In your fear of what we have become...

I'll not go into the all the details of why I wound up in a doctor's office yesterday afternoon. I think, all in all, it's a little too embarrassing. There were some amusing moments, though, such as when I asked the receptionist if this doctor saw only humans or if she also treated real people. You must say a thing like that with a perfectly straight face and insist upon an answer. Anyway, the verdict was "exhaustion" and "stress," "dehydration" and "lack of sleep" and, most amusingly, "you're not a kid anymore, you know." I almost kicked her for that last one. So, yes, this day will get an O as well, but it's okay. I have a note from the doctor. And I have paid far too much to be told what I knew already, that working myself half to death will not make up for anything.

Yesterday, my comp boxes of Daughter of Hounds and Threshold both arrived.

And my thanks to Elizabeth Bear (matociquala), who e-mailed last night to let me know there's a very good review of Daughter of Hounds in the January issue of Locus. I do not take Locus, so I did not know. I still have not seen the full review, but here's the bit Bear sent me, with which I am quite pleased:

This is possibly Kiernan's best novel yet, a thrilling page-turner that also features the depth, complexity, and unflinching willingness to contemplate the dark that we've come to expect from her books.

Oh, and there's a Sirenia Digest update. Sonya Taaffe's new piece will be appearing in the January issue, and December will now include both "The Voyeur in the House of Glass" and "Metamorphosis B." The issue's laid out and ready to be PDFed. At this point, I'm just waiting on Vince's illustration.

Not much else to be said for yesterday. I had a nap. Thai for dinner. I dropped by Border's on Ponce, but if they have either Daughter of Hounds or Threshold, they have not yet put them on the shelves. I did some Wikipedia last night, transforming the stub on Brachytrachelopan mesai into an actual article. I renewed my Society of Vertebrate Paleontology membership.

I'd like to see Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men this afternoon, but a) I'm supposed to be resting and b) it's only showing way the frell over at the Regal Atlantic Station Stadium 16 (theatres should not be referred to as stadiums), out west of I-75/85. And c), I have this fear that a perfectly dystopian sf film will be ruined with a "hopeful" ending in which humanity might not be doomed after all.

I'm just gonna go lie down now. Maybe ingest a liquid of some sort. Try not to stress out. Because, you know, I'm not a kid anymore.