"The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering." ~ Tom Waits

Hubero's not feeling well this morning. Which makes two of us.

Morning. It isn't morning. It's my two o'clock p.m. Effective morning, as I've only been up two and a half hours. Once upon a time, I woke at seven thirty and made eight ayem classes. Once upon a time, I was at work at the museum by eight-thirty ayem. Once upon a time, I was in bed by nine pm. Long, long ago.

There was a whole lot of weird "long time ago" shit on Facebook yesterday, surrounding my time in Death's Little Sister. A bio accompanying an interview that went up a few days ago mentioned the band, my time in the band. My reaction was, "Jesus, that was sixteen years ago. I was thirty-two years old. Who cares." Ancient history. Then I found this on a hidden, forgotten corner of my website. It's not actually DLS. It's Crimson Stain Mystery, the studio project I was a part of a couple of years after DLS split up. So, I listened to the song yesterday, and I thought, "It's obvious from that recording I wanted to sing like Ian Curtis in a band that sounded like Concrete Blonde.* I was an angry young woman." I twatted the thought. Now, I'm an angry old woman. Anyway, what surprised me yesterday was that I found myself sort of liking the recording. Back in '99, I hated it. At forty-eight, I suppose I have a tiny bit more perspective. But I'm still not sure why any of this was in the biography with the interview, or why it's in the Wikipedia article, or why anybody really gives a rat's ass. Then again, I may feel the same about my entire publishing career if, say, I live to be sixty-eight. Oh, there's a scary thought.

Let's lighten this shit up. Yesterday, Spooky was messing around with the fisheye effect on the new camera, and she caught my inner crack monkey (behind the cut):





Okay. Well, now that's out of the way...yesterday, I wrote nothing, but I did get the script for Alabaster: Boxcar Tales (Chapter 7) to my editor at Dark Horse and...you know, I never did mention that I now have a new editor, Daniel Chabon (Michael Chabon's brother). My former editor, Rachel Eddidin, has gone freelance. She will be missed. Her interest in working with me is why Alabaster is happening. She set the ball rolling. It's weird continuing without her. Anyway, yeah. The script went to Portland and came back with notes, which I ought see to this afternoon. Also, yesterday, I finished with the CEM for The Ape's Wife and Other Stories. Which means, a paragraph from yesterday's post ought be revised to read:

I am actually rather pleased with the way I made it through February. I began Red Delicious and made it past the 100-page mark. I wrote a vignette, "What Dread Hammer? What Dread Grasp?" I managed to also write an issue of Alabaster: Boxcar Tales and get Sirenia Digest #86 out to subscribers. Plus, I finished the slog through the CEM for The Ape's Wife and Other Stories..

I wanted to begin Chapter Four of Red Delicious today, but that's gonna happen tomorrow, instead. A nightmare this morning threw the day out of whack. I blame you, David Fincher.

The moment will pass, and time will be gone,
Aunt Beast

* If you don't know who Ian Curtis or Concrete Blonde were, go ask your parents.