"Stars come down in you..."
Grey skies this morning, but they're promising warmer weather and rain. The sun was brilliant yesterday, but the blue sky was a bit disarming.
Today will be a half day, as I'm still feeling wrung out and jumpy and whatnot. Tomorrow, I'll be back in the platypus seat, the word mines, the place where the stories come from. Today, I'll finish up everything related to A is for Alien and get it off to Subterranean Press. It will be a beautiful book, and I do hope people are getting their pre-orders in. Also, I'll try to deal with email today, and read over what I've written on "Some Notes on an Unfinished Film."
Yesterday was a good day off, but there just wasn't enough of it. Not after 13 consecutive days of writing. Not after THE END of The Red Tree. I think I could have spent the whole thing lying on the floor of the front parlor, alternately sleeping and staring at the ceiling. But that seemed a shame, as I have been so absurdly reclusive of late. So, instead, I dressed and we went Outside. First, we drove over the Eastside of Providence, to Myopic Books on Wayland Square. A marvelous used bookstore. I was good, and we left with only three books: She Captains: Heroines and Hellions of the Sea by Joan Druett (2000), Twelve Days of Terror: A Definitive Investigation of the 1916 New Jersey Shark Attacks by Richard G. Ferniciola (2001), and Unearthing the Dragon: The Great Feathered Dinosaur Discovery by Mark Norell (2005). Then Spooky took me next door to an absolutely marvelous junk/antique/vintage clothing shop called What Cheer. So many marvelous things there to see, but I was most taken with an enormous old wooden apothecary cabinet. Each drawer was labeled so you'd know what was inside, and in each drawer was something equally remarkable. Belt buckles, Monopoly pieces, glass vials, plastic animals, buttons, cat whiskers, souvenir spoons, marbles, drawer pulls, lighters, wallets and coin purses, Bakelite, game pieces, lids, and so on and so forth. It was a bit like coming face to face with a Dave McKean painting, or standing in a Bros. Quay film. And after that, we drove south, just wandering, looking at trees and houses. We ended up at a little park in Cranston or Warwick, not sure which, at the jetty connecting Marsh Island (to the north) and Rock Island (to the south). Marsh Island is 5' above sea level. There were swans and tiny fish and the shells of Ribbed mussels (Modiolus dimissus). It was a rather desolate and creepy spot, like a crime scene waiting to happen, the sort of place someone would dump bodies. Far out on the jetty, a man was whistling random birdsongs, but there was no one else around.
We headed home, then, and there was Kid Night last night. Our Kid Night movie was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I adore Moaning Myrtle. Oh, yesterday I also read the Angel: First Nights graphic novel. I had misgivings about Angel: After the Fall, but this second volume is much, much better.
Two questions from a reader yesterday (muneraven):
1. Is a CSA Produce Bag one of those locavore programs where you get stuff from a local farm? I am guessing.
2. What kind of absinthe do you enjoy?
Yes, to the first (a bunch of local farms, actually, though I've never heard the neologism "locavore"), and to the second, La Fée (bottled in Paris), which seems to have just the right blend of herbs.
There are three photos behind the cut, from Dexter Training Ground on Thursday, just some autumnal shots:
Photographs Copyright © 2008 by Caitlín R. Kiernan
Today will be a half day, as I'm still feeling wrung out and jumpy and whatnot. Tomorrow, I'll be back in the platypus seat, the word mines, the place where the stories come from. Today, I'll finish up everything related to A is for Alien and get it off to Subterranean Press. It will be a beautiful book, and I do hope people are getting their pre-orders in. Also, I'll try to deal with email today, and read over what I've written on "Some Notes on an Unfinished Film."
Yesterday was a good day off, but there just wasn't enough of it. Not after 13 consecutive days of writing. Not after THE END of The Red Tree. I think I could have spent the whole thing lying on the floor of the front parlor, alternately sleeping and staring at the ceiling. But that seemed a shame, as I have been so absurdly reclusive of late. So, instead, I dressed and we went Outside. First, we drove over the Eastside of Providence, to Myopic Books on Wayland Square. A marvelous used bookstore. I was good, and we left with only three books: She Captains: Heroines and Hellions of the Sea by Joan Druett (2000), Twelve Days of Terror: A Definitive Investigation of the 1916 New Jersey Shark Attacks by Richard G. Ferniciola (2001), and Unearthing the Dragon: The Great Feathered Dinosaur Discovery by Mark Norell (2005). Then Spooky took me next door to an absolutely marvelous junk/antique/vintage clothing shop called What Cheer. So many marvelous things there to see, but I was most taken with an enormous old wooden apothecary cabinet. Each drawer was labeled so you'd know what was inside, and in each drawer was something equally remarkable. Belt buckles, Monopoly pieces, glass vials, plastic animals, buttons, cat whiskers, souvenir spoons, marbles, drawer pulls, lighters, wallets and coin purses, Bakelite, game pieces, lids, and so on and so forth. It was a bit like coming face to face with a Dave McKean painting, or standing in a Bros. Quay film. And after that, we drove south, just wandering, looking at trees and houses. We ended up at a little park in Cranston or Warwick, not sure which, at the jetty connecting Marsh Island (to the north) and Rock Island (to the south). Marsh Island is 5' above sea level. There were swans and tiny fish and the shells of Ribbed mussels (Modiolus dimissus). It was a rather desolate and creepy spot, like a crime scene waiting to happen, the sort of place someone would dump bodies. Far out on the jetty, a man was whistling random birdsongs, but there was no one else around.
We headed home, then, and there was Kid Night last night. Our Kid Night movie was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I adore Moaning Myrtle. Oh, yesterday I also read the Angel: First Nights graphic novel. I had misgivings about Angel: After the Fall, but this second volume is much, much better.
Two questions from a reader yesterday (muneraven):
1. Is a CSA Produce Bag one of those locavore programs where you get stuff from a local farm? I am guessing.
2. What kind of absinthe do you enjoy?
Yes, to the first (a bunch of local farms, actually, though I've never heard the neologism "locavore"), and to the second, La Fée (bottled in Paris), which seems to have just the right blend of herbs.
There are three photos behind the cut, from Dexter Training Ground on Thursday, just some autumnal shots:
Photographs Copyright © 2008 by Caitlín R. Kiernan