Entry No. 6,217
A milder day today, with our high only reaching 88˚F, though the heat index went to 99˚F. Currently, it's 87˚F, with the heat index at 94˚F. But we still have a heat advisory. No rain today.
On this day in 2017, Lydia came to live with us.
I mostly spent this day reading (or listening to other people read). It is sort of hard to believe, I know, but I never have read Donna Tartt's The Secret History. Two reasons. The first, when it was published in 1992, when I was just beginning to write with an eye towards making a living at it, The Secret History was sort of the book to read, and everyone I know was nagging me to read it. This is the quickest way to insure I will not read a book. And the other thing that kept me from reading, I was, honestly, just too intimidated, because I did believe it would prove to be a very, very good and important book, and I didn't want it in my head at the time. These are the same reasons I didn't get around to reading House of Leaves until late 2003. Anyway, this morning I began reading The Secret Garden, and it consumed an big chunk of the day. It was very hard to walk away from it. I have a feeling it is going to join House of Leaves on my exceedingly short list of very important Gothic/weird novels of the second half of the 20th Century.
I also finished the audiobook of The Ape's Wife and Other Stories, which concludes with the title story. All these many years later, I'm kind of amazed that I had the audacity to write that story and to write it the way I did. Good job, Kiernan. And I began the audiobook of Houses Under the Sea: Mythos Tales, making it through Joshi's introduction, my "prologue" (the keynote speech I gave at the HPL Film Festival in Portland in October 2010), and "Valencia."
So, how long until we are assailed by the Lollapalooza variant? A month? Two?
Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast
8:15 a.m.
On this day in 2017, Lydia came to live with us.
I mostly spent this day reading (or listening to other people read). It is sort of hard to believe, I know, but I never have read Donna Tartt's The Secret History. Two reasons. The first, when it was published in 1992, when I was just beginning to write with an eye towards making a living at it, The Secret History was sort of the book to read, and everyone I know was nagging me to read it. This is the quickest way to insure I will not read a book. And the other thing that kept me from reading, I was, honestly, just too intimidated, because I did believe it would prove to be a very, very good and important book, and I didn't want it in my head at the time. These are the same reasons I didn't get around to reading House of Leaves until late 2003. Anyway, this morning I began reading The Secret Garden, and it consumed an big chunk of the day. It was very hard to walk away from it. I have a feeling it is going to join House of Leaves on my exceedingly short list of very important Gothic/weird novels of the second half of the 20th Century.
I also finished the audiobook of The Ape's Wife and Other Stories, which concludes with the title story. All these many years later, I'm kind of amazed that I had the audacity to write that story and to write it the way I did. Good job, Kiernan. And I began the audiobook of Houses Under the Sea: Mythos Tales, making it through Joshi's introduction, my "prologue" (the keynote speech I gave at the HPL Film Festival in Portland in October 2010), and "Valencia."
So, how long until we are assailed by the Lollapalooza variant? A month? Two?
Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast
8:15 a.m.