Dear Sweet Filthy World

Sunny again today, but still with some clouds. Our high was, and presently is (so our high so far), 87˚F, with the heat index at 92˚F.

I woke at six this morning, which was earlier than I'd intended. But what the fuck, I'd gotten to sleep by midnight, so I figured I'd get up, have some breakfast, then get to work. And, instead, I fell the fuck back to sleep and woke at 8 a.m. Because I am a creature of excruciating habit, or excruciatingly a creature of habit, this threw the whole day into a less than productive tailspin. I finally gave up and played Guild Wars 2 and tried not the think about the words I did not get written today.

What am I writing? Fuck it, I'll tell you. The novel is called The Night Watchers, and it is essentially a new and more supernatural incarnation of the novel that would have been Interstate Love Song (based on the short-story of the same title). I really like it, all of it that's in my head, and that's a lot of it. If I can quit fucking around, it could be done by the end of the summer. The print and ebook versions will be published by Subterranean Press, and hopefully there will be an audiobook. Likely there will. It's set mostly in and around north-central Alabama, but spans many, many decades. The title is borrowed from Peter Straub's Ghost Story, one of my favorite books of all time, ever.

But you knew that about me and Ghost Story. I mean, if you are one of those Constant Readers.

But I gotta admit, balancing the fiction, no matter how much I like the novel at hand, with the sudden and marvelous paleontology opportunities is a challenge. But. Fiction keeps the rent paid and the lights on and food on the table. Paleontology just, you know, makes me feel like I'm doing what I was put on earth to do. And it's all sort of ironic. For me - as frustrating as I might find it, as much as I would usually rather be doing something else - writing is easy as pie. On the other hand, paleontology is fucking hard work – and I'm not talking about physically demanding fieldwork and fossil preparation. I'm talking about the intellectual rigor, discipline, and plain ol' smarts involved. So, I'm going to be busting my butt to do the fairly easy thing that pays the bills to earn the luxury of busting my butt to do the very hard thing that pays not one red cent. Irony. But, that said, I am just grateful for both opportunities, at this point in my life and at this point in history.

By the way, SubPress has announced Vile Affections (and the accompanying chapbook Cambrian Tales), and you may see the cover. In fact, you can now place preorders! Right here. Note: Only those who bought the signed numbered edition of Comes a Pale Rider may preorder the signed numbered edition of Vile Affections at this time. Anyone may preorder the trade hardcover.

And here's some crap I posted today to Twitter and Facebook:

I'm just waiting for one of these anti-COVID vaccine yahoos to realize that, in effect, every time they use any medication they are – in the eyes of pharmaceutical companies and medical science – essentially guinea pigs or lab rats or Rhesus monkeys, FDA approval or no.

~ and ~

Fact: When you are so afraid that you can only win an election when fewer people vote, so you try to make it harder and harder for folks to vote, especially those whom you suspect won't vote for you, you've failed democracy.

~ and this, which someone else said and which I retweeted ~

Let's perfectly clear...Democrats do not want to de-fund the police. Dems want to demilitarize and de-brutalize the police.

I leave you with my level 80 holosmith (an elite engineering specialization), Mandy J. Wolowitz (née Hansen), at Timberline Falls. Yes, she has a lightsaber.

Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast




3:50 p.m.

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Another fine early summer day. We reached 88˚F, with a heat index of 91˚F. And then the thunderstorm came, though far less violent than yesterday's. Currently it's 71˚F.

So, I'm going to try something different. My "lockdown" began, as I have said, on Monday March 16th, and I have spent it behaving as if this is all some momentary inconvenience that will soon pass us by. There was still the anxiety and depression and all, but when it began I believed we were in for maybe a six-week quarantine*. And...this is not coming out at all like I heard it in my head, waiting for my dinnertime can of soup to heat. Basically, let's just say I'm gonna do better. Here in late May I do not see an end to the pandemic in sight, whether cities reopen or not, and I've got to stop sitting around worrying myself into an even earlier grave, and I've also got to stop using Covid-19 as an excuse not to fucking work. Or allowing it to prevent me from working. Or whatever. I've got to go back to being me. The me I was on March 15th. That me. The me who writes and does paleontology and all that. Not the me who sits here staring at the walls. Not the me who lives in fear. The me who spent all those years telling people to kill their fear. I can social distance and wash my hands and wear my masks and...all that. But I also have to be me.

I'm going to get Sirenia Digest #171 out in the next few days, then I'm going to work on Interstate Love Song (yes, really). And some paleo' writing and work and...no more bullshit. I can't sit around waiting for science to find a treatment for Covid-19 before I allow myself to be a productive member of society again.

Okay, that was about 45% as articulate as what I meant to say, but it gets the point across.

Oh, and I have to eat more, shattered tooth or no shattered tooth.

From my daily Facebook posts: It's a hard way to learn a lesson that we sort of already knew. Sweden's death rate is 8.71/1 million people, actually worse than that in the United States (4.59/1 million). So maybe now people will shut up about Sweden. It didn't work.

Today...well...not much. A short walk. Only coffee for breakfast. Again. A documentary about the role a coal fire may have played in the sinking of the Titanic and another on the Mary Celeste. Oh, and I had my first cigarette since, I think, last summer. I'd have had it sooner, but I got this pack of Camels last month and then couldn't find my lighter. And didn't want to buy a new one. But I found it yesterday, in a kitchen drawer. Also, that new design for the Camels box is fucking bullshit and hopefully it will soon be history. Oh, and there was a really weird episode of RuPaul's Dray Race, with all the queens streaming from home.

That was today.

Later,
Aunt Beast




4:59 p.m.


* Lockdown was spectacularly poor word choice for "sheltering in place" and it never should have been associated with Covid-19. You do not comfort people by using prison jargon. It does not work. Like that herd immunity thing in Sweden. Also, quarantine is simply inaccurate. You don't quarantine well people to keep them from getting sick. I don't know that there was a good word for what we've had to do. "Sheltering in place" sounds stupid when you could just say "stay home," but we do love to make language a complete impediment to understanding, don't we?

Hot yesterday, and it will be hot again today. We had a heat advisory this afternoon, into tonight. The heat index only made it to 98˚F yesterday, but we should expect worse today. Currently, it's 85˚F, but the heat index is at 90˚F.

No writing yesterday. I cleaned my office more. I finished William Faulkner's Light in August.

I might be writing another Dancy Flammarion novella, which means I'll be setting aside Interstate Love Song for a little longer, if that is, indeed, the case.

This morning, I began listening to the audiobook of Larry McMurty's Telegraph Days (2006), which is, delightfully, read by Annie Potts.

If you've not seen the new PBS/BBC series The Planets (not to be confused with the 1999 BBC/A&E series of the same name), you need to do so ASAP. It's narrated by Zachary Quinto, the visuals are breathtaking, and it uses a Muse song as its theme.

Good Second Life RP continues.

As do the eBay auctions, as does our need for the eBay auctions to be successful, so please have a look. Thank you.

Later,
CRK




5:56 p.m. (yesterday)

We didn't go to see the fireworks at Vulcan tonight. But the mountainside boomed and shook with the sound of them. Currently, it's 84˚F, with the heat index at 90˚F. No rain today, I don't think. There were fine tall clouds at sunset, and I spotted Mars.

My grandfather, Gordon Jasper Monroe Ramey, was born on this day in 1911. So, he'd have turned 108 today.

I wrote another 1,250 words and found THE END to "Untitled 44." It will be appearing in Sirenia Digest 162 (July). Tomorrow, I begin the story for Sirenia Digest 163, trying to stay ahead, the same way I did with nos. 160 and 161. Doing that allowed me to set aside a big chunk of time to write the two Dancy novellas in May and June. Doing it now will allow me to go back to work on the next novel, Interstate Love Song (finally).

Please have a look at the current eBay auctions. Thanks.

Anyway, no, we didn't go to the fireworks tonight. Neither of us were up to the crowds and traffic, and we did go last year. But Spooky made barbecue chicken and potatoes in the slow cooker, in Dreamland sauce, with corn. And there was leftover anniversary cheesecake. And now we're watching Season Three of Stranger Things. So, it's a fine Fourth.

Later Taters,
CRK




8:53 p.m.