Possible Bird

January 13

10:24 a.m.

First off, happy birthday Mom!

So, I'm sad about not being a poetry editor. But there are possibilities percolating in the aether, opportunities which may yet present themselves to be seized. One of those opportunities is tremendously exciting. I have to make a phone call in about half an hour, and after that, I'll know more. I'll keep you posted. Sorry to withhold details for now, but I'm sometimes a superstitious type, and I don't want to jinx anything...

In other news... Friday was a pretty pleasant day. Got off work a bit early and went to Berkeley, stood in line at the Post Office (or, actually, sat; you take a number and then wait until they call you). After half an hour of waiting, I got Xmas presents from my (aforementioned) Mom! And my brother and sister! A really cool writer/reader-geek shirt from Mom, and CDs from Wayne and Jodie, as well as a tin of sweet goodies. No complaints there. Then we went to the gym and worked out. I did cardio, which thus far is all I ever do, apart from stretching... I've never been particularly interested in weight training; I just want to be less pudgy and more flexible and have more stamina. Heather and I decided to go home and have date-night in, and after much effort we obtained pizza and a DVD of Blow. We ate, and snuggled, and Heather gazed adoringly at Johnny Depp (at least until his character got grizzled and pot-bellied). We had a nice evening.

Saturday morning I got up and wrote 1500 words on Rangergirl, a really cool scene, one of my favorites in the whole book so far (which just topped 25,000 words yesterday; I'm a quarter of the way there, folks). Then I puttered around a bit, reading A Million Open Doors, playing Alice (which is getting hard, yo). In the afternoon the lovely Susan Marie came over, and she and Heather and I hung out in the kitchen for ages, drinking lattés (courtesy of my lovely girlfriend), talking, laughing, having a lovely time. Later Susan took us out to Picante, a fabulous Mexican restaurant, and we had good food and margaritas and much convivial fun. From there we returned to my house, drank pear cider, watched the last two episodes of The Sopranos Season 2 (the two episodes Susan hadn't yet seen, and perhaps my two favorite from the whole season), played a few hands of Fluxx (the Calvinball of card games), and hung out chatting until 'roundabout midnight. Then we walked Susan home, and Heather and I hung out together for a while... I wound up falling asleep on the couch and waking up irrevocably at 9 a.m. Which was okay. I didn't want to sleep the day away, anyway.

I called my Mom to wish her a happy birthday, but she wasn't home -- she'd just left to work an 18 hour shift (she's a paramedic). That seems like a less than optimum way to spend your birthday, to me... then I called my Dad and had one of the nicest, longest talks we've had in a while. Very nice. Now I'm marking time until elevenish, when I have to call Opportunity (isn't it usually the other way around...?)

Oh, s'pose I should mention, Speculon has a new poetry editor, Ben White (whom I don't know, as far I know). They'll be taking submissions as usual, to the usual address.

I guess I'll go downstairs and make some tea (my throat is somewhat unhappy with me this morning for some reason), and check in here later in the day...

5:20 p.m.

Happy afternoon! Today Heather and I watched The Cider House Rules, and I began reading Resurrection Man by Sean Stewart, and we went to the park for a bit, sitting on a blanket and reading, her reading my most recent chapter of Rangergirl and pronouncing it good.

We have a hummingbird living on our front porch (which makes me want to read O'Leary's The Impossible Bird, which is about hummingbirds, among other things, and sounds good and odd). It's built a nest on an iron windchime, which is pretty cool. Heather took pictures. The bird (which Heather has named Hazel) doesn't stray far from the nest, which means it's flying all around the porch. Beautiful, fascinating, graceful. My heart is strangely lifted to have this wonderful, strange bird living so nearby.

Otherwise, I've been on the phone talking to a couple of people about that opportunity I mentioned (one door closes, and another one opens). I think I'll wait until it's official before I say anything further here, but... it's cool. It's amazingly cool. It should be made official sometime tomorrow, so I expect I'll talk about it here tomorrow night. Watch this space!

Tim Pratt
P.O. Box 13222
Berkeley, CA 94712-4222