There should be photographs with this entry, but I had to clean out the fireplace this morning and didn't have time to upload and edit. Maybe I can post a few later today.
We had sun yesterday, and today it's snowing again. At this point, I've lost track of how much snow has fallen in Woodstock since we arrived. There are these brief intervals between snowfall. We got a lot Sunday night and on Monday. I tried to open the door, and it was actually blocked by snow. There are mountains of snow out there, and I haven't left the cabin since we got home on Sunday, except short trips to the shed to get firewood. I fear it's becoming a little claustrophobic, all that white pressing in. And at night, with the full moon (and Jupiter now sailing along beside), it's bright enough out there to read a newspaper. But it's worse in Providence, and I'd rather be here with the snow than be there, in the filth and squalor of the city. Here I have the trees and the mountains, and here the snow stays white.
Yesterday was a nightmare of busyness – the sort of nightmare that occurs while one is waking – and I wasn't able to finish the new story, the one that isn't titled "Stabbing the Face of Winter." I did manage to read back over it, after all the talk with agents and whatnot, make a lot of corrections, tweak a few sentences, and add maybe another hundred words. Today I will finish it, and tomorrow Sirenia Digest #108 will go out to subscribers.
Amid all of yesterday's frustration, I vented on Facebook. I'd been needing to vent for quite some time. And I may as well report those comments here:
~ I'm pretty sure CNN.com is now writing its news articles at a fourth-grade reading level. Wait. We do still teach children to read by the fourth grade, right?
~ In case you're wondering, "punching up" is SJW*-ese for "socially acceptable bullying." All joking aside, their use of the term as a defense of their actions is indicative of a deeply simplistic view of the world.
~ My next unrealistic goal: To see that the unfortunate and sexist portmanteau "mansplaining" becomes a thing of the past. Reverse sexism is not acceptable (back to the problem of SJW "punching up").
And yes, I am extremely excited by the news that Harper Lee's long "lost" novel, Go Set a Watchman, which was written before To Kill a Mockingbird, will soon be released by HarperColllins.
Also, I never mentioned how I came close, on Saturday, to ripping off the toenail on my left foot. It's better, healing I think.
Yesterday, I read "An Upper Triassic (Norian) ichthyosaur (Reptilia, Ichthyopterygia) from northern Alaska and dietary insight based on gut contents" and "New insights into the scales of the Devonian tetrapod Tulerpeton curtum Lebedev, 1984" in the November Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
And now I should go. It's going to be a day.
TTFN,
And Beats
So-called "Social Justice Warriors." There are lucky people who do not know the meaning of this acronym.
