"You can't watch your own image and also look yourself in the eye."
1. Yesterday, I wrote a very decent 1,466 words on "Hydrarguros," for Sirenia Digest #50. This isn't going to be a vignette. This is going to be my first full-length science-fiction story since I wrote "Galápagos" for Eclipse Three, back in June or July. Er...no. Wait. Shit. I wrote a full-length sf tale, "The Jetsam of Disremembered Mechanics," for the forthcoming Robert Silverberg tribute anthology (Subterranean Press). And that was only December. Gods, it all bleeds together. Anyway, yeah, this story is growing beyond my original concept, and if you're a subscriber to the digest, you'll get to read it. Soon. It's feeling quite a lot like "In View of Nothing" and "A Season of Broken Dolls," and I think Jason Statham is quickly morphing into someone else.
2. Another night of not-quite-enough sleep, thanks to the wonderful rp in Insilico. I meant to get to bed earlier, but the story just kept coming, and I apparently lack the ability to walk away from story. I am a narrative junkie.
3. Yesterday was a day of wonderful gifts arriving by mail. First, a package from Jada in Arkansas, containing a bottle of Crystal Head vodka. I had no idea Dan Ackroyd was pimping vodka in these marvelous bottles. So, the boozery continues to grow. And then, while Kathryn had gone down to the local deli to get sandwiches for dinner, FedEx arrived with a second package (and there's a story here, that I'll come to in Item 4). This one contained a slab of grey stone from the Marecchia River Formation in Italy, bearing the complete skeleton of a 20+ centimeter specimen of Syngnathus acus, an extinct species of pipefish from the Lower Pliocene (about 3-5 million years old). This came from Christa (faustfatale) in faraway LA. It will now take up residence in my own Wunderkammer.
4. When I went to answer the door, when the FexEx dude knocked, I thought I'd shut the front parlour door behind me. The door leading out into the front hallway. I'd not. When I got back upstairs, it was standing wide fucking open. Sméagol was just outside our door, looking thoroughly freaked. He saw me and dashed back inside. However, Hubero was nowhere to be seen. So, I commenced searching. Our building, circa 1875, has these incredibly narrow, steep spiraling wooden stairwells. They make me think of being inside a lighthouse. I went upstairs and finally located Hubero, who never, ever squirms or wiggles when I puck him up. Except for last night. As I was coming back downstairs with him, he wriggled rather violently, dug in his claws, and one or another of my feet slipped. I missed the next step down, pulled my left Achilles tendon rather painfully, and almost went tumbling to the second floor. For a moment, I clearly saw Spooky coming home to find me crumpled in the hallway, a Siamese cat smooshed flat beneath my broken body. But somehow I caught myself, and doomsday was narrowly averted. Shit like this is one reason Spooky is usually the one who answers the door.
5. Last night, we started watching Season Three of Deadliest Catch. I find this strange show absurdly addictive, and I was partway through Season Three in '08 when we made the move from Atlanta to Providence. We watched the first two episodes, and then I wandered off to rp. Oh, I also read another paper in the December Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology yesterday, "Dyrosaurid remains from the Intertrappean Beds of India and the Late Cretaceous distribution of the Dyrosauridae."
6. The platypus says shut up and get to work....
2. Another night of not-quite-enough sleep, thanks to the wonderful rp in Insilico. I meant to get to bed earlier, but the story just kept coming, and I apparently lack the ability to walk away from story. I am a narrative junkie.
3. Yesterday was a day of wonderful gifts arriving by mail. First, a package from Jada in Arkansas, containing a bottle of Crystal Head vodka. I had no idea Dan Ackroyd was pimping vodka in these marvelous bottles. So, the boozery continues to grow. And then, while Kathryn had gone down to the local deli to get sandwiches for dinner, FedEx arrived with a second package (and there's a story here, that I'll come to in Item 4). This one contained a slab of grey stone from the Marecchia River Formation in Italy, bearing the complete skeleton of a 20+ centimeter specimen of Syngnathus acus, an extinct species of pipefish from the Lower Pliocene (about 3-5 million years old). This came from Christa (faustfatale) in faraway LA. It will now take up residence in my own Wunderkammer.
4. When I went to answer the door, when the FexEx dude knocked, I thought I'd shut the front parlour door behind me. The door leading out into the front hallway. I'd not. When I got back upstairs, it was standing wide fucking open. Sméagol was just outside our door, looking thoroughly freaked. He saw me and dashed back inside. However, Hubero was nowhere to be seen. So, I commenced searching. Our building, circa 1875, has these incredibly narrow, steep spiraling wooden stairwells. They make me think of being inside a lighthouse. I went upstairs and finally located Hubero, who never, ever squirms or wiggles when I puck him up. Except for last night. As I was coming back downstairs with him, he wriggled rather violently, dug in his claws, and one or another of my feet slipped. I missed the next step down, pulled my left Achilles tendon rather painfully, and almost went tumbling to the second floor. For a moment, I clearly saw Spooky coming home to find me crumpled in the hallway, a Siamese cat smooshed flat beneath my broken body. But somehow I caught myself, and doomsday was narrowly averted. Shit like this is one reason Spooky is usually the one who answers the door.
5. Last night, we started watching Season Three of Deadliest Catch. I find this strange show absurdly addictive, and I was partway through Season Three in '08 when we made the move from Atlanta to Providence. We watched the first two episodes, and then I wandered off to rp. Oh, I also read another paper in the December Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology yesterday, "Dyrosaurid remains from the Intertrappean Beds of India and the Late Cretaceous distribution of the Dyrosauridae."
6. The platypus says shut up and get to work....