Yesterday, I wrote 848 words on "Houndwife" and found THE END. Well, as much as this particular story can have an ending. Endings are as arbitrary as beginnings, and often as much a literary artifice as are titles and plots. But, yes, it's done, and I am pleased with it. Spooky read the whole story (6,769 words) back to me yesterday evening, and I think it works quite nicely. It will be appearing in Sirenia Digest #52, along with the shorter piece that I will start writing today. First, I have to send "Houndwife" to Vince Locke to be illustrated. No rest for the wordy.

If you've not already ordered your copy of The Ammonite Violin & Others, even after that fine review from Library Journal, well...what are you waiting for? (That is, by the way, a question that is not actually meant to be answered. Rhetorical, as they say.)

An unexpectedly good mail day yesterday. My thanks to Kenji Schwartz of Seattle, for sending me a copy of The Sauropods: Evolution and Paleobiology, and to William and Monica for sending me a copy of the new Faith and the Muse CD, : ankoku butoh: . They'll be playing Boston on April 24th.

Just when I was getting genuinely bored with Insilico, and thinking it was time to step away from Second Life again, some extremely satisfying rp reared its head last night, forcing me to stay. Victoria (Xiang 1.5) and her lost "sister" Nanyah (Xiang 2.0a) have been united. Nanyah got a body, and Victoria (whose been making do with the shell of a recycled fifty-six-year-old pleasure droid) got an identical copy of the same body. Their AI's are now linked, and they're out and about...and creepy. My thanks to Blair and Geoffrey for the very fine rp last night.