"So, cross your fingers, say a prayer. You don't believe, but I don't care." (10.5 Vicodin)
Jesus, how did I get so goddamn old?
That's an easy one. I didn't die.
---
Summer has finally come to Providence. Highs in the nineties. And the annual struggle to keep the house from becoming an oven. Okay, no. That would be futile. More like, the annual struggle to keep the oven down low enough that shit doesn't begin bursting into flame. BUT. This is so preferable to the cold. I could be dying of heat prostration, and I would still declare that to be true. Yesterday, the temperature inside rose to 87˚F (when Spooky woke at 10:45 a.m.). Whatever Victorian architect/s designed this building knew how to keep it warm in the winter, but they didn't know jack shit about keeping it cool in the summer. Then again, back in 1875, they had no idea what the earth's climate would be up to in 2013.
Lack of foresight makes me sweat, and it will be the downfall of the Clever Ape.
I'm still stoned from the Good Worker Bee Pill, and I'm pretty much saying whatever comes to mind, so bear with me. Or fuck off. Frankly, I'm indifferent on that particular point. As Siobhan Quinn would say.
No work yesterday. But now there are only eleven days remaining until we leave Kingston for New Orleans (a thirty-six hour train trip), and our energy here is going to have to shift into travel mode. This is a huge reason why I don't do conventions: they are a terrible waste of resources and time. But I'll be at HWA, Guest of Honor and all that falderal (my favorite word this week). There are, by the by, a lot of Guests of Honor for one convention. I guess we call that getting your money's worth, oui? Oh, and per diem room service 24/7!
But, now that almost all of my work for Dark Horse (for the foreseeable future) is thank-fucking-gods behind me, and now that Red Delicious is written, and now that...other stuff...I just want to sit down and write an honest to shit short story. Not a vignette. A short story.
I'm probably the only person in the world who thinks The Final Cut (March 1983) is the best Pink Floyd album. I know David Gilmour hated it, and, of course, it was Waters last album with the band. Still....it's brilliant.
---
Yesterday, late, we left the house, leaving behind the heat and the cats, and headed south to the sea. But, before we were even clear of Providence, we hit a monstrous traffic snarl. A stretch of highway that should have taken us ten minutes probably took thirty. But, still, we eventually made it to Point Judith (41°21'43.60"N, 71°28'50.24"W). On the way, we passed Iggy's (41°22'22.59"N, 71°29'9.29"W), and we're idiots for not stopping for doughboys and fish and chips. But, yeah. Land's end, as I always think of Point Judith. As far southeast as one can go in Rhode Island, and from there it's thousand of miles of Atlantic blue desert. The tourons are out in full force, so there were far too many other people, but they didn't ruin the cool sea air. We watched red-winged blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) darting about, the brightly-plumaged males courting the drab brown females. Idiots were feeding two gluttonous herring gulls (Larus argentatus) French fries. There were swans in the salt pond (~41°21'42.81"N, 71°28'56.93"W) west of the lighthouse (it has no name I can discover, that pond). In the granite boulders below the packing lot, we found a dead hermit crab. A shattered hermit crab. There were cormorants, robins, sparrows, and swallows. The air was cool and smelled glorious. The sea was so calm as to be almost placid. Boats came and went. I wanted so badly to swim, but it'll be at least two weeks before the waters only frigid. When I return from New Orleans, then I'll swim. The winter and my inactivity during the winter stole away my muscle mass. I look like unto an Auschwitz survivor. We left the sea before, I think, seven thirty. The sun was setting, and there was fog in the east. Photos behind the cut. No captions; find your own way through this forest:
All photographs Copyright © 2013 by Caitlín R. Kiernan and Kathryn A. Pollnac
Why do I write all this down?
Last night we watched Roel Reiné's Death Race 2 (2010), a direct-to-DVD sequel to Paul W.S. Anderson's Death Race (2008) remake. It wasn't so bad, in a big badda boom Velveeta® sort of way. Then I finished William Hope Hodgson's "The Boats of 'Glen Carrig'" (1907). To quote Wikipedia (though I don't think of it as a novel, but, rather, a short story):
The novel is written in an archaic style, and is presented as a true account, written in 1757, of events occurring earlier...Modern readers may find the writing style more tedious to read than Hodgson's other works, because there is no dialogue in the usual sense, and Hodgson's sentences often become very long, using semicolons and numerous prepositional phrases.
And then I slept in the cool air blowing in through the bedroom window, thanks to the fan. And that, kiddos, that was yesterday.
And This Is Today,
Aunt Beast
That's an easy one. I didn't die.
---
Summer has finally come to Providence. Highs in the nineties. And the annual struggle to keep the house from becoming an oven. Okay, no. That would be futile. More like, the annual struggle to keep the oven down low enough that shit doesn't begin bursting into flame. BUT. This is so preferable to the cold. I could be dying of heat prostration, and I would still declare that to be true. Yesterday, the temperature inside rose to 87˚F (when Spooky woke at 10:45 a.m.). Whatever Victorian architect/s designed this building knew how to keep it warm in the winter, but they didn't know jack shit about keeping it cool in the summer. Then again, back in 1875, they had no idea what the earth's climate would be up to in 2013.
Lack of foresight makes me sweat, and it will be the downfall of the Clever Ape.
I'm still stoned from the Good Worker Bee Pill, and I'm pretty much saying whatever comes to mind, so bear with me. Or fuck off. Frankly, I'm indifferent on that particular point. As Siobhan Quinn would say.
No work yesterday. But now there are only eleven days remaining until we leave Kingston for New Orleans (a thirty-six hour train trip), and our energy here is going to have to shift into travel mode. This is a huge reason why I don't do conventions: they are a terrible waste of resources and time. But I'll be at HWA, Guest of Honor and all that falderal (my favorite word this week). There are, by the by, a lot of Guests of Honor for one convention. I guess we call that getting your money's worth, oui? Oh, and per diem room service 24/7!
But, now that almost all of my work for Dark Horse (for the foreseeable future) is thank-fucking-gods behind me, and now that Red Delicious is written, and now that...other stuff...I just want to sit down and write an honest to shit short story. Not a vignette. A short story.
I'm probably the only person in the world who thinks The Final Cut (March 1983) is the best Pink Floyd album. I know David Gilmour hated it, and, of course, it was Waters last album with the band. Still....it's brilliant.
---
Yesterday, late, we left the house, leaving behind the heat and the cats, and headed south to the sea. But, before we were even clear of Providence, we hit a monstrous traffic snarl. A stretch of highway that should have taken us ten minutes probably took thirty. But, still, we eventually made it to Point Judith (41°21'43.60"N, 71°28'50.24"W). On the way, we passed Iggy's (41°22'22.59"N, 71°29'9.29"W), and we're idiots for not stopping for doughboys and fish and chips. But, yeah. Land's end, as I always think of Point Judith. As far southeast as one can go in Rhode Island, and from there it's thousand of miles of Atlantic blue desert. The tourons are out in full force, so there were far too many other people, but they didn't ruin the cool sea air. We watched red-winged blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) darting about, the brightly-plumaged males courting the drab brown females. Idiots were feeding two gluttonous herring gulls (Larus argentatus) French fries. There were swans in the salt pond (~41°21'42.81"N, 71°28'56.93"W) west of the lighthouse (it has no name I can discover, that pond). In the granite boulders below the packing lot, we found a dead hermit crab. A shattered hermit crab. There were cormorants, robins, sparrows, and swallows. The air was cool and smelled glorious. The sea was so calm as to be almost placid. Boats came and went. I wanted so badly to swim, but it'll be at least two weeks before the waters only frigid. When I return from New Orleans, then I'll swim. The winter and my inactivity during the winter stole away my muscle mass. I look like unto an Auschwitz survivor. We left the sea before, I think, seven thirty. The sun was setting, and there was fog in the east. Photos behind the cut. No captions; find your own way through this forest:
All photographs Copyright © 2013 by Caitlín R. Kiernan and Kathryn A. Pollnac
Why do I write all this down?
Last night we watched Roel Reiné's Death Race 2 (2010), a direct-to-DVD sequel to Paul W.S. Anderson's Death Race (2008) remake. It wasn't so bad, in a big badda boom Velveeta® sort of way. Then I finished William Hope Hodgson's "The Boats of 'Glen Carrig'" (1907). To quote Wikipedia (though I don't think of it as a novel, but, rather, a short story):
The novel is written in an archaic style, and is presented as a true account, written in 1757, of events occurring earlier...Modern readers may find the writing style more tedious to read than Hodgson's other works, because there is no dialogue in the usual sense, and Hodgson's sentences often become very long, using semicolons and numerous prepositional phrases.
And then I slept in the cool air blowing in through the bedroom window, thanks to the fan. And that, kiddos, that was yesterday.
And This Is Today,
Aunt Beast