catching up

[greygirlbeast]

So, anyway. Yesterday. I didn't get any actual writing done, but I did spend three hours compiling and formatting the first electronic draft of To Charles Fort, With Love. I'm very pleased that we're finally moving ahead with this book. These are short stories I published between 2000 and 2004. I've e-mailed the ms. to Bill Schafer at subpress and to Rick Kirk, who will being doing the art. If you've never seen Rick's work, you should do so now. He's amazing and deserving of far wider recognition. Bill is tentatively scheduling this book for Summer 2005.

Also, my contributor copies of Candlewick Press' Gothic!: Ten Original Dark Tales (edited by Deborah Noyes) arrived via UPS. It contains my story, "The Dead and the Moonstruck," which concerns Starling Jane (from Low Red Moon) as a young girl, and also includes all-new stories by Joan Aiken, Neil Gaiman, Gregory Maguire, and many others. I was especially proud to be a part of this project and am very pleased with how it's turned out.

Late yesterday, I received an e-mail from the very awesome Lousia John-Krol, who'd noticed that I'd mentioned her music somewhere in the blog. Actually, I wrote portions of Murder of Angels to her album Alexandria, especially "Contradiction is the Dragon." So, it was quite cool to hear from her, all the way down there in Austraila. Turns out she's a Farscape fan, too! I haven't yet had a chance to write her back.

And Spooky's Nebari boots arrived, but someone at the warehouse screwed up, and they were at least two sizes too small. So, they're being exchanged. But they do look fine.

And that's the best of it, of yesterday. I made a huge bowl of guacamole and a pot of chili (which we're still eating on). I played Kya: Dark Legacy. I talked with a small wolf spider making its way along the bathroom floor (we have quite a crop of wolf spiders this summer).

Comments

[pkbarbiedoll.livejournal.com]

I talked with a small wolf spider making its way along the bathroom floor

Nice to know that I'm not the only person who talks to insects & spiders. In my home I've mostly seen millipedes, field crickets and once in a while camel crickets. Last week I found a house centipede crawling across the living room carpet. I carefully picked it up and let it crawl on my hands and arm for a moment then let it go back to whatever it was doing before.

Earlier this year a spider made her home right outside my front door, almost at eye level. I took the following photo of her feeding on a rabid wolf spider she caught a month ago. Her meal was nearly twice as large as she, which surprised me.

After laying three egg sacks she mysteriously disappeared one day. Her mate still visits her old web, although he wasn't there today. I'm not sure what species the one feeding in the photo is, however. I see them all over.

[oakthorne.livejournal.com]

I am utterly jealous.

I fear that arachnaphobe roomies killed all the wolf spiders and other critters hereabouts.

Unfortunately, because none of us were familiar with the ecosystems of urban spiders in the Pacific Northwest, we didn't find out until too late that it was a terrible idea to do so. See, as it turns out, the hobo spider (http://hobospider.org/) lives in the area. Now, it doesn't normally invade homes because it doesn't compete very well with other spiders.

But guess what happens when you kill off (or at least drop outside) most of the spiders you find inside.

*sighs*

Very few things wig me out the way those death mandible/sex organs sitting on the face of a hobo spider do. Guh.

Regards,
Joseph

[pinkteaset3.livejournal.com]

I heard a spider singing, once. It was on the ceiling of my bedroom when I was in high school. The spider was making a soft whirring sound, like a cricket but much more faint, and not chirping but continuous.

This is one of those stories I mention again & again, so you've probably heard it before. I've never heard of spiders singing, but I swear this one did.

I also encountered a wild crow who said "Hello" to me in English once, when I lived in Boston (another of those stories I always tell)

xx
Mella

*Homer Simpson voice*

[happyspector.livejournal.com]

Mmmmmmmm ... guacamole ... Gwwwaaaaaaaaaagggghhhhhh ...