to keep to myself.
Late yesterday afternoon, there was a wonderful thunderstorm. Spooky and I lay together on the chaise by the living-room windows and watched the rain and lightning. I pressed my fingertips to the window, savouring the vibrations from the thunder. I am never "nearer" to Nature than during a violent thunderstorm. Then it rained again last night, about 3 a.m. We need every bit we can get.
Ah...what next?
Oh, yeah. Good thing I make notes.
Some thoughts on Second Life. I've been on almost two weeks now, and I am beginning to see curious patterns emerge. Perhaps the one I find most puzzling is how, on the one hand, a minority of what I've seen displays tremendous ingenuity, care, and imagination, but...on the other hand, almost everything and everyone in Second Life seems afflicted with the stultifying monotony that has so afflicted this First Life. For example, here is a world wherein you may be almost anything you can imagine, especially if you're willing to work at it, and yet almost everyone seems to have adopted avatars that differ in no significant way from their "real" selves, or from the norm, or from the idealised versions of Homo sapiens advertisers spend so much time and money trying to sell us. I have seen so much badly rendered tanned skin I could puke. Almost everyone is Caucasian and clearly human. Meanwhile, I'm so driven to shake off the constrictions of this skin I'm trapped inside that I have already crafted six distinct incarnations of Nareth Nishi, six versions who not only look different from one another, but who think differently and are leading very different existences. And I think there will be at least a couple more before I'm done and turn to the matter of building things. I'm not saying this well, because I'm not awake. I'm not being articulate. But I am perplexed at the sameness. At the people who slap on a tail and a pair of cat ears, or a piair of wings, or neon-green liberty spikes, and think they've become something else. Yes, I do think people should use this tool as best suits them, but, at the same time, the lack of imagination baffles and disappoints me. Sometimes, it seems that a lot of people are using Second Life to create a more cartoonish version of herhisits First self.
Crap. Maybe I'll try to say this again when I'm not so damned zombiefied. Sorry.
All alone in space and time.
There's nothing here, but what's here's mine.
Something borrowed, something blue.
Every me and every you.
Every me and every you,
Every me...
Here's a link to the hand-corrected Silk auction. Have a look. This one's special, if I do say so myself (and I do).
Today, it has been one year since Sophie died. I am grateful to have Hubero, but I do miss that grouchy old beast. Some days I miss her almost more than I could ever say.