"I know my thoughts. Can't live with them."
I've notified the members of the Tiptree Award Motherboard that I'll be unable to attend Wiscon at the end of May. My rotten fucking legs and feet just aren't up to hours on a plane (and, for that matter, my temperament isn't up to enduring the TSA).
Yeah, it sucks. If you were hoping to see me in Madison, I do apologize. There are these opportunities and honors that come my way, and they'll never come again, but here I sit. Istanbul, San Jose, and now Madison.
No writing yesterday, or the day before. Just trying to stay on top of the email. It's been warm - high sixties and low seventies Fahrenheit - and after this hellish winter, I had to get out of the house. On Monday, we drove to Conanicut Island, and yesterday just wandered around Providence. Today, I have to try to get back to work. It's unlikely I will. The last day that I genuinely, truly worked was Saturday, when I finished Chapter Six of Red Delicious. I've lost four days I didn't have to lose, and there were lost days before that. I'm trying to care that I'm losing these days, trying to make myself believe the deadlines matter. By the end of this month I need to have all of this done:
1) Finish Red Delicious (one chapter and maybe a short epilogue to go, ~10,000 wds.)
2) Sirenia Digest #88
3) The revised text, plus all illustrations, etc., for the Centipede Press limited edition of The Drowning Girl: A Memoir
4) Write and deliver to Dark Horse Alabaster: Boxcar Tales #9-10
And here I am, having lost a third of the month already, and the cold air's on its way back.
Yesterday, we stopped by Rockstar on Thayer Street and I got some jadeite plugs for my lobes. That was the highpoint of yesterday. As for Monday, in the end, it felt like a wasted trip. The sea didn't comfort me. The trees were too bare, the sky too blue. Mostly, it all reminded me of things of which I didn't need to be reminded. Do you find this all depressing? Then stop reading the LiveJournal. There are some good photos from Monday, behind the cut (this entry took about 1.5 hours to compose):
Crossing the Jamestown Bridge.
At the salt marsh, Fox Hill Nature Area/Kit Wright Nat Trail, Fort Getty, Conanicut Island (north end). There was a very cold, hard wind, and after about half an hour our ears were aching and our fingers numb. But Spooky found a seal vertebra (Phoca vitulina concolor, Western Habor Seal). We'd hoped for decent birding, but on the whole excursion we saw only crows, gulls, robins, one heron or egret, some species of hawk, a few ducks, a Canadian Goose, and - the star of the show - and osprey. Oh, there was a dead Common Merganser (below). We heard the mock hopeful sound of spring peepers.
A cockeyed, low-angle show from the Salt Marsh looking north towards the upper bay.
Still at Fort Getty. It was a very appropriate place for Spooky to be wearing this hoodie.
Leaving Fort Getty, I got this shot of a Highland cow (Bò Ghàidhealach).
We left Fort Getty for the shelter of West Cove, Fort Wetherill at the southeast corner of the island. I was slobbered upon by a very large, happy yellow dog who'd been wading. Anyway, here's the "saw-bill" beak of the dead merganser. "Birds" lost their teeth during their evolution, and a few lineages of fishing birds have evolved serrate beaks, with are tooth analogs.
Spooky got this macro shot of a deceased tubicolous amphipod, Leptochierus sp. (~.25")
West Cove. The tide is coming in.
I found this partial pharyngeal tooth plate of a drum fish (Sciaenops ocellatus).
On Conanicut Island, a windmill.
Directly across the road from the windmill, Spooky spotted a herd of deer.
Heading back over the Jamestown Bridge, the Plum Beach Lighthouse.
Spooky's seal vertebra. Now if we could just find a whale vertebra.
And So It Goes,
Aunt Beast
Yeah, it sucks. If you were hoping to see me in Madison, I do apologize. There are these opportunities and honors that come my way, and they'll never come again, but here I sit. Istanbul, San Jose, and now Madison.
No writing yesterday, or the day before. Just trying to stay on top of the email. It's been warm - high sixties and low seventies Fahrenheit - and after this hellish winter, I had to get out of the house. On Monday, we drove to Conanicut Island, and yesterday just wandered around Providence. Today, I have to try to get back to work. It's unlikely I will. The last day that I genuinely, truly worked was Saturday, when I finished Chapter Six of Red Delicious. I've lost four days I didn't have to lose, and there were lost days before that. I'm trying to care that I'm losing these days, trying to make myself believe the deadlines matter. By the end of this month I need to have all of this done:
1) Finish Red Delicious (one chapter and maybe a short epilogue to go, ~10,000 wds.)
2) Sirenia Digest #88
3) The revised text, plus all illustrations, etc., for the Centipede Press limited edition of The Drowning Girl: A Memoir
4) Write and deliver to Dark Horse Alabaster: Boxcar Tales #9-10
And here I am, having lost a third of the month already, and the cold air's on its way back.
Yesterday, we stopped by Rockstar on Thayer Street and I got some jadeite plugs for my lobes. That was the highpoint of yesterday. As for Monday, in the end, it felt like a wasted trip. The sea didn't comfort me. The trees were too bare, the sky too blue. Mostly, it all reminded me of things of which I didn't need to be reminded. Do you find this all depressing? Then stop reading the LiveJournal. There are some good photos from Monday, behind the cut (this entry took about 1.5 hours to compose):
Crossing the Jamestown Bridge.
At the salt marsh, Fox Hill Nature Area/Kit Wright Nat Trail, Fort Getty, Conanicut Island (north end). There was a very cold, hard wind, and after about half an hour our ears were aching and our fingers numb. But Spooky found a seal vertebra (Phoca vitulina concolor, Western Habor Seal). We'd hoped for decent birding, but on the whole excursion we saw only crows, gulls, robins, one heron or egret, some species of hawk, a few ducks, a Canadian Goose, and - the star of the show - and osprey. Oh, there was a dead Common Merganser (below). We heard the mock hopeful sound of spring peepers.
A cockeyed, low-angle show from the Salt Marsh looking north towards the upper bay.
Still at Fort Getty. It was a very appropriate place for Spooky to be wearing this hoodie.
Leaving Fort Getty, I got this shot of a Highland cow (Bò Ghàidhealach).
We left Fort Getty for the shelter of West Cove, Fort Wetherill at the southeast corner of the island. I was slobbered upon by a very large, happy yellow dog who'd been wading. Anyway, here's the "saw-bill" beak of the dead merganser. "Birds" lost their teeth during their evolution, and a few lineages of fishing birds have evolved serrate beaks, with are tooth analogs.
Spooky got this macro shot of a deceased tubicolous amphipod, Leptochierus sp. (~.25")
West Cove. The tide is coming in.
I found this partial pharyngeal tooth plate of a drum fish (Sciaenops ocellatus).
On Conanicut Island, a windmill.
Directly across the road from the windmill, Spooky spotted a herd of deer.
Heading back over the Jamestown Bridge, the Plum Beach Lighthouse.
Spooky's seal vertebra. Now if we could just find a whale vertebra.
And So It Goes,
Aunt Beast