George Carlin is dead. What do you fucking say to that, except "Fuck." Nothing else seems appropriate. Unless it's, "Shit." And I can quote him:

Religion easily has the best bullshit story of all time. Think about it. Religion has convinced people that there's an invisible man...living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn't want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money.

And we move along, trying to pick up the fucking slack, and knowing we are not half equal to the task.

A very fine day yesterday. First, we watched the less-rough edit of Frank Woodward's Lovecraft documentary, and I was pleased with what I saw. It's going to be cool. Then Spooky found out about some abandoned amusement park down near Hope Valley, in South County, and she and Sonya (sovay) wanted to go there. So, we didn't hang pictures (bad us), we went to the abandoned amusement park, but I'm going to write about that and show you those pictures tomorrow. After the abandoned amusement park —— and, by the way, there weren't any "No Trespassing" signs, so don't start in on that —— Sonya wanted to see Beavertail, so we headed east to the Jamestown Bridge. I dozed in the car, because the heat and light were getting to me, and I'd not slept enough Saturday night. When we reached Beavertail, there was some annoying wedding thing going on, but it was down at the lighthouse, not out on the rocks where we prefer to go. The three of us climbed down to the sea, maybe a hundred yards south of where we'd done our Solstice ceremony on Friday. The tide was starting to come in, rushing noisily over the rocks, but there were still tidal pools. Despite my dratted feet, which would have me do nothing but sit in this bloody chair all day long, I did a right decent job of scampering about on the boulders, keeping up with Sonya and Spooky. My ankles only hurt a little this morning. But, I've got to get some better rock climbing, wading-type shoes before we go back. Anyway...there are many photos behind the cut. Hope people aren't getting bored with the sea, because I doubt I ever shall:





An unidentified crab, upside down (but not dead).



The rocks are covered with razor-sharp barnacles, mostly the Northern Rock Barnacle, Balanus balanoides.



Like I said, lots of barnacles. They fascinate me. Bizarre, sessile crustaceans (Crustacea; Maxillopoda; Thecostraca).



Another as-yet-unidentified species of crab.



Sonya and I, at the water's edge.



Me with an extraordinary length of Common Southern Kelp (Laminaria agardhii) that Sonya discovered.



Kelp detail, showing the tangled stems.



Sonya also spotted this very old bit of graffiti. 1865? 1885? We're not sure.



A bed of tiny Blue Mussels (Mytilus edulis) among the barnacles and rockweed (Fucus spp.)



There appeared to be several species of snails, though I have only identified two, the Smooth Periwinkle, Littarina obtusata (in this shot) and the Rough Periwinkle, L. saxatilus.



I just love the composition of this shot, and it really shows how almost every inch of the rocks below the high-tide mark is alive.



Looking east across Narragansett Bay, as the tide rises.

All photographs Copyright © 2008 by Kathryn A. Pollnac, Sonya Taaffe, and Caitlín R. Kiernan


Today, we head back down to Moosup Valley, because I need to do just a little more research before proceeding on to Chapter Two of The Red Tree tomorrow. It's cooler and cloudy today, good weather for driving, and for Moosup Valley. Anyway, last night, after Beavertail, we came back home. I heated up the leftover stew, and after dinner, Sonya and I talked shop until it was time to get her to the train station for the 10:25 back to Boston. Later, I spent several hours in rp in Second Life, just because it had been a while (thank you, Lorne and Omega). I think I didn't get to bed until about 4:45 ayem, and I was afraid the sun would be up before i could get to sleep. This whole early sunrise thing is definitely going to help keep me from pulling those crazy long nights on SL. I can't get to sleep once the sky is light. Anyway. Yeah. Moosup Valley...