I am a very lucky nixar. No gaping, bloody wound in my head. My dentist is wise and merciful, and I was allowed to keep that right second upper molar. It seems the discomfort was arising from a problem caused by upper and lowers no longer occluding properly (because of the work done on the cracked tooth in February). A little grinding (not even the indignity of Novacaine, thank the gods) Still, she gave me Lortab and penicillin scripts, just in case something should go wrong in there before I find a new dentist in Providence. She's been my dentist since March 2000, and it was an oddly bittersweet parting. Anyway, don't ever say that I've never given you a glimpse of true horror, because if you look behind the cut, you'll find x-rays of my frelled-up mouth:

( You've been warned )

After the dentist, enormously relieved and not low on blood, we dropped by the storage unit to see just how annoying moving everything out of it will be on May 27th. Not too bad. And then we went to the Birmingham Public Library, and I sat beneath the beautiful old murals in the Linn-Henley wing. That part of the library appears in Threshold, and it's on that very short list of things I will miss about the South. Truthfully, in an alternate-world Alabama with an entirely different cultural and political climate, I could probably have lived my whole life in Birmingham. Anyway, Spooky took some photos, and I'll put them up tomorrow, after she's had time to edit them. Today, you just get gnarly teeth. We saw an assortment of flattened and living fauna along I-20: crows, buzzards, deer, armadillos, dogs, a hawk. At the rest stop just across the Alabama state line, we spotted a large (probably female) Broad-headed skink (Eumeces laticeps). Spooky tried to get a photo, but the lizard did not cooperate. Alas. After the library, we stopped by my Mother's house in Leeds, and spent a couple of hours there, just talking. She's coming up to Providence to visit in the autumn.

I suppose, now that there is not unsightly recovery to endure, I shall be trying to finish up Chapter One of The Red Tree, beginning today. I need to have that done, and also Issue No. 30 of Sirenia Digest by Wednesday, the 21st, at the latest. Not only will the packing schedule become so hectic by then that there's no way I can even hope to work, but, also, I have to go back to Birmingham next week, to see my regular doctor one last time before the move (and she's been my doctor since 1990).

Last night, after finally getting back to Atlanta about 9 pm and grabbing some Thai food for dinner, we watched two episodes from Season Two of Millennium ("The Hand of St. Sebastian" and the hilariously wonderful "Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense", the latter with Charles Nelson Riley). Oh, and discovered a tick latched onto my left hip. No idea where I picked the little fucker up. Maybe at my mother's (rural location plus dog), maybe at the rest stop earlier. She was a female Lone Star tick (Amblyomma americanum), and was surprisingly painful when Spooky removed her. The blasted thing had apparently been on my clothing for some time, had only just bitten, and hadn't yet started to feed (no blood), or had fed only a very little. We dropped the tick in a jar of alcohol (70%), where she survived for a hour. Spooky's calling my doctor about it today, just in case she wants me to take any precautions beyond those we have taken already. And, please, no oogy tick-borne disease related stories. Thank you.

Later, I tried to work on the Palaeozoic Museum (New Babbage, Second Life), but the damned asset server was on the fritz again, so that didn't happen. I did make quite a lot of progress on it Monday. Oh, yeah. Monday. On Monday, I worked on the Museum, we got dinner from the Vortex at Little Five Points, and watched two episodes of Farscape ("Home on the Remains" and "A Constellation of Doubt"). I went back to the biography of Henry Fairfield Osborn, which I hope to finish before the move. That was Monday. Huzzah.

Also, I should repost the link to 350.org.

Is it just me, or are these entries getting far too long winded? At any rate, only 13 days remaining to the dread birthday -04. Blegh. But my Amazon wish list is here, if you are so inclined.

Oh, and since this entry has gone on Way Too Long, I may as well mention how I've been complaining about the sudden proliferation of needless contractions, because people simply can't be bothered. Sure. It's not really anything new. Nabisco stopped being the National Biscuit Company back in the early sixties, but, lately, it seems like this is happening everywhere. National Geographic as NatGeo?! The Biography Channel as Bio? I wonder how many people still remember that WB stands for Warner Brothers, or that KFC stands for Kentucky Fried Chicken, or that iHop is shortened from the International House of Pancakes? But the one that really tears it for me, that set off a rant last night, was seeing Scarlett Johansson called "ScarJo." What the holy fuck?! Okay, sure. First we had JLo, but that was just Jennifer Lopez, so who really cares? Not only is Scarlett Johansson a fine actress (The Black Dahlia not withstanding), she has a cool name, so why ruin it with a silly contraction like "ScarJo"? It is beyond me, these things that people do. Maybe I would be a more popular writer if I went by CaitKier. Or just CRK. Regardless, I am looking forward to hearing her album of Tom Waits covers. And now the platypus says if I don't stop and drink some coffee, sheheit's going to start gnawing my ankles.

Yesterday, I wrote 1,080 words and finished "Flotsam." I am very, very pleased with the piece. It is possessed of the sort of economy and density I achieved in "Untitled 17" (in Frog Toes and Tentacles). It is a true vignette, a scene (though the narrator's mind wanders a bit in time), and it's so rare that I'm actually true to the original mission statement of Sirenia Digest.

In response to my request for comments regarding "Pickman's Other Model," I received a rather marvelous email from one Mr. Tim Huntley, who writes:

The lines from the Ovid in Part 3 drew me to thinking about transformation but also about the particular morphē that changes. What, for me, was particularly well written throughout "Pickman's Other Model (1929)" was the notion of change and development. I touch on nothing you didn't intend, I'm sure, but I find that there is an interesting development from the paintwork and photography of Lovecraft's own mode of revelation into the charcoal sketches and cinematic reels of the mode of grotesque revelation in your own piece.

The role of cinema is very well placed though. Having read Sirenia Digest #28, I looked to some Lovecraft letters and found a Sept 1935 note where HPL bemoans missing a screening of Caligari. Yet cinema is a mode not in Mr Blackman's favour: he is a man of the theatre, favouring "living actors." As such your story gives rise to thinking on the oppositions of metamorphosis and body; of theatre and cinema. The performance one becomes gives way to what one is, a fixity surely put in question by any notion of acting. However, for all the doubt Mr Blackman casts on his own authorial veracity, Lily nonetheless casts him as "a persistent fellow such as you".

In short, "Pickman's Other Model" takes up the ways in which popular folk myth, cultural gossip, horrors, and memory endure. It takes them up and scatters them through a myriad of forms. (On a lighter note, dare I say that Thurber's presence at the screening ("Now, do you understand?") seems to have the hint of a nod to that moment in Landis' An American Werewolf in London, where Kessler sits with Jack Goodman...) There was also an echo from your own work: I loved the ground that seems to stretch from the private arcane collection of Silas Desvernine in "Estate" to the corporeal arcanum of the Hounds' film. Between these two stories there was an interesting shift from introspective real estate to projected industrial product: the cinema film (played, nonetheless, underground by the Harvard Square collective). And the relaying of the Durand Drive events was superb – for me it was inlaid perfectly: like a miniature inset of "The Call of Cthulhu" part II.

Finally, I have to say, Lillian Margaret Snow is a splendidly defined ghost, shifting through the whole of the piece. "Pickman's Other Model (1929)" is a piece for which you should be proud.

Danke schön. Actually, though I do see your point about Jack Goodman, I think what was actually going through my head at the time was a line from Poe's "Hey Pretty" ("Do you get this gist of this song now?"), which, of course, leads back to Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves. Also, Sean writes:

I'd never read it ["Pickman's Model"] before with thoughts towards the unreliability of first person narration, but I think the points from your prolegomena are well taken. It did seem like Thurber was about to come off the rails completely before his account was finished. In that light, it seems perfectly logical that he might have later committed suicide. Your story did seem to leave one unanswered question though in regards to Thurber — what, if any, was the extent of his contact with Vera Endecott/Lillian Snow? Did he merely get the sketches from Pickman, or did they meet during the time she modeled for Pickman? What exactly was the final straw that broke his mind is also somewhat shady. Perhaps you left these things ambiguous on purpose and, in any case, the story didn't suffer for it.

To which I reply, I always try to leave as many questions unanswered as answered, and thinking on it now, answering your questions would make another good story (and no doubt lead to new questions, because this regression is infinite). Anyway, my thanks to Sean and Tim, both.

I'm taking the day off, going to the picture show with Spooky. There was a very small seizure late yesterday, the sort that is usually called "petit mal" or "absence" seizures, which mostly just leave me feeling odd for a few hours. But the insomnia and stress is piling up, so, yeah, a day off to try to get pointed to true north once more. But, first, these marvelous images, courtesy thingunderthest (behind the cut):

( Farscape definitions )

*Just a word to the wise, from me to a certain "Tristan Pennell," should he actually be reading this (by way of the Dresden Dolls, of course).

And Obama scores Wyoming. Very good.

A nasty cold snap, but it's passing now. The temperatures for the coming week look solidly spring-like. And I'm still struggling with a bad cough, the very end of whatever hellbug hit me back in mid-February. And, also, I'm beginning to think I waste at least a quarter of every day trying to fight back and think through the grogginess and murk that come from the anti-seizure meds and sleep aids. But hey, no fits in about two weeks, which is a good thing.

I sort of screwed the pooch yesterday, as regards time management. I was ready to start writing, then decided I would "quickly" download the new NIN album, Ghosts I-IV (all instrumentals). Only, it actually took me about an hour to download, an hour I couldn't really spare. Still, it's a rather grand showing from Reznor and Co. I splurged and paid $5 for the 36-track download, but the 9-track version is free. Strongly recommended. But I'm getting offtrack. Hard writing day, in part because of the lost hour, but also because it was one of those insane research-as-you-go days. It's not that I don't already know a good deal about the subjects at hand (Hollywood scandals, Aleister Crowley, theurgy, hermeticism, drugs laws in the 1920s, the fall of LA District Attorney Asa Keyes, LA County hospitals in the '20s, the history of Paramount, LA newspapers in the late '20s, the history of California sodomy laws, libraries in Boston in the '20s, and so forth...I could go on and on), but being able to crack wise on any given subject does not mean one is prepared to write a short story in which all these things come into play. And I've never been much for doing all the research that needs doing beforehand. So, a good half of my writing day was spent researching. Between NIN and answering various esoteric questions, I only managed 797 words yesterday. Not a good writing day. There's another way I could have done this story, an easy way, but no, I had to be ambitious.

I'm now hoping I can have the story finished by the 11th, as I so desperately need to get back to Joey Lafaye. And we have the trip to Maryland, for the appearance at the O'Neil Literary House, coming up fast, and I have to buy something decent to wear, and I haven't been shopping for clothes since, I'm guessing, November 2004. At any rate, "Pickman's Other Model" will appear in Sirenia Digest #28, and you really ought subscribe, if you haven't already. Because Herr Platypus says so, that's why.

Oh, I have decided. The sf collection will be called A is for Alien. And no, I do not know why Amazon is not yet taking preorders for the new mass-market paperback of Murder of Angels when it's due out next month. They really ought to be. I'll ask my editor about it on Monday.

Last night, we got pizza from Fellini's in Candler Park, then watched an episode of Angel ("Spin the Bottle"), and it's really a shame that Whedon wasn't able to write and direct all the episodes, because on those he did, it shows. "Spin the Bottle" is sort of to Angel what "Crackers Don't Matter" is to Farscape. Anyway, after that we watched the new Torchwood, and once again I was pleased to see the series is really finding itself.

That was my nerdy yesterday, for the most part. Spooky spent much of the day looking at potential apartments in Providence on Craigslist. We have a number of possibilities lined up. Oh, and before I forget, the "Sirenia Players" group now has eight members. I'm still aiming for a bare minimum of a dozen. If you're interested, let me know. Spooky's even located a platypus avatar that I think I'll use for our initial orientation gathering.

Yesterday was the sort of day that can only earn an L, and the sort that it's best not to speak of at length. It's not superstition, just the act of moving along. I think the only thing good I can say about yesterday was we had a decent walk just after sunset, and there were bats everywhere, flitting to and fro. One chased a mockingbird, which I assume it mistook for a rather large insect. Just after the mockingbird incident, we heard a screech owl just across the street. A marvelously eerie sound.

Also, I wanted to point out that the current eBay auctions end tomorrow. So far, there's been no bid on the copy of La Soglia (the Italian edition of Threshold). Please have a look. Bid if you're so inclined, or buy it now, whichever.

Yes, I have heard the news of the Farscape "revival," that the SFC has order 10 short films or "webisodes" for SCI FI PULSE. But honestly, I don't know if this is a good thing. Aside from the final forty five minutes or so, I was not particularly thrilled with the mini-series in October 2004, and I don't yet know what to make of the news.

Ah, and I have this, because you can't do much better than She Wants Revenge, Shirley Manson, and Harvey Keitel, all in a single video::

Last March 28th, my lit agent, Merrilee, called to ask if I wanted to do a novelization. In particular, would I want to do a novelization of the forthcoming Robert Zemeckis Beowulf. All I knew of the film was that Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman had written the screenplay. And, truthfully, I've never had any interest in writing a novelization. But the timing was right, and, as Neil and Merrilee knew, I'm something of a fanatic on the subject of Beowulf. Indeed, many years ago (I think it was sometime in 1997), Neil and I had a phone conversation about what we'd each do if either of us ever got the opportunity to write a screenplay for Beowulf. Anyway, I said yes, though, for one reason and another (and a few others after that), I was not actually able to begin work on the book until October. I finished the "first draft" back in February, and then had to do two rounds of rewrites for Paramount and my editor at HarperCollins. This morning, the first-pass page proofs landed on my front porch. I'd have announced this long, long ago, but was only told yesterday that I could finally do so (though, I will point out, Neil leaked the news quite some time back, and its turned up in a couple of Wikipedia articles). So, that's what I spent the winter on, and much of the autumn and spring. On Friday, I got the very good news that Paramount had given my manuscript (based on Neil and Roger's screenplay) the green light. I believe the novel is due out in October. There are some differences between it and the film, mostly my inclusion of a great deal more Norse mythology and suchlike, because that's the sort of thing that there's more time for in a novel than a film. I presently have no interest in doing another novelization. I think this was probably a one-time thing, a special case, but it has been a learning experience. I'm not sure when the film is due to be released. Ah, wait. IMDb says November 16th, 2007. It's an animated film, by the way.

Yesterday, I wrote 1,270 words on The Dinosaurs of Mars. But I stopped at 574 words, because an inquest was coming up, and I needed to read Ambrose Bierce's "The Damned Thing" again to be sure I didn't borrow too heavily from it. There's not much else to say about yesterday. Spooky's iPod arrived, and she named it Shiny!, as we having been working our way through Firefly again. Late, we watched Bram Stoker's Dracula, because I'd not seen it in a couple of years and had that urge. The day was cool and rainy, as today appears to be, a welcomed relief from the summer heat.

Oh, and I was very pleased to see that Farscape landed at #4 on TV Guide's list of the 30 "Top Cult TV Shows Ever."

And today is mine and Spooky's fifth anniversary. Yes, we are five, or, as she said, "a whole hand."

Okay. The platypus is getting out the bull whip. Later, kiddos.

Your Political Profile:

Overall: 5% Conservative, 95% Liberal

Social Issues: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal

Ethics: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

Also, it's dren like this that really, really, really makes me wish I were a bezillionaire. I wonder if Ted Turner would float me a loan.

First things frelling first. A very, very happy birthday to docbrite. You old bastard, who'd have ever thought we'd both stick around so goddamn long, hmmm?

Yesterday was something I don't seem to get very often. Yesterday was a genuinely good day, top to bottom, side to side, stem to stern. When it was over and done and I was lying awake in bed at 3:30 a.m., it occurred to me that I had no complaints. And it had not been merely a neutral day during which the shitstorms had been held at bay, but a day which was simply nice. So, if the Cosmos listens, thank you. May I have another, please? It was also a stellar writing day. I'm no longer sure what my personal best is, my "most words in a single day" count, and some kind soul should scour the journal for me and figure it out. But. Yesterday I did a perfectly astounding 2,404 words between about 1:45 p.m. and 7:12 p.m. and finished the first half of "The Black Alphabet." And, what's still more amazing, it was actually fun to write. I did G-M. I'm pretty sure that "The Black Alphabet" trumps everything else I've done thus far in Sirenia Digest for raw, undiluted, honest kink. That's my soul up there, you know? Reading it to Spooky late yesterday, I was like, wow, I actually wrote this stuff down, and I'm actually going to let all these people read it. Exhibitionist me. So, yeah. A very good writing day. The first half of "The Black Alphabet" comes in at 3,674 words (before proofreading/editing). I'd meant to do only a hundred to two hundred words per letter, but a few, like L, went on much, much longer. The second half will appear in Sirenia Digest #7 in June.

stsisyphus has suggested I run a poll to help decide which of the vignettes will be selected for the 10,000 words of reprint that will comprise half of Tales from the Woeful Platypus, and I may do that. Thing is, since only half the book is reprint, and since the vignettes have tended to run on a bit longer than those in Frog Toes and Tentacles, I can only choose three or four for reprint. Yet another reason to subscribe (hint, hint). Most of what goes into the digest will not be reprinted in these Subterranean Press volumes. I am considering asking Bill if we can increase the length of TftWP from 20K to 30K words, but we're constrained by the small format of the book, which I do definitely want to keep. As they say on Nebari Prime, Srai' brel yi v'rest ("See we shall").

Neither of us felt like cooking last night, so we grabbed take-away from the Mellow Mushroom in Decatur. I celebrated having mostly finished writing this issue of the digest by watching a favourite ep of Farscape, "Fractures" (poor Hubero is still the cutest), and then we binged on four more eps of Dead Like Me. Sadly, only three remain, and it's painfully clear that there will be many, many loose threads left dangling by the show's untimely cancellation. Alas and alack and all. After dinner, before all the frelling television, we walked over to Freedom Park, the first time we'd braved it after dark. The park doesn't actually close until 11 p.m., and there were still a few dog-walkers out. The stars were surprisingly bright, considering all the Atlanta light pollution. Venus was ablaze. We spotted a satellite. I just wanted to lie down in the grass and spend the whole night there. Perhaps later in the summer. Oh, and I read another JVP article, a description of the cochleosaurid temnospondyl amphibian Nigerpeton ricqlesi. Really, the very worst thing I can say about yesterday is that Spooky and I both ended it with insomnia. She was up until after 5 a.m. I got to sleep about 4, but was awake before 9. And really, that's more about the space between yesterday and today than a reflection on either day.

However, this morning I had one of the worst cherry Danishes I've ever suffered through. Spooky brought it back from Aurora Coffee at L5P (she meant well). Locals, consider yourselves warned. The cherry part resembled nothing so much as candied monkey testicles.

At some point, Poppy was doing a "pet grammar peeve" of the day sort of thingy. Aside from my absolute loathing for l33t and txt tlk, I make a pretty poor excuse for a grammar Nazi. But I did think of one thing this morning which has begun to bug me, as I seem to notice it with increasing regularity — people who do not comprehend the difference between "were" and "was." There is a difference. For a reason. No, really.

Okay. My coffee cup is almost empty. Spooky's getting out of the tub. I have much to do today so that I won't have to work on -2. Well, -2 & 9 months. Oh, and just so you don't think this post has been entirely too cheery, I leave you with this sobering fact: at the current rate of deforestation, the rainforests of Madagascar will be gone, entirely gone, in only another 40 years, and with them will go all the lemurs and the Malagasy civet and the falanouc and all those other last vestiges of the Madagascan fauna will vanish, along with innumerable endemic plant species. By then, if I haven't departed this particular rock, I shall be -42. There. A little gloom and doom to see you through the day...

Yesterday was, in all respects, a vast improvement upon Wednesday and Thursday. First off, the words finally began to come again, and I did 851 words (all written to I Megaphone) on a new vignette, "Ode to Edvard Munch." It's an interesting little piece that I'm liking a great deal. I've been reading a little Saki and Virginia Woolf, and that might be showing through. That's always a danger, and why I usually avoid reading fiction while writing novels. In the introduction he wrote for Harlan's Stalking the Nightmare (1982), Stephen King discussed a phenomenon that many young writers experience, the tendency to write like whoever they're reading at the time. "Imitativeness," he calls it. He goes on to say:

The imitativeness shakes out, and we become ourselves again. But. One never seems to develop an immunity to some writers...or at least I never have. Their ranks are small, but their influence...has been profound. When I go back to them, I can't not imitate them. My letters start sounding like them; my short stories; a chunk of whatever novel I'm working on; even grocery lists.

I think not even my harshest detractors would argue that I lack my own voice, but I have to admit that, even now, at almost -2, I am particularly vulnerable to this problem of "imitativeness." And yes, certain writers are murder to read and keep out of whatever I'm doing. Bradbury. Harlan. Hemingway. Shirley Jackson. Kathe Koja. Faulkner. And Saki. And Woolf. So, yeah, you might detect them in "Ode to Edvard Munch." Or you may not. We shall see. Oh, and perhaps more than a hint of Portrait of Jenny, as well. The 1948 film, more than the Robert Nathan novel. I hope to finish the vignette this afternoon. I hope. I'm soooooo far behind (thank you, Editing Monster).

Yesterday, I printed out Chad Michael Ward's artwork for the new paperback edition of Threshold and noticed something wrong right off. I got out the magnifying glass to be sure. Dancy has Sadie's blue-white eyes. I e-mailed Liz, my editor, immediately and asked if it's too late to fix this, to made the blue-white pink. She hasn't written back yet. But I'm hopeful, so, once again, we shall see. Other than the eye-colour problem, I still love the artwork (which I'll post as soon as posting is permitted).

Spooky spoke with her mother yesterday, and I have a tentative ETA for the trip to New England this summer. It will probably be late July through mid August. I want to be back in time to get ready for Dragon*Con, the first week of September. Anyway, as soon as I have the exact dates, I can set up the reading/signing in Boston, and then I'll post the date, etc. here. It shouldn't be too much longer. I am very much looking forward to this trip, even if I will have to get a lot of writing done while we're gone. I'm eager for the train ride up, the beaches, the lighthouses, Del's lemonade, and about a hundred other things. Fortunately, we've found someone to housesit for us, which relieves some of my concern about being gone so long. However, our housesitter isn't up to dealing with Sophie and her injections and attitude, so she will be boarded the entire time.

It occurred to me yesterday that sheheit might make a nice gender-neutral pronoun. I detest hir, and it amuses me that sheheit sounds like shit in Southern Redneckese.

The Imogen Heap show last night was superb. I stopped writing at exactly 4:28, and the show wasn't until 8:30, but we needed to be there at 7 to get a good seat. After the writing, my mood wasn't such that I felt like being rushed, and I grumped about and wasted time, so much so that there wasn't time for dinner. Still, I'm glad that Spooky didn't allow me to back out. Zoe Keating opened, and she never fails to amaze. She was having some computer trouble, the box not responding to MIDI commands, and had to reboot after the first song, and this had something to do with her having just returned from France, but I wasn't clear what. Imogen Heap was absolutely wonderful. I am entirely seduced by her charm and her voice and her geekiness and her iBook. Oh, she also had to reboot after the first song or two. This is how I know I live in the Future.

While rebooting, she told about getting all "Jägermeistered-up" in Knoxville and letting Ryan Obermeyer talk her into stealing a cookie jar at the Hampton Inn where they were staying and almost getting arrested the next day. At this point, I realised that Ryan was out front at the merch table. I said hi on the way out. The constant reader will recall that Ryan did the beautiful covers for the The Dry Salvages and To Charles Fort, With Love, as well as the cover and endpapers of the subpress edition of Low Red Moon. So yes, all in all, a wonderful night. And even with the show, we still managed to get home in time to see Dr. Who at midnight, which rocked. Christopher Eccleston, you know. Though, afterwards, while searching for the misplaced remote, I was subjected to a few moments of Stargate: SG-whatever, and there was John Crichton, only he wasn't, and there was Aeryn Sun, only she wasn't (and she was dressed horridly), and it was all sorts of wrong. I almost had a seizure before I found the remote. Anyway, there are a few of the 85 photos we took at the show behind the cut:

( Zoe and Imogen )

Those frelling naysayers at NASA have gone and lowered the odds of asteroid Apophis impacting earth in 2036 from 1 in 6,000 to 1 in 24,000. Naturally, the Immaculate Order of the Falling Sky looks askance at this change in forecast and suspects conspiracy. You know, to keep the panic to a minimum. We shall continue to hope for the best. And even at 1 in 24,000, those aren't such terrible odds. I mean, the odds of someone in America being struck by lightning in any given year are a whopping 1/700,000 (!) and all sorts of people do get struck. We must remember that that which is improbable is not impossible. Indeed, that which is improbable may often be inevitable, given enough time. By the way, I think I'm getting a permanent tongue-groove worn into my left cheek...

The platypus says that I should mention that wishing thing on Amazon again, what with only a week remaining until the dread -2, but I fear that would be poor form. The platypus cares not about poor form. Just look at sheheit...all webbed feet and fur and duck-bill...

Asleep too late. Awake too early. By ten thirty this morning, I'd finished a Wikipedia entry for the Chinese ankylosaurid Tienzhenosaurus. But I feel awake. Am I live or is this Memorex? Last night, as we were climbing into bed, I was extolling the wonders and virtues of Wikipedia to Spooky, and she looked at me and said in a somewhat motherly voice, "Well, that's nice, just as long as it doesn't start getting in the way of your work." And I said, "Yes, Mom." She didn't kill me. But I was having a nasty recollection of my mother going on about this thing or that thing or some other all-consuming passion of my teenage years. Reading. My volunteer work at the Red Mountain Museum. Dating. All consuming passions were all fine and good so long as they didn't interfere with school. Of course, they always did, because school held about as much interest for me as...an apt comparison eludes me at the moment. Anyway, yeah, Wikipedia has become a fascination, but, fortunately, I have Spooky here watching over my shoulder to be sure I keep my priorties in order. Yesterday, I only made two entries, for the ankylosaurs Mymoorapelta and "Denversaurus" (the latter being a junior synonym for Edmontonia).

Yesterday was another detail sort of day. E-mails to editors. Vince sent me two sketches for "Untitled 20," and I had to choose one or the other, though I loved them both. I think I chose the best one. I'm thinking I could draw more subscribers to Sirenia Digest if it were photo-illustrated, though the cost would likely be prohibitive. I made a short entry to my Amazon "plog," posting the cover for Alabaster. I'm actually in sort of a weird and frustrating place right now, workwise. Sirenia Digest #4 is pretty much done. I have no short-story deadlines and no short stories that are nagging to be written. The editorial letter on Daughter of Hounds could come next week, or it could come a month from now. So. I'm not quite sure what to do with myself at the moment. Perhaps I'll begin a new vignette for #5 today and get a head-start, so to speak. I've been thinking a lot about fairies. We'll see. We always do.

We had a very long walk yesterday. I feel as though I'm beginning to work off the wage of the winter's inactivity. First we stopped by Videodrome to return Walk the Line, then headed on up North Avenue NE towards the western end of Freedom Park. Oh, here's a photo of Videodrome, Atlanta coolest DVD source (though if your still stuck in the '80s and are talking strictly VHS, I'd direct you to Movies Worth Seeing). I talk about the place so frequently, I figured maybe I should include a photo, which I took yesterday as we were leaving:



I kinda think Videodrome was once a service station. Anyway, we took Ralph McGill Blvd. NE up towards the park, admiring old houses and old oaks and tulip trees and flowers and sidewalk fossils and such. Then we headed back down Williams Mill Rd. NE. It was a beautiful day, the sun hot against my skin, and a good long walk. I sweated!

I was very pleased with the season finale of Battlestar Galactica last night. I thought the one-year-ahead jump cut was marvelous, and now I shall grind my teeth until October and Season 3. Seeing Baltar's debauchery and the miserable conditions on New Caprica, I couldn't help but be reminded of the lyrics to Public Image's "Bad Life" ("Well, that's life./Bad, bad, bad life./Well, that's life./This is what you want./This is what you get.") I love a cliffhanger that leaves everyone well and truly frelled. Of course, I was also thinking about how Bonnie Hammer tried to blame the "unfinished" nature of Farscape at the time of its cancellation on "too many cliffhangers." In fact, watching BSG, no matter how much its won me over, it also makes me miss Farscape all the more. Another of Bonnie Hammer's absurd claims about Farscape was that it wasn't friendly to new viewers coming in late, because the story was too complex. And the same's not true of BSG? Bologna, I say.

Spooky wants to walk me...er, I mean go for a walk, so I should wrap this up. Later, kiddos.