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greygirlbeastI slept more than eight hours last night, which was a great relief, as I was stupid and useless and somewhat ill all day yesterday, due to the two nights before. And I did it without Ambien. Whenever I happen to note that I'm not sleeping well, I'm often met with advice which I understand to be well meaning. But sometimes it can be unintentionally funny. For example, chamomile tea is frequently suggested. Which, if we're talking about run of the mill sleeplessness, the occasional night when it's a little hard to get to sleep, fine. But my insomnia is like unto the Godzilla of insomnia. When even the Ambien's not working, it's a safe bet chamomile tea won't, either. Or hot baths. Or warm milk. Another commonly suggested remedy is the hormone melatonin. And I know melatonin can be a useful sleep aid. Problem is, melatonin use may worsen depression (which I am being treated for) and cause vivid dreams and nightmares (which I am being treated for). It also has the potential to interact with certain drugs I've been prescribed. So, not an option.
Yesterday was, not unexpectedly, and as predicted, a lost cause. Maybe this falls under the heading of self-fulfilling prophecy, but given I was having serious trouble walking in a straight line, I rather tend to doubt it. I spent the first part of the day listening to the audiobook of The Red Tree from Aubile.com. I finished it (first ever audiobook I've listened to start to finish, by the way). Overall, I'm very pleased. The voice of Sarah is not the voice I heard in my head as I wrote it, but it works very well, regardless. After The Red Tree, I downloaded Daughter of Hounds and made it through the prologue and the first two chapters. And then I got dressed and we headed to the Athenaeum.
I had it in my head that I'd get some research done for a short story I need to start, but soon discovered I was too sleep deprived to focus on much of anything. I wound up just sort of groggily prowling the stacks, randomly reading bits of this or that. Books on fish of the Atlantic, the great white shark, sea monsters, the Farallon Islands, Steinbeck's The Log of the Sea of Cortez...well, okay, that doesn't sound nearly so disconnected as it seemed at the time. Though I can't really fit the Tsavo lions in there. At some point, I pulled from a shelf The Story of the Sun by Sir Robert S. Bell (D. Appleton and Company, NYC), published in 1893. I could see from a spidery bit of handwriting on the endpapers that the book had been entered into the Athenaeum's catalog on January 29th, 1894, some one hundred and sixteen years ago. And I imagined all the people who have opened this book in that time, and taken it out, and read it. How many in all that time? It occurred to me that the book was there in the Athenaeum for all of Lovecraft's life, and given his love of astronomy, that he very probably at least thumbed through it at some point in his forty-seven years. It's almost like time travel, moments like those (especially when you've not slept). We left the Athenaeum just before closing (at seven p.m.), stopped by the market, then headed home.
After dinner, we watched three episodes of Glee (the new one, plus two older ones Spooky had seen, but I had not). I love "Britana." And we learned last night that the episode which airs in two weeks has been written by Joss Whedon. Later, I went into WoW for the first time in two or three weeks and did a very satisfying battlefield, just Alterac Vally but it went on for almost an hour and felt more like an actual battle than WoW battlefields usually do. After WoW, we read more of Patti Smith's Just Kids, and then I managed to fall asleep watching a comfort movie, Jack Arnold's Revenge of the Creature (1955). Whatever I dreamt, it's mostly forgotten now.
The latest round of eBay auctions will be ending this afternoon (between 3:07 and 3:31 p.m. EST). My thanks to everyone who has bid, or who might yet. Also, Spooky has added a few new pieces of beach-glass jewelery to her Dreaming Squid Dollworks Etsy shop.
Anyway, time to make the doughnuts. I took one photo yesterday morning, from the front parlor, just before six a.m. Yesterday was the first time I'd ever watched the sun rise over Providence:
Photography © Copyright 2010 by Caitlín R. Kiernan
Yesterday was, not unexpectedly, and as predicted, a lost cause. Maybe this falls under the heading of self-fulfilling prophecy, but given I was having serious trouble walking in a straight line, I rather tend to doubt it. I spent the first part of the day listening to the audiobook of The Red Tree from Aubile.com. I finished it (first ever audiobook I've listened to start to finish, by the way). Overall, I'm very pleased. The voice of Sarah is not the voice I heard in my head as I wrote it, but it works very well, regardless. After The Red Tree, I downloaded Daughter of Hounds and made it through the prologue and the first two chapters. And then I got dressed and we headed to the Athenaeum.
I had it in my head that I'd get some research done for a short story I need to start, but soon discovered I was too sleep deprived to focus on much of anything. I wound up just sort of groggily prowling the stacks, randomly reading bits of this or that. Books on fish of the Atlantic, the great white shark, sea monsters, the Farallon Islands, Steinbeck's The Log of the Sea of Cortez...well, okay, that doesn't sound nearly so disconnected as it seemed at the time. Though I can't really fit the Tsavo lions in there. At some point, I pulled from a shelf The Story of the Sun by Sir Robert S. Bell (D. Appleton and Company, NYC), published in 1893. I could see from a spidery bit of handwriting on the endpapers that the book had been entered into the Athenaeum's catalog on January 29th, 1894, some one hundred and sixteen years ago. And I imagined all the people who have opened this book in that time, and taken it out, and read it. How many in all that time? It occurred to me that the book was there in the Athenaeum for all of Lovecraft's life, and given his love of astronomy, that he very probably at least thumbed through it at some point in his forty-seven years. It's almost like time travel, moments like those (especially when you've not slept). We left the Athenaeum just before closing (at seven p.m.), stopped by the market, then headed home.
After dinner, we watched three episodes of Glee (the new one, plus two older ones Spooky had seen, but I had not). I love "Britana." And we learned last night that the episode which airs in two weeks has been written by Joss Whedon. Later, I went into WoW for the first time in two or three weeks and did a very satisfying battlefield, just Alterac Vally but it went on for almost an hour and felt more like an actual battle than WoW battlefields usually do. After WoW, we read more of Patti Smith's Just Kids, and then I managed to fall asleep watching a comfort movie, Jack Arnold's Revenge of the Creature (1955). Whatever I dreamt, it's mostly forgotten now.
The latest round of eBay auctions will be ending this afternoon (between 3:07 and 3:31 p.m. EST). My thanks to everyone who has bid, or who might yet. Also, Spooky has added a few new pieces of beach-glass jewelery to her Dreaming Squid Dollworks Etsy shop.
Anyway, time to make the doughnuts. I took one photo yesterday morning, from the front parlor, just before six a.m. Yesterday was the first time I'd ever watched the sun rise over Providence:
Photography © Copyright 2010 by Caitlín R. Kiernan
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Date: 2010-05-06 08:22 pm (UTC)Your paragraph summed up one of my major concerns with the burgeoning movement toward digital representations of formerly physical objects, in this case books. That book, randomly out of all of the copies printed, has accumulated over the years a unique history that endows it with a gravitas that no other book possesses. I see no way in which that can occur with a digital version. No matter how closely it represents the physical, there's no way that it can accumulate any history. It's a case of enhancing the immediate to the detriment of the potential. (In some ways, a fitting metaphor for the current attitudes of most of the populace.)
I've dropped a box in the mail to you - a book and ...something else. The 'something else' may require Spooky's talents. If neither fit your fancy, feel free to pass them on...
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Date: 2010-05-06 08:50 pm (UTC)It also occurred to me that if you haven't made an index, maybe one of your subscribers has...
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Date: 2010-05-06 11:39 pm (UTC)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_works_by_Caitl%C3%ADn_R._Kiernan#Sirenia_Digest
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Date: 2010-05-07 12:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-07 05:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-07 05:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-06 10:40 pm (UTC)http://search.japantimes.co.jp/member/member.html?mode=getarticle&file=nn20100501f2.html