Very hot here. We have a heat advisory active all the way through Friday. Currently, it's 92˚F, with the heat index at 102˚F. I think our high was 94˚F. No storms today so far. Perhaps after sunset. I did not leave the house today. I cleaned the office/"lab" a little more (this is a huge job, thanks to about three months of letting shit go). I did some work on one of the Pleistocene cave samples. I listened to more of The Ape's Wife and Other Stories audiobook – "One Tree Hill (The World As Cataclysm)," "The Collier's Venus (1898)," and "Galápagos." I fear I'm not as happy with this collection as I was with the audiobook of The Dinosaur Tourist . Partly, it's the thing about performing a story, rather than merely reading a story. I've kind of gotten used to the fact that the people who read audiobooks are actors, and actors gonna act, and this is actually what people who listen to audiobooks wants, and sometimes, I will even admit, the results make me smile. The way "Ballad of a Catamite Revolver" turned out, for example. But...this treatment of "One Tree Hill (The World As Cataclysm)" is just wonky (not really bad , just off ). Bronson Pinchot does a pretty good job with "The Collier's Venus (1898)," even if it's not exactly what I had in mind when I wrote the story. I am learning with these recordings (and yeah, I'm admitting this), it's not so much an issue of authorial intent as it is a question of whether the recording works in its own right. I recognize that these recordings are adaptations and therefore they are there own thing. I was a lot less happy with the performance of "Galápagos" which veers into genuine histrionics and overacting. I had the same complaint you will recall about the adaptation of "Elegy for a Suicide." Also, these DVDs are prone to skipping, so buyer beware (obviously you will not have the same problem if you get the digital version, instead of the DVD hard copies). The afternoon's comfort film was J.J. Abrams Star Wars: The Force Awakens , my third favorite Star Wars film. I have hardly slept for four consecutive nights now, and it's beginning to show. I had fully intended to write this week, but not without sleep. Later Tater Beans, Aunt Beast 4:30 p.m.