Caitlín R. Kiernan

Too much sleep is usually worse for me than none at all. And there was a little too much last night. I'm waiting on coffee and trying to wake the fuck up.

Er...yesterday. That's the good news. Yesterday, the dry spell ended, and I wrote 1,237 words on "The Ape's Wife." But first, FedEx brought MS Office 2004, which I promptly loaded onto the Unnamed iMac so that I could cease using the annoying watermarked "test drive" version that came installed on this machine. It was an uneventful install. Also, there was good e-mail from my editor at HarperCollins (though more I cannot say).

I think I wrote until about 6 p.m. There was no walk yesterday, but I did go out onto the front porch and sweep away all the stuff the wind of Wednesday night had deposited there. And I dragged the garbage can around back, and Spooky followed me with Hubero in her arms. The air was turning cold. It's much easier to take the cold when all the trees are green, because it's not so much the cold of winter that gets to me as the goddamn bleakness.

I fear I will ever be a creature of summer.

After dinner, I carried the Hello Kitty boom-box thingy into the bathroom, put in Philip Glass' La Belle et la Bête, and had a long, hot soak. When I was dry and clothed again, we got back to work on the hand "annotated and corrected" copy of the Gauntlet edition of Silk which I will eventually be putting up on eBay, if I can ever finish with it. We did chapters Six ("Keith") and Seven ("Stiff Kitten, and How Shrikes Fly"). Later, we watched some of the "making of" documentary included with the extended King Kong DVD, stuff that wasn't used in the online production diaries at Kong Is King. Later still, I read Spooky yesterday's pages a second time, and then read her Angela Carter's "Master" (from Nine Profane Pieces, 1974). It's a story I never, ever tire of reading aloud. Eventually, I fell asleep on the sofa watching the original 1933 King Kong. Spooky woke me about 3 a.m. and made me go to bed. It's nice to have someone who keeps me from sleeping all night on the sofa and waking with a stiff neck. And that was yesterday.

No walk, but I did use the hand weights. which is better than nothing.

Sorry this is such a dull entry, but I'm a writer, not a goddamned lion tamer. 99% of writing is at least as dull as dirt, and often much, much duller, because, you know, dirt can be pretty exciting. You learn that dullness is your friend. You learn to embrace the dull.

If you've not yet heard Year Zero, the new NIN album, you may now hear it in it's entirety online. I have not yet formed a general opinion, though I will say I am very fond of track 13, "The Great Destroyer."

I think I shall now see if I can find some whiskey to put in this cup of coffee. LJ folks, expect a poll later today; I'm curious how many people are actually interested in my doing podcasts.

Postscript (1:52 p.m.) — Here some cool news which is not dull as dirt. Andy Serkis has been cast to play Albert Einstein in a film which will also feature David Tennant as Sir Arthur Eddington.

It is raining, a very fine spring rain.

Reports of my untimely demise have been greatly exaggerated. However, the same may not be said of Hindrance (née Victoria Regina, aka Crackbaby), my seven-year-old iBook. The last few days she's been fading fast — literally — as her screen gave up the LCD ghost (so to speak). Between iBook anxiety and being unable to find the beginning of The Dinosaurs of Mars, I've been in something of a tizzy. So, Friday afternoon I spoke with my accountant. I have one of those now, ever since She Who Will Not Be Named played havoc with my finances. Informed that yes, I could afford to spend some of the proceeds from the Forced March on a new computer (especially since I'm cutting back on boy whores), yesterday evening Spooky and I made the trip to the Apple Store at Lenox Mall, and now I have a most marvelous machine, my third Apple since July 1993, a 17-inch iMac desktop, whom I have yet to name. Of course, most of today will be spent not-writing, transferring data from Hindrance and getting the new machine just the way I need it to be so I can write tomorrow. And she has not yet been named. This is the computer that should last me until approximately 2013, provided that I last that long myself.

I've just turned up the following PW review of my contribution to Thrillers 2:

EDITED BY ROBERT MORRISH. Cemetery Dance, $40 (230p) ISBN 978-1-58767-122-7 (JUNE)

Caitlin R. Kiernan’s blend of deft characterization and eldritch atmosphere are displayed in two excellent tales of cosmic dread: "The Daughter of the Four of Pentacles" is a prelude to Daughter of Hounds which raises some unsettling questions about our circumscribed position in the universe, while "Houses Under the Sea" handles its Lovecraftian roots with a poignant sensitivity that intensifies its impact. Thrillers 2's effective mix of styles and themes offers a sampler of the best that modern horror offers.

A good Kid Night on Friday. We watched the perfectly ridiculous (nigh unto laughable) William Girdler 1978 adaptation of Graham Masterson's The Manitou, followed by Koji Hashimoto and Sakyo Komatsu's Sayônara, Jûpetâ (1984), as surreal and inexplicable a bit of space opera as Japan has ever produced, complete with toy space ships, hippie ecoterroists, a dolphin, and a Godzilla cameo. Boy howdy.

I'm thinking about adding a monthly podcast to Sirenia Digest. Does this sound like a good idea? Very likely, I shall.

Okay, the platypus says it's time to get back to work. This afternoon, I am in no mood to argue with a platypus what cracks such a damn mean whip...