Stuff That Happened Yesterday®
Winter seems to have come to Providence last night. A low below freezing, frost warnings. I'm sure it'll warm up a little again, but...can't pretend it's "late summer" any longer. Cloudy and foul looking out there today.
Which is why Spooky made me get out of the house yesterday. We both knew no writing would be getting done, so there was no point in hanging about here. I'll go "back to work" tomorrow, after we spend today cleaning the place a bit. We've both been so busy, the clutter has gone wild. But yeah, tomorrow is all interviews: The South County Independent and the Brown University bookstore's newsletter. Then, on Saturday, I need to get started on Sirenia Digest #47. I am truly in no mood for interviews, but there you go.
Anyway...yesterday.
Actually, not so much to tell. I'm still trying to get untired, so it was a low-impact day out. I just wanted to see some autumnal trees. Spooky suggested Wickford. As we were leaving Providence, we saw the most remarkable sky. I took photos (below), but they fail to capture the weirdness of that sky. It was all about color and contrast and a peculiar flatness. It was a videogame sort of sky. Some trick of sunlight and clouds and high-altitude ice crystals, I suspect. In Wickford, there weren't many interesting trees. I think we'll have to head out towards Conancut Island for that, or north towards Woonsocket. But we walked about the harbor and window shopped. We visited the worst witchcraft shop in New England. Truthfully, it's not a witchcraft shop, and I shouldn't dignify it with that label. This is the place that had never heard of athames. Just a big ol' New Age place. Lots of Buddha pop, crystals, chakra crap, chicken soup for the fluffy bunnies. They do "aura" photography and interpretation. That sort of nonesense. I mostly only go in there because it seems to make the employees nervous, ever since I explained athames to them. Anyway, yeah...we walked around and looked through dusty shop windows and at antiques and old houses and boats on the water. Wickford turned three hundred years old this year. The tide was coming in. The sky went from sunny with clouds to flat and leaden. I visited my favorite Wickford boat (again, photos below). That was about it. We were home before six p.m.
Last night, after Night Three of Spooky's patented four-night soup, we watched David Lynch's Inland Empire, which I'd been avoiding because I knew it would do a number on my head. And it did. A stunning, brilliant film. Mother and I are still collating. Also, I read the latest Buffy the Vampire Slayer trade paperback collection (the comic), Predators and Prey (Vol. 5). Other than Lovecraft Unound, I've been working my way through the September '09 Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, and, over the last few days, I've read: "A New Species of Apateodus (Teleostei: Aulopiformes) from the Upper Cretaceous Niobrara Chalk of Western Kansas, U.S.A.," "The Anatomy and Systematics of Colepiocephale lambei (Dinosauria: Pachycephalosauridae)," "Diprotodontid Footprints from the Pliocene of Central Australia," "Cranial Mechanics and Functional Interpretation of the Horned Carnivorous Dinosaur Carnotaurus sastrei," and "A New Beaked Whale (Odontoceti, Ziphiidae) from the Middle Miocene of Peru." We got in some WoW after David Lynch. We both needed something familiar and mindless, and WoW fills that bill. Our Draenei characters made Level 49.
And that was yesterday (and etc.).
Now I'm going to go help Spooky unclutter the house. Here are some photos:
The uncanny sky above I-95 South, Providence.
More sky.
I would like to retire and live on this tiny boat.
Room for just me and Spooky and the cats, as long as we didn't move about much.
I think this dingy comes with.
All photographs Copyright © 2009 by Caitlín R. Kiernan.
Which is why Spooky made me get out of the house yesterday. We both knew no writing would be getting done, so there was no point in hanging about here. I'll go "back to work" tomorrow, after we spend today cleaning the place a bit. We've both been so busy, the clutter has gone wild. But yeah, tomorrow is all interviews: The South County Independent and the Brown University bookstore's newsletter. Then, on Saturday, I need to get started on Sirenia Digest #47. I am truly in no mood for interviews, but there you go.
Anyway...yesterday.
Actually, not so much to tell. I'm still trying to get untired, so it was a low-impact day out. I just wanted to see some autumnal trees. Spooky suggested Wickford. As we were leaving Providence, we saw the most remarkable sky. I took photos (below), but they fail to capture the weirdness of that sky. It was all about color and contrast and a peculiar flatness. It was a videogame sort of sky. Some trick of sunlight and clouds and high-altitude ice crystals, I suspect. In Wickford, there weren't many interesting trees. I think we'll have to head out towards Conancut Island for that, or north towards Woonsocket. But we walked about the harbor and window shopped. We visited the worst witchcraft shop in New England. Truthfully, it's not a witchcraft shop, and I shouldn't dignify it with that label. This is the place that had never heard of athames. Just a big ol' New Age place. Lots of Buddha pop, crystals, chakra crap, chicken soup for the fluffy bunnies. They do "aura" photography and interpretation. That sort of nonesense. I mostly only go in there because it seems to make the employees nervous, ever since I explained athames to them. Anyway, yeah...we walked around and looked through dusty shop windows and at antiques and old houses and boats on the water. Wickford turned three hundred years old this year. The tide was coming in. The sky went from sunny with clouds to flat and leaden. I visited my favorite Wickford boat (again, photos below). That was about it. We were home before six p.m.
Last night, after Night Three of Spooky's patented four-night soup, we watched David Lynch's Inland Empire, which I'd been avoiding because I knew it would do a number on my head. And it did. A stunning, brilliant film. Mother and I are still collating. Also, I read the latest Buffy the Vampire Slayer trade paperback collection (the comic), Predators and Prey (Vol. 5). Other than Lovecraft Unound, I've been working my way through the September '09 Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, and, over the last few days, I've read: "A New Species of Apateodus (Teleostei: Aulopiformes) from the Upper Cretaceous Niobrara Chalk of Western Kansas, U.S.A.," "The Anatomy and Systematics of Colepiocephale lambei (Dinosauria: Pachycephalosauridae)," "Diprotodontid Footprints from the Pliocene of Central Australia," "Cranial Mechanics and Functional Interpretation of the Horned Carnivorous Dinosaur Carnotaurus sastrei," and "A New Beaked Whale (Odontoceti, Ziphiidae) from the Middle Miocene of Peru." We got in some WoW after David Lynch. We both needed something familiar and mindless, and WoW fills that bill. Our Draenei characters made Level 49.
And that was yesterday (and etc.).
Now I'm going to go help Spooky unclutter the house. Here are some photos:
The uncanny sky above I-95 South, Providence.
More sky.
I would like to retire and live on this tiny boat.
Room for just me and Spooky and the cats, as long as we didn't move about much.
I think this dingy comes with.
All photographs Copyright © 2009 by Caitlín R. Kiernan.