I do try not to post lyrics very often, but I've had NIN's "Zero-Sum" stuck in my head for two days, and then this afternoon wolven said, of the song — "It's just so winter-cold and desolate. It may just be personal associations, but I get this moments-before-Ragnarök-stretched-to-infinity kind of feel from it." Which I think was pretty dead on. Anyway...

They're starting to open up the sky.
They're starting to reach down through,
And it feels like we're living in that split-second of a car crash,
And time is slowing down.
And if we only had a little more time,
Then this time is all we have.
Do you remember the time we
And all the times we
And should have
And were going to...?
I know.
And I know you remember.
How we could justify it all.
And we knew better.
In our hearts we knew better.
And we told ourselves it didn't matter,
And we chose to continue.
And none of that matters anymore,
In the hour of our twilight.
And soon it will be all said and done,
And we will all be back together as one.
If we will continue at all.

Shame on us,
Doomed from the start.
May god have mercy
On our dirty little hearts.
Shame on us,
For all we have done.
And all we ever were,
Just zeros and ones.

...and you never get away,
And you never get to take the easy way.
And all of this is a consequence,
Brought on by our own hand,
If you believe in that sort of thing.
And did you ever really find,
When you closed your eyes,
Any place that was still,
And at peace?
And I guess I just wanted to tell you,
As the lights start to fade,
that you are the reason
That I am not afraid.
And I guess I just wanted to mention,
As the heavens will fall,
We will be together soon if we
Will be anything at all.

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.

Too much sleep is usually worse for me than none at all. And there was a little too much last night. I'm waiting on coffee and trying to wake the fuck up.

Er...yesterday. That's the good news. Yesterday, the dry spell ended, and I wrote 1,237 words on "The Ape's Wife." But first, FedEx brought MS Office 2004, which I promptly loaded onto the Unnamed iMac so that I could cease using the annoying watermarked "test drive" version that came installed on this machine. It was an uneventful install. Also, there was good e-mail from my editor at HarperCollins (though more I cannot say).

I think I wrote until about 6 p.m. There was no walk yesterday, but I did go out onto the front porch and sweep away all the stuff the wind of Wednesday night had deposited there. And I dragged the garbage can around back, and Spooky followed me with Hubero in her arms. The air was turning cold. It's much easier to take the cold when all the trees are green, because it's not so much the cold of winter that gets to me as the goddamn bleakness.

I fear I will ever be a creature of summer.

After dinner, I carried the Hello Kitty boom-box thingy into the bathroom, put in Philip Glass' La Belle et la Bête, and had a long, hot soak. When I was dry and clothed again, we got back to work on the hand "annotated and corrected" copy of the Gauntlet edition of Silk which I will eventually be putting up on eBay, if I can ever finish with it. We did chapters Six ("Keith") and Seven ("Stiff Kitten, and How Shrikes Fly"). Later, we watched some of the "making of" documentary included with the extended King Kong DVD, stuff that wasn't used in the online production diaries at Kong Is King. Later still, I read Spooky yesterday's pages a second time, and then read her Angela Carter's "Master" (from Nine Profane Pieces, 1974). It's a story I never, ever tire of reading aloud. Eventually, I fell asleep on the sofa watching the original 1933 King Kong. Spooky woke me about 3 a.m. and made me go to bed. It's nice to have someone who keeps me from sleeping all night on the sofa and waking with a stiff neck. And that was yesterday.

No walk, but I did use the hand weights. which is better than nothing.

Sorry this is such a dull entry, but I'm a writer, not a goddamned lion tamer. 99% of writing is at least as dull as dirt, and often much, much duller, because, you know, dirt can be pretty exciting. You learn that dullness is your friend. You learn to embrace the dull.

If you've not yet heard Year Zero, the new NIN album, you may now hear it in it's entirety online. I have not yet formed a general opinion, though I will say I am very fond of track 13, "The Great Destroyer."

I think I shall now see if I can find some whiskey to put in this cup of coffee. LJ folks, expect a poll later today; I'm curious how many people are actually interested in my doing podcasts.

Postscript (1:52 p.m.) — Here some cool news which is not dull as dirt. Andy Serkis has been cast to play Albert Einstein in a film which will also feature David Tennant as Sir Arthur Eddington.