it's been worse
revfish) aren't keeping me awake (and if you're losing sleep over the LHC, Wikipedia has a pretty good page dealing with the safety of the Large Hadron Collider, debunking the various doomsday scenarios). All in all, I feel a bit better today.This morning, and last night, I've been keeping a watch on Hurricane Ike via the NOAA website. It's a scary one, and I know too many people in its path.
Nothing was written yesterday. There were just too many drugs in me trying to send me back to bed. I sat at my desk, staring at the computer, fretting about losing another day to insomnia, until about 3 p.m. Then I gave up and laid on the floor of the front parlor while Spooky read Interview with the Vampire (1976) aloud. I've been seized by the desire to revisit many of the dark-fantasy novels that influenced me in the 80s. And I'm very pleased to discover that Interview is as good as I remember it being (though it makes all the crap Rice wrote after Queen of the Damned and her subsequent descent into Xtiandom that much more tragic). Part of appreciating interview, aside from the prose itself (which is really quite good), is looking at it in a historical context. This was a pretty heady way to approach vampires in 1976, and it's hard to see that now, what with all the derivative nonsense that's been written over the intervening thirty two years (much of it perpetrated by Rice's own hand). Interview has suffered a great deal from revisionist reviewers and readers wishing to distance themselves from the Great & Silly Vampire Glut, which does this novel a disservice. Anyway, I am enjoying it, and we'll likely read straight through the "trilogy." After that, I'll likely read Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian (2005).
Last night, Spooky made a wonderful chicken stew (I helped), using a lot of the veggies from our CSA bag. Let's see — eggplant, green bell pepper, potatoes (Precious), carrots, white mushrooms, purple and white onions, a mountain of fresh garlic, kale, rosemary, black pepper, sage, red chili flakes, celery salt, cilantro, and thyme. It was a huge pot, so dinner is taken care of for at least two more nights. It is truly marvelous having a decent kitchen again.
There was a bad seizure last night, sometime before midnight. There were three before last night, over the past few weeks, that I didn't report here. I am deeply weary of my infirmities, and, mostly, I've been trying not to dwell on them.
The Howards End build is progressing a bit more slowly than I had hoped, but it is progressing, I think we are now past the worst of the hurdles. We worked on it a good bit last night. The need for underground spaces has really slowed things down. Basically, Second Life was designed to allow the construction of tropical beaches, nightclubs, and strip malls, and those who are trying to create more ambitious worlds are faced with any number of shortcomings that must be worked around. But, I think we can still have the roleplay up and running by late October. In other words, the desire to junk the whole idea and build cyber-Rohan has passed, alas.
A chilly, cloudy day here in Providence, and I have to get my head back into The Red Tree. I'll begin Chapter Six this afternoon. Meanwhile, do please have a look at the current eBay auctions. 당신을 감사하십시오. Which is to say, thank you.