• Location: Proto-Gondwana
• Mood: awake
• Music: The Decemberists, "Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)"

Tha moon is very useful everyone

Here's my thing, as Laura Means would say. I fled Birmingham five and a half years ago. Being who and what I am, life in Birmingham had proven, after many, many years there, intolerable. Though, at the time I'd hoped to move to New England, financial considerations kept me from getting any farther away than Atlanta. And here we have been, Spooky and I, for five and a half years. Now, to the city's credit, I will say, that compared with Birmingham, I have personally experienced virtually none of the sort of bigotry and hate speech that drove me from Birmingham. Of course, I keep to an area bounded by Kirkwood to the south, Chamblee to the north, Decatur to the east, and downtown to the West. In truth, 95% of the time, I keep to a much smaller area, bounded by Little Five Points to the south, Inman Park to the west, Poncy-Highlands to the north, and Candler Park to the east. I know better than to stray outside the Perimeter. Atlanta is a blue island in a mean-spirited, xenophobic sea of red.

So, yes, Atlanta it is a peculiarly tolerant place. Somehow, however, the price of this tolerance is isolation. Admittedly, I am something of a recluse. But Spooky isn't, and Byron certainly isn't, and they have seen this, as well. Atlanta is not so much an unfriendly city as a supremely disinterested city. In truth, it hardly feels like a city at all (and I have spent time in many very large ones). As many have said before me, it feels more like a conglomeration of neighborhoods strewn willy-nilly across a vast tract of land. What is Atlanta like? I have no idea, and I've spent five and half years here. I don't think Atlanta knows what Atlanta's like, except it has something to do with trendy yuppie bars and restaurants, forgetting your past, making money, flipping real estate, hip-hop, and being as much like Los Angeles as possible. In the end, Atlanta, more than any other place I have ever been to or lived in, has no feeling to it at all. Only the absence of character seems to define it. I do not hate Atlanta, but I certainly could never love it. What would I love? The weather? It gives me an odd, sick feeling that after living here for five and a half years, I have no reservations whatsoever about leaving. Mostly, it feels like it will be this blank space in my life, five and a half years of blankness. Atlanta baffles me.

Next thing, "New Rules."
1) Please, please do not report to me that a very famous author with whom I share several acquaintances is dead unless he or she or it actually is. Dead, I mean. At least be able to link to an article online proving this to be the case.
2) Sirenia Digest is not open to unsolicited submissions. I'm pretty sure I've never said that it is, but if I did, I now retract that comment. Unsolicited mss. will not be returned or acknowledged.

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Yesterday, I wrote 1,151 words on a new piece for Sirenia Digest #31, hoping to get a little ways ahead. It's a werewolf story, and was suggested to me by tsarina, a while back when I was asking for ideas for vignettes/stories. Thank you, and I'll get the book in the mail to you as soon as we can unpack them again. There is a very good runner-up, who will likely also get a book, as I may use her idea for #32.

You can now hear Chris Ewen and Malena Teves' cover of the Death's Little Sister song "Twelve Nights After" at the Hidden Variable page at MySpace. It's very strange listening to this version. I adore it, but it could not be more different from the DLS version, which was all growling, angry vocals and rumbling guitars. You can also hear four other songs from Chris' forthcoming CD, The Hidden Variable, including the track Peter Straub wrote, "Rosemary Clooney." You may know Chris' work from Future Bible Heroes.

Also, I have been told that the kindly, busy aliens at Ziraxia are now offering the Stiff Kitten T-shirt on Hyperspecial, for a mere $12.99. The sale runs all week, and after that the price goes back to $16.99. Just follow the link below:



Today is Jimmy Stewart's birthday.

A so-so day yesterday. The move is beginning to wear on me, I think. The packing. The disorder. The fact that we have but nine days remaining (counting today), until the movers pull up at our doorstep. And Thursday must be wasted on another trip to Birmingham for another doctor's visit. Oh, and the damned doxycycline is wearing on me, as well. So, yeah, stress. Last night we watched two more episodes of Millennium ("Siren" and "In Arcadia Ego"), and then I ran away to Second Life for a bit. Thank you Larissa, Pontifex, and Omega. That was yesterday. This is today.