So, Spooky called my doctor yesterday, about the tick. And my doctor immediately prescribed a ten-day regimen of doxycycline (one of of the tetracycline antibiotics), as a preventative measure, just in case the Lone Star tick in question was carrying one of the four rather nasty diseases for which they can act as vectors. But, on the other hand, my doctor is a little overzealous with antibiotics, and I've not been on any antibiotic, by choice, since August 2002 (when I needed them for an infected spider bite on my leg). But. I will take the doxycycline, though my instincts tell me not to, because I don't want to risk Alabama getting in the last laugh by rendering me sick all summer with some vermin-borne illness. By the way, the tick in question now floats in a specimen jar of alcohol on my desk. She's a rather fascinating little thing.

Yesterday, we read over what I've written on Chapter One of The Red Tree, again. Recall, we just did this on Sunday. But I wanted to be sure I have the narrator (Sarah Crowe) solidly in my head. With luck, I can finish Chapter One and maybe even toss in a vignette for Sirenia Digest sometime between now and next Wednesday. That will be my last normal "work day," the 21st, before the move (14 days remaining). We also did a lot of packing yesterday. I lost track of how many boxes of books. The new battery for my iBook arrived via the post.

I've been asked to write a "signature review" (one with my name on it) for Publisher's Weekly, though I cannot yet identify the novel or the author. I even get paid. This was one of those things I really didn't have time to take on just now, but I did, anyway.

As promised yesterday, behind the cut are photos that Spooky took on Tuesday of the Ezra Winter murals at the Birmingham Public Library. They are a far sight better than the ones that the Library has online (the link above). Ezra Winter was born in Manistee, Michigan in 1886, and was educated at Olivet College and the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. He also studied at the Prix de Rome and the American Academy in Rome. After returning to the US, Winter began a successful career as a muralist, and did work in Manhattan, Chicago, and Washington, DC (his studio was in New York City). In "the early 1920s," the Birmingham Public Library commissioned him to do the murals for the main reading room of their (then) newly constructed library building, depicting various figures from literature and history. They're oil on canvas, fixed to the walls with white lead. Winter was present for the mounting of the paintings. I first saw the murals sometime around 1975. Back then, they were sooty and in bad shape, but were cleaned and restored in the 1980s. Anyway, the photos:

( Ezra Winter and the Birmingham Public Library )

Last night, Spooky made a big pot of chili, and after dinner we watched two more episodes from Season Two of Millennium — "Midnight of the Century" and "Goodbye Charlie." It was cool seeing the late Darren McGavin as Frank's father in the former, as McGavin also appeared twice on The X-Files, as agent Arthur Dales. Anyway, then I worked on the Palaeozoic Museum in New Babbage, mostly on the wall in the Great Hall devoted the pterosaurs (Dimorphodon, Pterodactylus, Rhamphorhynchus, and Pteranodon) and fossil birds (Hesperornis and Archaeopteryx). And I think I was in bed sometime after two ayem, and Spooky read to me from House of Leaves until about three ayem. I was up at 9:30, because I'm trying to get on an earlier schedule, even if it means I slept only about six hours. Truly, I've already cut back on Second Life, and will be doing so even more in the end of May. The move, my health, and far too many deadlines.

And this is the very last time I'll post a link to the Amazon wish list thing before birthday -04, though we are only halfway through the Royal Birthday Month. And my thanks for all the comments yesterday. They help, these days, and I don't know that we've had that many for one entry in quite sometime. I should include nasty x-rays of my teeth more often.

350.org.

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.

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.

As the publication date of Daughter of Hounds draws near and I begin the old, familiar pre-review fretting, it's nice to have something like an antidote on hand. So, my thanks to Rick (dethbird) for sending me the following Raymond Chandler quote from The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction, 1909-1959 (Atlantic Monthly Books; 2002), from one of Chandler's letters to Blanche Knopf (March 15, 1942), in which he replies to his critics:

"From now on, if I make mistakes, as no doubt I shall, they will not be made in a futile attempt to avoid making mistakes."

I think I'm going to write this on my forehead with a Sharpie.

Let me see if I can piece together yesterday into some semblance of a narrative. We proofed Chapter Eight ("Intersections") of Daughter of Hounds. Chapter Eight has been the most difficult for me, as it is riddled with "action scenes," which I despise writing, yet seem determine to burden myself with at every possible turn. But Chapter Eight of Daughter of Hounds is the closest I've ever come, I think, to getting an elaborately choreographed "action scene" just right. I didn't cringe when I read it yesterday, which is, i think, I good goddamn sign. There are parts of the chapter which I genuinely adore. Oh, I used the quotations around "action scenes" because, of course, all scenes are action scenes, sensu lato, but here I mean "action" in the running, jumping, falling down, shooting guns, magickal duels, punching people in the face, blowing shit up sense.

It was my intention (almost always good, my intentions) to also proof Chapter Nine yesterday, but Spooky and Byron lured me out into the hazy, smoggy evening to see Snakes on a Plane, which, I must admit, was frelling hilarious. Now I must find a copy of Christa's (faustfatale) novelization, just for good measure. As I usually do not see comedies, I can honestly say that I haven't laughed this hard in a theatre in...I have no idea how long. A long gorramn time.

Oh, before we left for the theatre, UPS hurled two boxes of Alabaster and the Highway 97 chapbook onto the front porch. I think it's time to complain. The boxes impacted with such force that the walls and windows shook. Hardly surprising, considering that each box weighs more than thirty pounds!

Later, of course, we watched Project Runway 3, and I rejoiced at the axing of Angela, which, for my part, came several weeks too late. I still call this season lackluster, but the last couple of episodes have been an improvement. I still have no clear favourite among the designers. I suppose it's a tie between Michael and Jeffrey, though Laura is my favourite personality. I want to grow up to be Laura Bennett, only without the six frelling children. She's a year older than me; there's still time. And I can only hope that Kayne is the next to go, with his Elvis-Liberace mash-up nightmares. Sorry. Please forgive me my vapid indulgences. I have so few of them.

After PR3, we watched two more eps of Firefly ("Our Mrs. Reynolds" and "Jaynestown"). About halfway through the first ep, a marvelously tremendous thunderstorm blew in. We stood on the porch, oohing and ahhhing at the lightning, so bright that it kept fooling the streetlights into thinking that it was daylight.

Someone noticed yesterday that the new Threshold cover is up on Amazon.com. Sadly, you can only view it as a thumbnail, as far as I can tell. I'm going to try to get the finished cover from my editor today, and I'll post it tomorrow. And no, this is not Dancy the way I saw her. But if it sells books, hey, whatever. I can live with a hot, gothedy alternate-universe Dancy Flammarion, if it helps keep the damn book in print.

Ah, there's more, but we're going to finish with these galleys today, so it'll have to wait until later. I will, however, remind you that the current eBay auctions end tomorrow afternoon, so please, please have a look. Spend some money. We're going to post more photos of the leather-bound Low Red Moon later, including photos of the traycase, and hopefully that will inspire a few more people to bid.

Lately, it seems as if I'm pretty much the very last person to know what's what. Case in point, I only just this afternoon learned that HBO canceled Deadwood...back in May. The following is quoted from the Wikipedia Deadwood entry:

On May 13, 2006, HBO confirmed it has opted not to pick up the options of the actors, which were set to expire on June 11, 2006. This means that there will likely be no fourth season with the current cast as it stands, though HBO has stressed that the show is not cancelled and talks regarding its future are ongoing. The chance of the show returning in its current state of cast and crew, however, is small.

On June 5, 2006, HBO and creator David Milch agreed to have two two-hour telefilms in place of a fourth season, after Milch declined a short-order of 6 episodes. This is because in the show's original form, each season was only a few days, with each episode being one day, in the town of Deadwood. The final two-hour format will release these time restraints and allow for a broader narrative to finish off the series.

What the fuck?! This means that tonight's episode will be the last regular episode, and I know it's going to end with a cliffhanger, and I'm having some serious fucking Farscape flashbacks: A brilliant series is canceled in the middle of a story, then allowed the chance to "wrap up" with a partial season, but will be finishing with a mini-series instead, which, I can guarantee, will not be equal to the task. Four hours?! Am I the only person who was labouring under the impression that Deadwood was a hit? I suppose that I should take some cold comfort from the fact that so many of the artists whom I admire are commercial failures. At least I'm consistent.

Crap.

As Bruce Cockburn said so long ago, "If I had a rocket launcher..."

At least Serenity won a Hugo.

Postscript: My very grateful thanks to David Kirkpatrick (corucia), whose generosity has made it possible for me to renew the domain registration for Nebari.net. Whether or not it will remain online past September 6th, I cannot yet say. But I do hope so.

Second Postscript (8:43 p.m.): This article from The New York Times answers a lot of my questions regarding the end of Deadwood. It also reveals many more parallels in the forces behind the demise of Milch's masterpiece and Farscape than I'd actually expected.

Two days of silence. Things have been odd around here, the last three days, and I've not been up for LJ/Blog. Tonight, we've been watching the Twilight Zone marathon of the Skiffy Channel. So far, I've made it through four of my favourite episodes — "The Invaders," "Night Call," "The Masks," and "The Midnight Sun." But, I must confess that the commercials are about to do me in. They're rather spoiling the whole thing, between some foolishness about new evidence of Atlantis, ads for Eureka and frelling Stargate SG-1 and sundry other bits of crap, breaking in every twelve minutes or so to remind us that Rod Serling has gone the way of the non-avian dinosaur. These days, we get Stan Lee and a superhero reality show.

This afternoon, I played the Final Fantasy XII demo, and it was wonderful enough to make up for the dreadfulness of Radiata Stories. All is forgiven, Square Enix. I think it's going to be a great game. Now, if I can only make it to September.

If I happen to owe you an e-mail, I apologise for the silence and will try to write tomorrow.

setsuled used a marvelous phrase a couple of days back, which I'd meant to mention earlier — "the glamour of dull." To place the phrase in context, he was remarking on the blandness of Kate Bosworth and wrote, "But the kids really go for the glamour of dull these days..." Indeed. Just turn on MTV or check out MySpace, for example, and you will be half-blinded by the glamour of dull, which I think is my new favourite phrase, and I shall use it 'till the cows come home. So to speak.

I have managed a little reading: Angela Carter's "The Scarlet House" and "The Smile of Winter," the first bit of a new piece by sovay which, I hope, will be appearing in Sirenia Digest in August. Also, we watched the remake of The Hills Have Eyes and lots of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.

And I hate the new "limited-edition" strawberry ice cream Skittles.

And with any luck at all, these random comments convey nothing whatsoever of my current state of mind.

Please have a look at the latest eBay auctions. Note that Spooky's put up some clothing she's been meaning to auction, literally, for years. Some nice stuff. A black velvet dress that's great, if you're into the whole Gothic Lolita thing. Which I am, as it's a superb antidote for the glamour of dull," those elegant Gothic Lolita kids. Too bad I'm presently stuck here in Atlanta instead of wandering the streets of Tokyo. Oh, and there are books, as well. Don't forget about the books. Or poor, poor Snapdragon. Iggy and Sweet William are trying, doing their best to be brave, but I can see that her impending departure is wearing on them.