pale girl with a knife

My favourite breakfast seems to have shifted from Campbell's vegetable soup to Koyo ramen (ginger/lemongrass, with some fresh veggies thrown in). This morning, I ate them to the thump-thump-thump of Spooky's Morning-Thirty Blue Kitchen Discotheque. She had some New Order disc turned up loud to try to force her eyelids open. I'm not sure it worked. She seems to have contracted my insomnia.

I was a good nixar yesterday and did everything on my to-do list for 1/9/06. We made it all the way through "Alabaster" and "The Well of Stars and Shadow," after an hour of annoying printer drama. I tweaked "Bainbridge." I had a nice talk with Bill Schafer (subpress) and then another, much later, with Ted. As for "Bainbridge," I've probably reached that point where it's time for me to leave the story alone. Every time I look at it, I see something I want to change. Which is not to say the something needs changing. It's a compulsive sort of thing, a deeply rooted belief that even though I can never make it perfect, I can always make it better. But this may not be the case. So it's time to leave it alone. The word count stands at 15,794 (up from 15,606 a couple of days back). Today, we'll read through "In the Garden of Poisonous Flowers" (which will appear in Alabaster under its original title, "Les Fleurs Empoisonnées") and "Waycross," which is a bit more reading than we had to do yesterday. And I have to resolve the question of the afterword. Bill Schafer reminded me that, at one point, I'd been thinking about reprinting "On the Road to Jefferson" as the afterword. And it would be nice to see that piece in print again and in hardback, and using it would save me work, but, on the other hand, it only speaks to the inspiration for one of the stories ("Les Fleurs Empoisonnées"), and I think Anita could probably do a pretty good job with her more comprehensive afterword. So. We shall see. Also today I have to decide what will be the subject for the first vignette for Sirenia Digest #2, because I need to write it tomorrow (and probably Thursday, too). I have something about slugs stuck in my head.

I did get a little bit of the amazingly warm weather yesterday. Before I started working, I sat on the front porch while Spooky walked the cat. It was easy to pretend it was March instead of January. It's still sunny and warmish today. Also, faustfatale e-mailed me a very funny octopus story yesterday, and also a link to a very fine website for cephalopod aficionados, TONMO.com : The Octopus News Magazine Online.

Anyway, no amusing anecdotes from me today. No angry rants. No lamentations. Too much frelling work to be done. But do please have a look at the eBay auctions. The Dry Salvages is really quite nice, and don't forget that the copy of In the Garden of Poisonous Flowers now being auctioned is the last copy we'll be offering. It's signed by both me and Dame Darcy. And, of course, the auction for letter X of Frog Toes and Tentacles is still under way and features the "cozy" that Spooky and I made, black crushed velvet lined with red silk, a perfect match for the black-leather binding and crimson-foil embossing of the lettered edition, with a hand-embroidered red X. Lastly, it is my understanding that any Tuesday which falls on the tenth of January in a year with the numeral six in it is an ideal time to subscribe to Sirenia Digest. Just click here. Also, if you subscribe between now and midnight tomorrow, I'll even throw in a free copy of the trade paperback edition of Silk. How can you resist?