Five Deficiencies and Others
April 25
Five deficiencies:
- I am color blind.
- I can only snap my fingers with my right hand.
- I can only do the Vulcan "live long and prosper" sign with my right hand.
- I can only twitch my nose to the right. I simply lack the muscles to twitch it leftward; I try, and nothing happens.
- I have no sense of direction.
***
I've been nominated for a Pushcart Prize for one of my poems; nice, hmm? They get about 5,000 nominations a year, I understand, and just a hair over 1% of the nominees are selected, so the odds are long and long against me... but I'm in the running, you know?
***
Heather and I made a nice dish tonight, that we've had before; very yummy, and surprisingly simple. Salmon with soy-honey and wasabi sauces. The recipe is here; we had it with mushrooms and rice tonight. Mmm.
Wish I had some ice cream for dessert. I suppose I could go out and get some... a cup of coffee would be nice, too... and Heather is going to be gone for a while, picking up a friend from the airport. I'd planned to be virtuous and revise & send stories out (Ellen Datlow rejected a story today, though she congratulated me on getting into the Year's Best); perhaps I should do that instead. I can't decide. Though I suppose I'll have my share of going out this weekend; perhaps I should spend some time at home, even if it is home alone. I'm torn.
I'll probably decide and act on a sudden whim; so what else is new?
***
I just revised and sent off a poem to an editor, who asked me for something a while back. I had a draft of the poem last week; I should have revised it and sent it ages ago.
I'm so slack sometimes.
***
At work, we got the galley of Ted Chiang's collection Stories of Your Life and Others. Today on my lunch break I read the new story, "Liking What You See: A Documentary". It's a fabulous story, my favorite of his since "Story of Your Life". I won't say anything about the story for fear of spoilers, except that it's very thought-provoking, and well-told, and cool.
***
Dear Becca points to this article about towing in our old college town; it's a bit dull, so to sum up, the towing companies are known to physically intimidate people, tow people from legal parking spots, and accept bribes from people they're about to tow. The towtruck drivers troll around town independently, looking for people to tow, rather than waiting for property owners to call in and complain. Apparently the city council is vaguely considering thinking about taking some action to alleviate this. The parking situation in Boone is pretty hellish; it's not like, say, San Francisco, but it's bad. The major towing company is (or was) called Ashe Lake; which I always took as a pretty clear signifier that said company was actually owned and operated by Satan himself.
Because an ash lake is a lake of fire.
See?
Get it?
***
This is what happens when I'm home alone and bored and not quite in the mental mode to get real work done. Wanders and non sequitars.
***
I didn't go out tonight, if you were wondering, except to buy some ice cream, and that was just around the corner. I read instead, and wandered around online, and passed the hours.
***
I found an internet radio site I like: Alternative Groove. I listened to them all day. It sounds like when I used to listen to radio, years ago!
***
Bed now.
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