greygirlbeast: (Eli2)
Caitlín R. Kiernan ([personal profile] greygirlbeast) wrote2009-12-30 12:02 pm

A Sky Before Closure

Today, Elizabeth would have been 39.

There was a seizure late yesterday afternoon, the worst in months, so if this entry is a little off, that's what you blame. I still feel as though I'm thinking through a film of cheesecloth dipped in Vaseline. Fortunately, all I have to do today is attend to line edits.

Monday (12/28/09)— We drove to Attleboro, Massachusetts late in the day. I was looking for a CD, which I didn't find. As a consolation, we stopped at Yankee Spirits, or as I prefer to think of it, the Boozery (on Washington St./Rt. 1). We came away with French absinthe, Russian lager, and a bottle of Dogfish Head's Pangaea. The place really is a marvel. On the way home, the sun was setting, and the sky was like the last moments before apocalypse. I took photos, because lately I seem obsessed with the sky. In Atlanta and Birmingham, the sky is an entirely different beast. The photos are behind the cut, below. There was rain Monday morning, and a few slushy snow flakes as we were leaving Providence.

Monday evening, Spooky baked kielbasa with apples, red potatoes, red onions, garlic, and bay. We drank the Russian lager with it (Baltica No. 4, which [livejournal.com profile] ellen_datlow introduced me to last November, in NYC). I read more of the Rapetosaurus paper, and more of Alan Weisman's The World Without Us (a Solstice gift from David Szydloski). The latter is a brilliant book. It's almost enough to inspire in me some weak spark of hope. We watched an episode of Fringe. There was WoW, and we both made Level 75.

Tuesday (12/29/09)— A windy and very cold day. Maybe the coldest day I've felt since coming to Rhode Island. There was a vicious wind. We saw Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes, and I thought it was delightful. When we got back home, a package was waiting for me, the ARCs for The Ammonite Violin & Others, which is now that much closer to being an actual book. Also, I discovered a very nice review of The Red Tree at SFFWorld.

There was Chinese takeout for dinner. I read more of Weisman's book, and we watched three more episodes of Fringe (which we're watching entirely out of order, and I think that's making it more interesting).

Tomorrow I will post my "Top Ten" list of fantasy and science-fiction films from 2009.

Today will be a day of line edits. But I said that already. Final corrections to The Ammonite Violin & Others, and "Untitled 34," and "Pickman's Other Model" (on the last one, actually, all I need to do is to copy the list of line edits into an email to send to Joshi). It should be easy. I just have to keep squinting through the cheesecloth and Vaseline. And here are the photos from Monday:



















All Photographs Copyright © 2009 by Caitlín R. Kiernan

[identity profile] mellawyrden.livejournal.com 2009-12-30 08:17 pm (UTC)(link)
I love the wires & poles.. I want to paint them as part of my tower series. Do you think Kathryn would mind if I used some of these photos as reference, with full credit?

[identity profile] greygirlbeast.livejournal.com 2009-12-30 08:25 pm (UTC)(link)

Do you think Kathryn would mind if I used some of these photos as reference, with full credit?

Please do. Actually, I took the photos, not Kathryn. She was driving.

[identity profile] mellawyrden.livejournal.com 2009-12-30 08:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you! They're beautiful. They're inspiring me to get to work. These will come after Tesla's Colorado Springs laboratory tower, which is believed to have ended up being the first radio telescope. I'm just finishing it up.