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.

Behind the storms of Saturday night and Sunday morning came an enormous wind. The breath of the sky, blowing across Atlanta. Cooler weather, too. A low in the forties (F) last night, and only the low seventies today. Warmer tomorrow. But this wind is impressive, and there were gusts last night to 35 mph. (or 56.32 kph). Today, it's still blowing strong.

And speaking of that which blows...or sucks...or both...

Tomorrow, I have to be in Birmingham for a noon dental appointment (that's my one pm), which means leaving the house by ten ayem, at the latest. And maybe this molar, the one that was cracked in the Great Seizure of October '07, will be pulled, and maybe it won't be. Hopefully, we'll be back in Atlanta before sunset. However, if I return one more tooth shy, I'll be out of commission for at least a couple of days, which means no writing and no packing. We only have 15 days until we go back to Birmingham to get everything that's in storage there (and has been since November 2002) and only 18 days until the move to Providence. There is not time for mouth trauma, but that means nothing to how things will be.

Yesterday...a very bad day. But, and still, we read through all that has been written on Chapter One of The Red Tree. It's better than I recall. Maybe I can get back to work on the chapter late this week, after the dentist. That's all the writing-work there was to yesterday. I had a very hot bath. We packed and packed and packed, mostly books. I had to order a new battery for my iBook ($139.02, so ouch), and Spooky had to reserve the U-Haul truck for the 27th. About six pm, I left the house and walked to (ugh) Starbuck's, because our landlord needed to show the place to a prospective tenant. I sat and drank, overpriced mediocre coffee and finished Chris Beard's book on the origin of anthropoids. A rather good last chapter, largely devoted to the problem of Henry Fairfield Osborn's racism and also to the ongoing issue of "pithecophobia"* An hour later, I walked home again, to learn that the prospective tenant never fucking showed, so I'd exiled myself to an hour at Starbuck's for naught. After dinner, more packing, until, finally, I begged Spooky for a comfort movie, so we watched Serenity again. I was in bed by three, a little late, but there you go. Seven hours sleep.

As for today, I expect I'll wash my hair, then spend the rest of it working on the Palaeozoic Museum in New Babbage and, well, packing. Only about half the books in my office are boxed. There's no chance I'll get any writing done today, between the distractions and the impending dentistry, and I'm not up to that sort of futility — sitting here, struggling to write through the chaos. And I need to drop Vince an email about Sirenia Digest #30. That's a tiny smidge of work, I suppose.

Yesterday, jtglover asked me, "What do you think is your best story? Top three?" And I said I'd think about it and post a reply today. It's damned difficult, and the list changes so frequently. But right now, I'd say they are:

1. "Houses Under the Sea" (from Thrillers II, Cemetery Dance Publications, 2007; to be reprinted in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror Vol. 19).

2. "La Peau Verte" (from To Charles Fort, With Love, Subterranean Press, 2005).

3. "In View of Nothing" (Sirenia Digest #16, March 2007; to be reprinted in A is for Alien)

I would also list, among my "best" short stories, "The Ape's Wife,", "The Steam Dancer," "Andromeda Among the Stones," "The Road of Pins," "Riding the White Bull," "A Season of Broken Dolls,", and "So Runs the World Away." Your mileage will vary, as this is a terribly subjective question. And there are several stories I feel guilty for not including. Anyway, Herr Ornithorhynchus just showed up with my coffee, steamy hot and not mediocre, so I shall wrap this up.

* A psychological disorder that paleontologist William King Gregory sardonically "discovered" to account for those suffering from an irrational fear of apes and monkeys, stemming from the truth of humanity's own common ancestry with them ("Two views of the origin of man," 1927; Science 65: 601-5). The term derives from the Greek (pithekos ape + phobos fear). Sadly, it's probably as common now as it was is Gregory's day. Hence, creationism and its gussied-up stepchild, "intelligent" design.

Yesterday, by some miracle (I don't actually believe in "miracles," sensu loaves and fishes, etc., so what I actually mean is by some statistically improbable, but not impossible, turn of events), I wrote a measly 869 words, and finished the preface for The Red Tree. The preface is written by the fictional editor who has come into the possession of Sarah Crowe's manuscript. The editor is strangely fond of footnotes, some of which are rather pedantic. Today, no writing, but, instead, Spooky and I will read back over what I've written of Chapter One to be sure it jibes with the preface. Already, I've caught one inconsistency. In Chapter One, the "red tree" grows on "the Old Jenks place," but in the preface, it grows on the "Battey Farm." I'll be going with the latter.

My thanks for the many comments and emails yesterday, though, of course, that's not why I said the things I said. I wasn't fishing for pep talks. And all the attention and well wishes in the world cannot change what I know to be true. I cannot go any easier on myself. Indeed, I am not going hard enough on myself. It's a goddamn hardscrabble life, pimping the playtpus, selling my dreams, growing corn on bare stone, making all these blasted words. It's not likely to ever get any easier. There is no retirement plan. There are only the words, from here until The End. One reason I am so reluctant to describe these times when it goes from bad to worse is simply because I have this inherent fear of being seen as weak, or whiny, or whatever. But I also loathe not telling the truth. Anyway, yes, thank you for the sentiments, because it's good to know someone cares, but nothing changes. Not unless the big space rock comes tomorrow, or Panthalassa rises up to stomp us all flat with tsunami paws.

I re-read Salman Rushdie's introduction to Angela Carter's Burning Your Boats yesterday, and he writes:
"...but the best of her, I think, is in her stories. Sometimes, at novel length, the distinctive Carter voice, those smoky, opium-eater's cadences interrupted by harsh or comic discords, that moonstone-and-rhinestone mix of opulence and flim-flam, can be exhausting. In her stories, she can dazzle and swoop, and quit while she's ahead."

And I think I know exactly what he means, for so often have I wished that I could make a living writing only short fiction. I do it ever so much better than novels, with their absurdly drawn-out plots and contrived twists and turns. I have never written a novel even half as good as my best short story, but, in the end, this is about the pay check. Of course, I should also note, to be fair, that Rushdie adores Carter's novels, and bemoans the werewolf novel she never wrote. It's just, as an author, I think the short story is the better form, and poetry better still. Distillation, as it were. Less usually is more.

What else to yesterday? I re-read "A new aigialosaur (Squamata; Anguimorpha) with soft tissue remains from the Upper Cretaceous of Nuevo León, Mexico" in the March 2008 JVP. We live in age of riches, when it comes to the discovery of basal mosasauroid lizards — Dallasurus, Hassiophis, Tethysaurus, Haasisaurus, Judeasaurus, et al., and now Vallecillosaurus. Anyway, I packed many boxes of books. My office is looking bare. Spooky has been craving Tom Baker, so we watched the four-part old-school Doctor Who, "The Hand of Fear" (1976). Mostly, Baker's Who is just too hokey for my tastes, and I find Sarah Jane unbearable. But I like that steampunky old TARDIS, and Eldrad was a pretty cool alien. Christopher Eccleston will always be my Doctor, and David Tenant's not so bad, either. After four eps of Doctor Who, I wandered into SL for a rather nice rp with Omega and Pontifex. I was in bed by 2:30 ayem, I think. Seven hours sleep. That was yesterday, pretty much. Oh, very fine thunderstorm last night, late. I sat here at my desk, the window open, trying to hear the thunder over the Xtians who were wailing and hooting (at 11:30 p.m.!) like they were trying to summon Great Cthulhu. Beautiful lightning. I feel asleep to the rain.

Ah, and a screencap from SL, another one that may put some readers in mind of "Flotsam." These days, Nareth sleeps beneath that old tanker:

( Nareth in the sea )

I have now been writing novels (and all those other things) for "a living" for a very, very long time, and I find myself, rather unexpectedly, coming upon one of the innumerable pitfalls of this existence. The sudden certainty that I simply will never be as good as I need to be to make myself happy with my writing. Sometimes, I manage it at short-fiction and vignette length work, but the novel? The novel, which is the bread-and-butter of the "genre" author's existence, has always been a peculiar beast for me. Every novel so much harder than the one written before it. Sure, it seems to me that each novel is better written than the one preceeding it, but...that's partly because each time I pour twice the energy into the effort as I did the time before. And now there is The Red Tree, and I see it quite clearly in my head, and I just do not know if I am a good enough writer to write it the way it must be written. Not as whimsical dark fantasy or some cliché-riddled "horror" show. The shape of it is something I've never done before — at least not at novel length. And I feel entirely inadequate.

Add to this the stress — the fact that I have four to five months to complete a novel that should take me two years. The fact that my office is being disassembled about me, and in another 18 days, we leave Atlanta, Georgia for Providence, Rhode Island (a move of more than a thousand miles northeast). There are endless interruptions and distractions. My overall health is worse than at any other time in my life. The part of me that has never believed that writing is "work," even though it's the hardest thing I've ever had to do, insists there are far more important things I should be attending to now than this novel. And, in the end, I just do not know that I am good enough. My desire may be exceeding my reach. I know that this novel has to be at least twice as good as Daughter of Hounds, which is by far the best novel I have ever written, and I am struggling to make it simply as good. Yesterday, I wrote a mere 657 words. I sat here, all day, straining for each and every syllable, cursing the whole foolish endeavor. 657 words. The preface is not finished, and neither is Chapter One. I have less than 10,000 words done on a 100,000-word ms. And I am exhausted, and not well, and worried, and there's so much packing left to do, and, in the end, I fear I am simply not good enough. But the only way through is straight ahead. And no, this is not whining. This is telling the truth about my life as a writer, which is the only reason i keep this journal.

Behind the cut are photos of the Moosup Valley area in west-central Rhode Island where The Red Tree is being set. All these were taken along Moosup Valley Road. The geology here is igneous for the most part, and has been poorly studied, poorly dated. All metavolcanics (light- and dark grey-, fine-grained, interlayered feldspathic gneiss, schist, quartzite, amphibolite, and lime-silicate rock; composed chiefly of feldspars, muscovite, biotite, quartz, and amphibole; locally staurolite and sillimanite) and gabbro (dark-grey to dark-purple to black, mostly coarse-grained gabbro. massive to foliated; main constituents pyroxene, plagioclase, amphibole, and biotite; some partially altered). Near as I can tell, from my limited research of the local rocks, these unnamed formations are either Carboniferous or pre-Carboniferous in age, which doesn't tell me much of anything. Imagine asking someone how to find San Francisco, and they reply, "Well, it's farther west than the Mississippi River. "Pre-Carboniferous" is about as useful. Not that the local geology is relevant to the novel, I just felt like a tangent. Here are the pics:

( Moosup Valley, Providence County, Rhode Island )

After the writing yesterday, I packed maybe five boxes of books. My office is beginning to echo. I finished Chapter Ten of Chris Beard's The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey: Unearthing the Origins of Monkeys, Apes, and Humans, a chapter largely devoted to the likelihood that anthropoid primates may have arisen as early as the Paleocene (about 56 million years ago), and appear to have entered Africa even earlier, after evolving from prosimians in Asia. Then I went with Spooky to Candler Park to get a pizza from Fellini's. Back home, we gorged on television because I was too tired for anything else. No Byron, because he and Jim went to some show at the Variety Playhouse. Another episode of Millenium (2-7; "19:19"). Then the new Doctor Who, and this Donna Noble woman isn't growing on either of us. It's like the Doctor's new companion is Edina fucking Monsoon from Ab Fab. Then the new ep of Battlestar Galactica, which was rather good. And then I did a little rp in Second Life, just a brief scene in the library with Omega and Neri and Bellatrix. Bellatrix is Nareth's new thrall. Last night, Bella was wearing her adorable new meat dress (thank you, Hyasynth), which was very appropriate. About 1:30 ayem I crawled away to bed, and Spooky read House of Leaves until about 3 ayem. Ba da pa pa. And that was yesterday.

I'm truly not awake, so bear with me. Or lion with me. Or tiger with me. It really makes me no never mind, so long as you don't expect me to be terribly coherent or entertaining. I think I actually slept too well last night, which is odd, given I have finally started to get stressed out about The Move. 19 days to go. Maybe two-thirds of the packing left to be done, and a thousand odd little bits of detail to be attended to. And the blasted trip to Birmingham we have to make on Monday. So, yes. I overslept, and I'm just a bit nervous.

A blustery spring/early summer day yesterday, great gales of wind, and then a little rain last night. Clouds today.

Yesterday, after catching up on many long-neglected emails, I went back to work on The Red Tree. First, I looked over most of the material Spooky's mother had sent, especially the photos of the Moosup Valley area, and topographic maps, and a map from 1870 showing the division of Providence County, Rhode Island by landowners. Looking at a genealogy website, I found a name for the old Farm where the "red tree" grows — Battey — and then I was rather surprised (well, almost unnerved) to discover that a Mr. Battey had once owned the land adjacent to the parcel where I'm putting the tree. These things happen. By the way, today's icon was taken from that 1870s map, from the relevant corner. I did 1,269 words on the "Editor's Note" that will preface the book proper, the journal of Sarah Crowe, which contains within it excerpts from a manuscript left at the farm by a deceased folklorist. I committed my first two footnotes of the book yesterday. Oh, and I emailed the full manuscript for A is for Alien away to Bill Schafer at Subterranean Press.

After dinner, we watched another episode of Millennium ("Monster"), then packed four or five boxes in my office (Spooky had spent the whole day packing), then watched two more episodes of Millennium ("A Single Blade of Grass" and "The Curse of Frank Black"). I spent a little time on SL, nothing fancy, just fishing with Miss Paine in McElligot's Pool behind the Abney Park Laboratory in New Babbage. And then we went to bed and read more of House of Leaves. I think we read until about three ayem.

My cold seems all but gone, which is a great relief.

The office is beginning to feel odd and empty, too many shelves without books.

Anyway, the sun just came out, as if to remind me that the day isn't getting any younger and there's so much work to be done. So, let's wrap this up, kiddos.

Yesterday, I was reading John J. Pierce's Odd Genre: A Study in Imagination and Evolution (Greenwood Press; Westport, CT, 1994), when I came across this rather wonderful passage:

Cordwainer Smith's opening passage from "Scanner's Live in Vain" (1950) may be the acid test of a reader's taste for science fiction. A genre reader, coming across this scene for the first time, will think, 'I don't know what a "scanner" is, or how he adjusts his blood away from anger, or why he has to "cranch," but I've got to find out.' A nongenre reader, by contrast, is more likely to think, "This is gibberish — I don't know what's going on here, and I don't even want to know.' Smith's technique of plunging his readers into such a strange situation is not universal in science fiction even today, yet "Scanners Live in Vain" illustrates a principle that is universal to sf: It is a literary juxtaposition, even a synthesis, of the strange and the familiar.

I wrote somewhere around 1,000 words yesterday. I don't have an exact count. I spent the entire day trying to write an afterword to A is for Alien. And then, finally, having finished the first section, and having had Spooky read it back to me, I realized that it was pedantic, and wearisome, and that mostly I was grinding an axe I have with a particular reviewer at Locus, which is not the sort of thing that a) I should be doing in public or b) expect anyone else to want to read or c) should burden the collection with. I'd had in mind an afterword that accomplished a number of objectives — justification of dystopian sf, examination of mankind's innate hatred and fear of the alien in itself (making the idea of "first contact" with an extrasolar civilization absurd), an explanation of why I feel science fiction should not be expected to have predictive value, and, lastly, confess that it does not bother me that I wear my literary influences on my sleeve. But...it would have gone on for at least four thousand words, and, as I said, it was terribly pedantic. I stopped writing and called Bill Schafer at Subterranean Press. We talked about the problem. I suggested I find someone else to write the afterword. He agreed that would be a good idea. A number of authors were discussed, people we might approach, and finally we settled on one we were both pleased with — Elizabeth Bear (matociquala). I asked her last night, and she kindly agreed. So, that's one thing I don't have to do in May.

Actually, I also spoke with the fellow who's publishing Joshi's Machen collection, and my deadline is not until July 30th, and he'll settle for 2,000 words, so that's something else I don't have to do this month. This means that today I can go back to work on The Red Tree (thanks, in large part, to the package of reference material and photos of the Moosup Valley region of western Rhode Island, which Spooky's mother helpfully gathered and sent to me). So, huzzah!

Also, note that subscribers can expect Sirenia Digest #30 a week or so early this month, sometime around the 21st, as I'm going to have to get it out of the way well ahead of the move (we leave Atlanta on the 29th, a mere 20 [!!!] days away, if we do not count today). And if you are not a subscriber, now's as good a time as any to correct that.

A couple of links. I wanted to repost the Green Porno link, Isabella Rossallini's bug porn, as it really is marvelous stuff. I've been making myself watch only one or two a day, so it'll last a few days (so far, my favorite is "Snail"). Also, my thanks (again) to robyn_ma for this link to Evan Dorkin's take on the phenomenon of furcons. Spooky and I laughed until we bled. Truthfully, I had nothing at all in particular against furries until I started Second Life, where they are, quite simply, a plague. Just try helming the bridge of a Federation starship when your captain is an anthropomorphic "funny animal" fox. Just try! Sure, I'm a pervert, and I have more than my fair share of parahuman and paraphilic turn-ons (Isabella Rossellini bug porn, for example), but really people.

My cold is much, much better.

Last night? Byron dropped by with Season Two of Millennium on DVD, so we can watch it as quickly as we want and don't have to wait on Netflix. We watched the first three eps — "The Beginning and the End," "Beware of the Dog," and "Sense and Antisense." As good as Season One was, Season Two is much better. Later, I did maybe an hour, an hour and a half of SL rp, so my thanks to Pontifex and Omega. Then Spooky read to me from House of Leaves until we were too sleepy to think anymore.

Postscript (3:05 pm): I meant to include this in the morning's entry, and forgot. The opening monologue for the first episode of Season Two of Millennium, which gave me shivers (behind the cut):

( Beginning and the End )

Not nearly as ill this morning as I was afraid I would be. Yesterday, I loaded up on elderberry extract, zinc, Smith Brothers' cherry cough drops, and with the help of two Red Bulls, managed to get through a long and arduous day of proofreading and reformatting.

As soon as the Afterword (it was going to be an Introduction, but now it shall be an Afterword) for A is for Alien is finished, the ms. will go to Bill Schafer at Subterranean Press, and it will be out of my hands. At least until the page proofs. And I can get back to work on The Red Tree. Well, right after I write a 3,000-word Introduction for Joshi's Arthur Machen collection.

Anyway, after we did another five or six hours of work on the AifA ms., Spooky and I took a mountain of books back to the Woodruff Library at Emory, and then had blisteringly spicy Thai noodle bowls for dinner. After dinner, back home, I suffered an absence seizure (which are beginning to seem almost routine). I crashed on the sofa, too exhausted for anything but the passive comforts of television. We watched an episode of Millennnium, "Maranatha," then the new ep of Deadliest Catch, and then the last episode of Season One of Millennium, "Paper Dove."

And there's this email, from Tim Huntley, regarding Sirenia Digest #29:

"I wanted to offer some (very brief) words on 'Concerning Attrition and Severance'. I am pleased this story was not a hidden piece and that it did make it into the Digest. As well as resembling a disturbing twist on Huis Clos peopled with Cenobites, the piece made me think of Pirandello (well, Six Actors in Search of an Author, to be exact).

"And, on today's anniversary of Sigmund Freud's birth, an almost randomly located line from Einige Charaktertypen Aus Der Psychoanalytischen Arbeit (1916): 'Let us leave it to future research to decide how many criminals are to be reckoned among these "pale" ones.' Perhaps not a citation - or a paper - that has anything truly in common with your story, but it seemed an apposite conjunction of sorts.

"'Flotsam' was another splendid brine-soaked piece which lingered with me and spiraled in my thoughts across this May Day weekend. Together with 'Concerning Attrition...' it made #29 feel like an old-style Digest in that it was, as your Prolegomena informed, comprised of two rich vignettes."

The parallel with Barker's Cenobites seems natural, in retrospect, though, with "Concerning Attrition and Severance," I was trying for something a bit more subtle and a bit less concrete than "The Hellbound Heart." Thank you very much, Tim!

Someone else asked for details on Robert McCloskey's Time of Wonder, so I thought I'd post a scan of the cover of Spooky's copy (behind the cut, mais oiu):

( Time of Wonder )

Oh, and here's a marvelous little thing, which I can now stare at to my nerdy heart's content, thanks to sclerotic_rings, the Solar System Visualizer. It even includes numerous extrasolar star systems!

And once again, because it is my Royal Birthday Month, the Amazon wish list thing. A mere 19 days until that dreaded -04...

Seems one of the cracked teeth has refused to heal. Dr. Booth warned me this was very possible. The damage was just too great. I awoke at 5:45 ayem or so, in something at least approaching agony, and it was near 7 am before I was asleep again, and the only thanks to pain pills and Ambesol. So, in all likelihood, I'll be going to have this tooth extracted sometime in the next two weeks, right in the middle of packing and all these deadlines, and I'll be losing at least a few days to recovery when I should be packing and writing.

I've been meaning to mention that "A Season of Broken Dolls" has been selected for a forthcoming trade paperback "sampler" of stories from the online version of Subterranean Magazine.

No writing yesterday, not really. We took Hubero outside on his leash, and it was good to be out in the spring sunlight, listening to the blue jays and the robins. We had someone from United Van Lines coming to give us an estimate on the cost of the move to Providence. He needed access to all rooms, and I knew I couldn't work through that, so I took a book and went to (boo, hiss) Starbuck's (and they may not have enough sense to use the apostrophe, but I do). I don't remember how many months ago it was that I laid aside Chris Beard's The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey: Unearthing the Origins of Monkeys, Apes, and Humans (University of California Press, 2004), but shame on me. It's a wonderfully written thing, and I sat there and drank a white-chocolate mocha (too sweet, but not bad), and read Chapter 6 ("The Birth of a Ghost Lineage"), which was mainly about collecting fossils of the omomyid primate Shoshonius cooperi from the late Eocene Willwood Formation of Wyoming's Wind River Basin. Meanwhile, Spooky got our estimate from a guy named Ron Goodbub, a retired Pepsico salesman from Kentucky who grew bored with retirement and went back to work (I think it's very suspicious that LJ knows how to spell Pepsico, but not Shoshonius; hell, it can't even spell "Starkbuck's" without the apostrophe). Here's a bit from Chapter 6 of Chris Beard's book I wanted to quote:

"It hardly ever makes sense to refer to a given species — whether living or fossil — as being 'more primitive' than another, for reasons that go beyond any value-laden connotations the comparison carries along with it. Tarsiers are more primitive than humans in having three premolars on either side of their lower jaws and in lacking a complete mandible formed by bony fusion at the chin. Humans are more primitive than tarsiers in retaining a separate tibia and fibula and in having much smaller eyes. The important distinction here is that, while entire species can rarely be arranged from primitive to advanced, individual features usually can be. In fact, paleontologists rely on exactly these trait-by-trait comparisons to decipher the biology of extinct organisms, as well as to reconstruct how they fit on the evolutionary tree."

Myself, I prefer to speak of character states being more and less derived from a given ancestral state than to ever use the word "primitive" or "advanced," as any given organism's evolutionary "status" can only be assessed or judged relative to how well it is adapted to its environment. Tarsiers have been around a lot longer than humans (by tens of millions of years), but they are no less well adapted to their environment than are humans, and therefore no more "primitive" (which, of course, is just another way of saying what Beard is saying above). Yes, that was a tangent.

Mr. Goodbub took longer with the estimate stuff than expected, and it was after 4 pm before I got back to work. I read over the pages I did on "Rappaccini's Dragon" on Monday and Tuesday, made some corrections, and then decided I'd spend the rest of the afternoon packing, give up a Friday off, and plan to finish the story today. I packed something like seven large boxes of books, hardly the tip of the fucking iceberg. Then again, Mr. Goodbub was telling Spooky about having just moved a mathematician who had 500 boxes of books, which makes me feel a little better.

How I'm going to cope with my schedule this month — especially with the bum tooth — is sort of beyond me. I have to finish "Rappaccini's Dragon" for Sirenia Digest #30. I have to do the line edits and introduction on A is for Alien, and an introduction for an Arthur Machen collection that's being edited by S.T. Joshi. I have to get back to work on The Red Tree and make some real progress. I have to go to Birmingham and have a tooth pulled, then recover. And Spooky and i figured out yesterday that it's likely the pace of packing will have become so hectic by the 20th that I'll be forced to stop working. We will probably leave here on May 29th, a Thursday. It's insane, truly. I'd wait and have to tooth pulled after the move, but after the pain last night, that may not be an option.

I was in bed a little after one ayem, and we read more of House of Leaves, because I needed to hear the words. I was asleep by 2:30, only to be awakened a few hours later, which is where we came in...

Ah, and only a few weeks until I hit -4, on May 26th. I do have that wish list at Amazon.com, even if it does mean more packing. Distractions are always welcome, even when i have no time for them.

Coffee, platypus. Coffee, you fool!

By now, everyone who is a subscriber should have Sirenia Digest #29. It went out about 11:30 p.m. last night. It would have gone out earlier in the evening, but there was a slight hitch (Spooky forgot to attach the file, which is funnier today than it was last night). Comments are welcome, especially as regards "Concerning Attrition and Severance."

Today, I'll finish "Rappaccini's Dragon" for Sirenia Digest #30, and then, tomorrow I get a day off, the first in eighteen days, I think. And then I'll finish up the ms. for A is for Alien and get back to The Red Tree.

And now it is May again, and Beltane. Last night, there was something I wanted to write out about how I've come to view choice as regards belief and paganism, but now it's mostly slipped away from me. For a long time, I could not allow myself to involve choice in matters of belief, as I held belief back for objective science and material concerns. I did not see how one could ever choose to believe. Partly, the epiphany simply required a different perspective on things I've been saying for years. The Cosmos (=tripartite goddess/horned god/divine adrogyne/etc.) may, in my veneration of it, assume any form. It contains all forms within it that can be realized or conceived. It hardly matters if I "worship" Brighid or Mórrígan or Aphrodite or Kali. They are all merely attempts of a conscious being to sum up an incomprehensible and nonconscious universe. They may, perhaps, each function like characters in a novel, avatars that grant access to the story of existence. It does not matter if they are not factual in their existence, as their existence is true, if they are true in our minds. If they contain within them useful truths, as is the way with all myths. It is not their objective existence which makes them useful avatars, but their subjective truth, what these deities mean to each of us. For me, this is the heart of Neopaganism. Designing ritual and godforms to function as conduits between conscious organisms and the remainder of the Cosmos, which is generally a nonconscious entity. Anyway, it went something like that, and today is Beltane.

A beautiful first day of May. The sun and all the green. It's 75F outside. The holly bush below the kitchen window has a nest of fledgling robins.

I did not leave the house yesterday, which makes five days straight, I think. I wrote the prolegomena, did everything else that needed doing to pull the digest together. We finished the chili Spooky made on Monday. I got no packing done.

Some good roleplay last night. I am shifting away from trying to functon in large roleplay communities (such as Toxia or the late, imploded Dune sim), in favour of rp with a small group of individuals with an especial talent for it (and no, I haven't forgotten the "Sirenia Players": just let me get moved to Rhode Island, and I'll get that going). This way, I avoid the idiots and all the noise and strife that idiots bring. Last night, well, we were in 1920s New Orleans, a beautiful house with a grand piano. A street car rattling past outside. There was Paganini and a game involving truths and falsehoods, and blows from a walking stick, and blood drawn with obsidian sharp nails. A game, and a dance, and a cold tile floor. Sublime. Oh, and I also began planning the pterosaur exhibit for the new and expanded Palaeozoic Museum in New Babbage.

I was in bed by two ayem, so good for me, and asleep shortly after two-thirty, with is even better. Today, the moving guys are coming to look at all our furniture and junk and give us an estimate on the move. I'll slip out to Starbuck's or the park or someplace until they're done.

Another amusing Nick cave quote: "A man without a mustache is like a woman with one."

The platypus is grinding beans, so I guess that means I should wrap this up. The wheel of the year turns...

As predicted, no writing yesterday, but plenty else. And, best of all, Spooky's mom (whose name is Carol) emailed her to report of her field trip, on my behalf, to the Moosup Valley area of western Rhode Island. Here's a quote from the email:

Actually, I've been working on the "journey" all day--gathering old plat maps, topos, putting photos in contact sheet format, etc.

The trip itself was fine. It's very rural and wooded out there. About the only outstanding features along Moosup Valley road were in Moosup Valley, which consisted of a large graveyard, library, church and grange. All of which I photographed. The whole area is an historic preservation district, so there are old places around. Just not too many out by the road. I did photograph the Mount Vernon Tavern ca 1760 along Rte 14, and then all the buildings in "town." There was a house opposite the end of Barbs Hill Road, which I photographed. It was probably 1800's. No date visible. Barbs hill road itself is a narrow gravel road which I decided not to go down. Heavily wooded on both sides and I know that some people out there are really touchy about people using their private roads as a "cut through". I'm a coward.

If you go to Terraserver (put in Moosup Valley road as the location) and look at ariel photos of the area you will see that the whole area is heavily forested, so you don't see a whole lot from the road. The photos were taken when the leaves were off of the trees so it's possible to see the distribution of white pines among the predominantly oak trees. There are also hickory and red maple and cherry. The latter two are probably more prevalent in the swampy areas. There are alot of swampy areas at the bases of the large hills. I am going to send you some topo maps that show the size of the hills. Just like what you encounter out along 102 as you go west past 95 and into CT. The hills are totally boulder strewn down their sides with the trees growing up amongst them. The higher places, along the tops of the ridges, or hills, have more soil and seem to be good farmland. Every low spot seems to have a swamp filled with skunk cabbage.

So, I'll write one more piece for the May issue of Sirenia Digest (#30), then get the last bit of work done on the A is for Alien ms., and then it's back to work on The Red Tree. Maybe in as little as a week. Of course, the pace of packing is picking up, and sooner, rather than later, that's gonna start seriously messing with my ability to writing (and never mind the thousand other moving-related things that have to be done by the end of May). Ah, and Spooky's dad (Richard) has returned from Thailand.

Yesterday, we read all the way through the new piece, the one for Sirenia Digest (#30). It works much, much better than I thought. And Spooky likes it a lot. But it is brutal, even by the standards of the digest. I sent it to sovay, and she helpfully read it and wrote back (and I hope she doesn't mind this quote), "I don't know all the reasons it worries you, but if one of them is because the piece might not work as a story, that at least is unjustified. It's probably the most brutal of any of the pieces I've read for Sirenia and it works very well: 'We need not note the screams.' I actually really like it...If you are more comfortable locking it away in a drawer, I cannot argue with that. But as a piece of story, it is certainly worth the reading." In response to my trying to second guess my readership, the digest's readership, and my fears that the piece is too dark, Sonya replied, "However the audience reacts is its own responsibility. Yours is to the story." Which is a) true, and b) not especially comforting. It still needs a title.

Also, I packed four more boxes, mostly old issues of National Geographic, because I never throw anything away.

After the work, there was dinner at the Vortex (@ L5P) with Byron, and, then, back home, we watched the (for us) new episode of Doctor Who. And I just gotta say, of the companions we could presently have — Rose Tyler, Martha Jones, Sally Sparrow, and Astrid Peth — we get, instead, Donna Noble. Who just annoys me. Hopefully, she will annoy me less, as time goes by. Byron left, and we watched the new Battlestar Galactica, which was good, but somehow felt like it should have been better. I think commercials simply ruin the flow of this show. I finished reading "New bats (Mammalia: Chiroptera) from the late Eocene and early Oligocene, Fayum Depression, Egypt" in the new JVP, and we read more of House of Leaves, Navidson's attempt to rescue Holloway's doomed expedition. Later, there was some work on the Palaeozoic Museum in New Babbage (Second Life). My interest in the Museum project has been reawakened, now that some of the sculpty software (namely, Archipelis) has caught up with my needs, as regards creating /recreating SL facsimiles of Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins' Crystal Palace/Palaeozoic Museum dinosaurs. There was a brief "absence" seizure last night.

Coffee. Red Bull. Speed. Cocaine. Whatever you got, platypus, throw it my way.

Yesterday, I did a very respectable 1,472 words and finished the new and still untitled vignette, the one for Sirenia Digest #30, not #29. Truthfully, I'm not sure what to make of this piece (it comes in at a total of 3,950 words). It's stranger than usual, and darker. I think unrelentingly brutal would be the most precise description, and all I can figure is that it came from the "place" where I am at the moment. It makes me think of early Dunsany, if Dunsany had written odes to sadism. Spooky likes it a lot, but I just don't know. I half suspect I should lock it in a drawer somewhere and never take it out again. Instead, though, I'm sending it to sovay today to see what she thinks of it.

April has been a productive month, in spite of itself. First, I wrote "Flotsam" for #29 (April 4-6), then I began Chapter One of The Red Tree (April 14) and did 28 pp. before realizing my problem with the "Editor's Note" (April 19). And then I wrote this latest piece over the past three days. Now, I'll either begin the second piece for May's issue of the digest, or go back to The Red Tree far sooner than I'd hoped possible. Likely, I'll get the May digest out of the way first. And the introduction to A is for Alien.

I packed four more boxes yesterday, the rest of the VHS tapes and more books. I'm packing in a way I've never done before, a little at a time, as I'm just not up to the Big Push I usually do two weeks before a move. I've told Spooky that if I like this place in Providence as much as we expect to, I'm not leaving for thirty years, at least. I did get Outside yesterday, once the writing and packing were done. We took the picnic blanket blu_muse gave us and spread it out at the top of the hill in Freedom Park near Moreland, beneath the oaks. I dozed a little and undoubtedly got bugs in my hair. And took some photos, mostly from the lying down position. The time Outside did me good. There was a hawk, and we heard woodpeckers, though we never spotted one (wait, Spooky says she saw one). Anyway, they're behind the cut (the photos, not the woodpeckers):

( Yesterday )

Two more episodes of Millennium last night. And my thanks to Merma, Omega, and Pontifex for some exquisite rp last night. Fire and blood — what more do I ever need? Tonight, of course, we get Byron and Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica. I think the day will be consumed by the busyness of writing, rather than by actual writing, and by packing.

A good writing day yesterday. I did 1,345 words on the new piece for Sirenia Digest #30. I should be able to finish it today. It still has no title. By the way, this piece is not for the next issue of the digest, but the issue after next. #29 will include my vignette "Flotsam," and as well another vignette by Sonya Taaffe (sovay).

As soon as I'm done with the piece for #30, I need to take care of the line edits on A is for Alien (thank you, Sonya) and write a foreword so that the ms. can go to Subterranean Press.

Also, it would appear that Amazon.com is finally offering the new mmp of Murder of Angels. Just follow the link, unless you'd rather get it from Barnes & Noble, in which case you should follow this link.

Also, the good news is I should be able to get back to The Red Tree much sooner than expected, as Spooky's mother has kindly agreed to investigate the length of Barbs Hill Road between Coventry (to the south) and Moosup Valley (to the north), where the novel will be set, in far western Rhode Island and send me a CD of photos that should allow me to write the editor's note bit that should allow me to return to work on Chapter One. Oh, and Spooky's dad is in Bangkok again, doing his anthropologist thing.

As to the non-writing, non-work part of yesterday, not much to say. I packed six boxes (books and videotapes, mostly). I've not left the house since Monday. There is this hope that once we are in New England, I will wander out more frequently, as there will be new things to see, friends to visit, etc., but, for my part, I am skeptical that my reclusive ways will change a great deal. Last night, we watched two more episodes from Season One of Millennium, and then I did a few hours of Second Life rp. Nareth was severely chastised by her Sire for being such a boastful, unfeeling beast, and, so, once again, Nareth is hiding in the sea. And that was yesterday, near as I recall. There was a bad seizure towards dusk, and it left me feeling brittle and unanchored the rest of the night.

I wish I could spend the day beneath a tree, getting bugs in my hair and smelling the sky...and, yet, I know that I will likely not even step Outside.