Caitlín R. Kiernan

I seem to be developing a new loathing for "weekends" (id est, Friday night-Sunday), and I begin to guess why.

Comments would be good today, if anyone still reads LJ on Saturday.

Today, I have to get back to writing "Sexing the Weird," which I truly need to finish by tomorrow evening. Yes, it's about sex, and the weird, and weird sex. But maybe not how you think. Or maybe exactly as you think.

The only work yesterday were a couple of last minute corrections to the galley pages of The Drowning Girl. Then we had to rush out to the UPS place at Wayland Square to be sure the thing would be back in NYC on Monday morning. Forty-two dollars and some number of cents to get it there by then.

Anyway, after that we wondered...er, wandered (though I wonder a lot) about Providence for a little while, as late afternoon faded to twilight, just watching the last remnants of the day and the last remnants of autumn. I'm beginning to realize that autumn will never cease to make me melancholy. Doesn't matter if it's beautiful, but that should be obvious to anyone who stops and thinks about it. Indeed, the beauty of autumn may lie near the heart of why it inspires a sense of melancholy in me.

We drove up to Blackstone Park, but it was too cold to walk through the woods. We'd not dressed for that much cold. We took the road that leads south (well, we were going south; the other lane leads north), between the Seekonk River and York Pond. I glanced over at the shadows darkening the still waters of the pond, and spotted a lump moving across the surface that I first mistook for a large turtle (despite the chill), but soon realized was a beaver. Oh, before Blackstone Park, we stopped in at Myopic Books, which is next door to the UPS Place. My favorite used bookstore in Rhode Island. I was good. All I got was an 1883 book on the sea, Ocean Wonders: Our Summer at the Seashore and Lakes by William E. Damon (D. Appleton & Co.; New York; the book is inscribed in a beautiful, looping hand, "Lotie H. Palmer 1884") and a much less old children's book on horseshoe crabs, The Crab That Crawled Out of the Past by Lorus and Margery Milne (1966, Atheneum; New York). Looking at these books now, I think, gods, remember when there were innumerable publishers in Manhattan. Now there are about six. To the detriment of almost all authors. Anyway, I was good, as I said, and didn't get a couple of pricey books on the evolution of birds that I also wanted.

We got dinner from Mama Kim's Korean food truck. It was parked in the usual spot, near the corner of Thayer and George. It was almost dark. Spooky went to get the food (I had three gochujang sliders), and I sat on a bench, smoking and thinking about the ancient buildings around me. The silhouette of some Brown University tower was visible to the northwest. Spooky's still sad she didn't get the little fish-shaped, sweet-bean pancakes. They seem too peculiarly reminiscent of something Xtian for my comfort.

Later, too much freaking Rift. But we were finally able to "buy" the cool cold-weather outfits at Chancel of Labors.

Later still, we watched an odd film, Daniel Myrick's The Objective (2007). It was almost pretty good. Well, it probably was pretty good. But there was this horrid voice over, which felt tacked on, whether it was added in post production or was part of the original screenplay. It seemed to exist to a) tell us the plainly obvious and b) make the film seem more like Apocalypse Now. Anyway, voice over aside, great idea and some nicely unnerving imagery, especially the final shot. Then I finished reading John Steinbeck's The Log From the Sea of Cortez, because I only had twenty pages to go, and I was determined to finish (even if it did mean staying up until almost five ayem). Wonderful, wonderful book. Then there were the dreams, some oddly, disturbingly sexy, others oddly, pleasantly disturbing, and still others just odd.

Here are a couple of photos, the The Drowning Girl (+ cat hair!) and the 1883 book:

( Covers )

Oddly,
Aunt Beast

I didn't forget this morning's dreams. And more's the pity. I dreamed that the Eastern Seaboard had been destroyed in a nuclear war by the Japanese (????), and I was a child in Jacksonville, Fla. and all was soot and ruin, and I watched a television broadcast of a firestorm raging across Texas. A million little details in my head.

This is why I generally hope to forget my dreams. Also, just now, right this very fucking minute, I'm having to refrain from one of those "You kids these days! Get off my lawn!" tirades, this time about how much I hate the way that the abbreviations of the states were dumbed down (i.e., simplified) back in the 1980s or when the hell ever. Florida is not FL; Florida is Fla. Massachusetts is not MA, it's Mass. Michigan is not MI, but Mich. West Virginia isn't WV, it's W. Va. Yeah, okay. I'll stop now. But I haven't lost all the battles. For example, the Girl Scouts of America, at least in the state of Colorado, are now trans friendly. I still marvel at the emerging phenomenon of transgendered children being permitted to express and explore their gender identities as children. Sure, it's still not even close to being included in this society's "normative state," but its become ever more common in the US. Kids these days...

Yesterday, we made it through chapters Five and Six of Blood Oranges. Assuming the MiBs leave me alone today, we'll get through Seven and Eight, and all that will be left to be done to the manuscript is actually making the marked corrections (there are a bazillion, so it'll take at least one long day). And since tomorrow will definitely belong to the spooks, It'll likely be Sunday before those corrections can be made.

And here we come to a note regarding Sirenia Digest. I am very, very sorry, but #71 is going to be late, and by late I mean maybe as late as the 10th of November (whereas it's "due" out on the 5th). October was a monster, and here I am with four days of it left, and I've not had a moment to put towards the digest. But it will come as soon as I can pull it together, and I apologize profusely. I'll do my best to never be this late again.

Last night, Spooky made astoundingly yummy turkey legs (toss in mushrooms, apples, onions, garlic, etc.) with mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts (a cultivar of the wild cabbage, Brassica oleracea). I had a hot bath. Oh, wait. The bath was right after I made my blog entry, which means I had to wake up twice, because warmth makes me sleepy. Anyway, after dinner, Rift, and after Rift I finished reading Steinbeck's "About Ed Ricketts" to Spooky. So much is quotable, but I'll settle for one. On religion and Ricketts, Steinbeck writes:

He has no religion in the sense of creed or dogma. In fact he distrusted all formal religions, suspecting them of having been fouled with economics and power and politics. He did not believe in any God as recognized by any group or cult. Probably his God could have been expressed by the mathematical symbol for an expanding universe. Surely he did not believe in an after life in any sense other than chemical. He was suspicious of promises of an after life, believing them to be sops to our fear or hope artificially supplied.

I love those words. And now, four more stills (by kylecassidy) from the October 15th shoot at Rolling Dam (Blackstone, MA) and Thundermist Falls (Woonsocket, RI):

( Beast on Location )

On this day, in 1964, in a deep-sea hydrothermal vent, almost ten thousand feet down along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, I squiggled forth from beds of giant tube worms and albino crustaceans. I drew my first watery breath, sucking in superheated brine, belched forth by black smokers and loaded with nutritious sulfides and acetyl thioesters, and then wailing with the abyssal cries of newborn whales, I rose.

Since then, though, I must admit it's been a bit anticlimactic. No cometary impact (Jupiter doesn't count). Still no return of the Great Old Ones. And my damned gills won't grow back. But, hey...I get cake.

And wonderful people send me wonderful things. Tomorrow, I'll try to make as full an accounting of that as possible.

---

Yesterday, I wrote a very respectable 2,149 words, and found the conclusion of Chapter Two of Blood Oranges. As it stands, I'm on page 83, and have written the first 18,292 words of what I intend to be a 75,000-word novel (at most). Two chapters in eleven days. Booya.

I must tell you – again – that Spooky is having a CRK's Birthday Sale on the jewelry at her Dreaming Squid Dollworks and Sundries Etsy shop, and shipping is FREE, and everything's selling fast, so have a look. You really need to see her new Alice's Adventures in Wonderland glass-vial pendants. There's a coupon code you'll need to use at checkout: CRKBIRTHDAY

Last night, we watched Peter Weir's The Last Wave (1977). It came up during conversation with Joshi on Tuesday night. I count it as one of a tiny handful of films that gets Lovecraftian right. Now, here I mean films that express the cosmicism of HPL, as distinct from his "Cthulhu Mythos" tales. Truly, there are only a few. John Carpenter's The Thing (1982), Ridley Scott's Alien (1979), and two or three more. But nothing by Stuart Gordon. One day I'll provide an actual list.

Also, yesterday I saw the cover for the Crimson Alphabet chapbook, and it's gorgeous (comes FREE with the limited edition of Two Worlds and In Between: The Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan (Volume One)).

After the movie, we played Rift, and my necromancer, Selwyn, made Level 42. And, because good pushers always provide FREE samples, there are some Selwyn screencaps behind the cut though, reduced to this size, they don't even begin to do the visuals justice. And I shall remind you, WE HAVE A GUILD, and there's a FREE 7-day trial now available! Fun for boys and girls and everything in between!

Um...I better go now. Spooky's making that face.

( Selwyn of the Spire )

Up too early. But not as early as Spooky, and there's a story there. I'll get to it in a moment.

I have been seized by a terrible panic, that I have to get back to work now, or certain doom will descend upon me. And, really, it's only a slight exaggeration. I only have a few months to finish a novel I've hardly begun. I have to keep the digest going. I have other deadlines. Moving to Providence negated none of that, cardboard canyons or no cardboard canyons, exhaustion or no exhaustion. The movers still have not come with our furniture, by the way, and the novelty of the air mattress has worn thin. We were told we could expect the truck here by Friday, at the latest. So, hopefully, we'll hear something today.

You know what's really annoying? Well, then, I'll tell you. I keep this journal primarily to promote my writing. That means, oftentimes, I keep certain opinions to myself, knowing that if I speak my mind on those subjects, I'll alienate readers (or potential readers). And lately, I find myself wanting to opine on a great number of touchy subjects. But if I succeed in alienating readers, I have defeated the primary purpose of this journal. So, I ask you — how many here would stop reading if I just opened up and really spoke my mind? On anything and everything, from Hilary Clinton's refusal to step aside to the wholesale rape of the environment by humans to 133t-speaking idiots on Second Life? Of course, no such poll would ever be scientific. I'd need, literally, thousands of replies, and I'd likely only get a few dozen, maybe a hundred if I bothered to set up a poll. So. Just thinking aloud here. It's a curious sort of Catch-22. Some will say I'm not giving readers enough credit, but many, many times I've had people email to say they will no longer read my LJ or my books because I've said X, Y, or Z. And, yes, I do need readers who do not share the same views as I do. Otherwise, I would starve on the street.

As for yesterday, it was chilly and rained hard all day long. A wonderful, steady rain. It was Byron's last day in Rhode Island, and what did he want to do with it? Go to another location of Newbury Comics, this time at Providence Place mall. It's like an annex of Nerd Heaven (though, of course, the original location of Newbury Comics is on Newbury Street in Boston). My feet still hurt, so, mostly, I sat outside the shop and watched people. I used to do a lot of people watching. They can be more interesting than watching birds, every now and then. Some moron tried to shoplift from Newbury, him and his girlfriend, and they got caught. And I marveled at the droopy jeans. When the hell is this going to cease to be cool? Seriously, when the crotch of your jeans is down to your knees, it's time to see a therapist about those feelings of penile inadequacy you suffer from.

So, yeah. I watched surly teens. Surly white teens. Surly black teens. Surly Hispanic teens. I'm not sure where all the surly Asian, Middle Eastern, and Indian teens were. Maybe they only sulk about the mall on Fridays or something. Anyway, Byron found the special edition of the new Weezer album, which was problematic, as he'd bought the regular edition (five tracks shorter) in Warwick the day before. Solution? He bought the limited, and then gave me the regular. And, yes, it rocks.

Back home —— it was raining too hard to make the trip to Lovecraft's grave at Swan Point —— I finished reading David Rains Wallace's Neptune's Ark: From Ichthyosaurs to Orcas. A really wonderful book, and I recommend it highly to anyone with a general interest in the evolution of secondarily marine tetrapods along the western coast of North America. Maybe I'll try to write more on the book later, as I feel it deserves a more thoughtful comment than that. It got me through the long drive up from Atlanta, it and HPL —— "The Colour Out of Space" (one of his very best) and "The Lurking Fear" (not one of his very best).

Here we come to the part of the entry that explains why I'm not very awake, and why Spooky's worse off than I am. Byron's flight out of Providence was scheduled for 5:59 p.m., but bad weather to the south —— in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, delayed the flight an hour. We sat with him until almost seven, then swung by Whole Foods to get some dinner and other essentials. And then, later, while I was having a much needed bath, Byron called to say that, because of the weather, the flight had been canceled. So, Spooky had to drive back to the airport to retrieve him. While she was gone, I read the start of Joss Whedon's Fray and started breaking down some kitchen boxes. When the two of them returned, Byron and I sat and talked a long time about comics —— my feelings about having done The Dreaming and the mess that it became, DC/Vertigo editorial policies, comics in general, and, finally, The Red Tree. Because I can rarely resist a captive audience, I read him the first two sections of Chapter One. And then there was bed, about midnight, because Spooky had to get him back to the airport for an 8 ayem flight, which means they had to be there by at least 7:30 or so. Blegh.

Long day ahead of me. For one, I have to deal with at least some of the backed up email. But I shall leave you with a photo, me and Spooky out front of the house, taken late on Tuesday (we have the second floor). It's not the best photo in the world, because I was tying my shoe, and it was taken with a Blackberry, and there's some weird foreshortening going on, but...I like it. It is so rare that Spooky will let me post a photo of her. For that matter, it's rare these days I want to post a photo of me. Photo (by Byron) behind the cut:

( Home again, home again )

The signature sheets for Alabaster arrived late yesterday afternoon, and that's what I shall be doing today. Also, I got the final version of Vince's illustration for "The Cryomancer's Daughter (Murder Ballad No. 3)" just this morning, so tomorrow will be spent laying out Sirenia Digest No. 8 (subscribe now!) so Spooky can send it out to subscribers tomorrow evening.

All in all, other than the work on the CEM, yesterday was sort of a disaster. My body finally flew the white flag, refusing to go any farther without a good night's sleep. Add to that a very slight touch of heat exhaustion (my fault, I believe), and I spent all evening lying on the sofa, floating in and out of consciousness, slightly fevery, slightly delirious. My mind began to clear a bit around ten p.m. I lay there sipping cold cherry Kool-Aid and watching two episodes of David Attenborough's The Blue Planet, one on deep-sea life ("cold seeps" are so wonderfully weird) and another on life in the open ocean. Afterwards, exhausted and ill but still not sleepy, I watched Stewart Granger, Peter Ustinov, Elizabeth Taylor, and Noel Willman in Curtis Bernhardt's 1954 version of Beau Brummel, based upon Clyde Fitch's play. And after that, I went to bed, even though Ivanhoe was coming on, took my Ambien and tossed and turned for two hours or so, until sometime after three a.m., when I finally fell the frell to sleep and stayed that way until almost eleven this morning. Huzzah! I have slept. Really, last night I was wondering how long it takes to die of insomnia. Today, I feel quite a bit restored, though hardly 100%.

Spooky sent out a small mountain of eBay packages yesterday, so watch your mailboxes.

The worst part about being so incapacitated last night (aside from fears of sudden death) was having to miss Peter Jackson's King Kong playing on the enormous, flat screen at the Fox Theatre downtown. For two months, I'd been planning to be at that screening. Oh well, there would have been annoying children and even more annoying teenagers. Still. I'll never get that chance again.

Right. Well, I've a lot of work to do. Those signatures sheets won't be signing themselves. And this CEM needs another glancing over before it goes back to the mailbox. Rhode Island looms huge before us. And it's after one o'clock.