Snot Golem

May 11

I woke this morning with a great nasty blob of phlegm entirely filling my nasal passages -- my first summer cold has arrived 6 weeks early! (On the bright side, the phlegm gave me a good idea for a novel I plan to write someday, proving that there's some good to be found in just about anything). Definitely a cold, too, and not allergies; I don't have the watery eyes that I always get with allergies, just the sore throat and the horribly-stuffed-up head. I called my mother this morning to wish her a happy Mother's Day (give her praise for giving me life! Huzzah!), and she told me to take medicine, etc., because I sounded terrible. So she got to a do a bit of long-distance mothering on Mother's Day, which I'm sure cheered her up no end. She also told me that my sister is graduating from high school this month. I think I must have realized, intellectually, that she's nearly 18, but in my mind's eye she's still about 12, the same age she was when I left for college. It occurs to me that I don't know this young woman my sister has undoubtedly become, and that makes me sad about being so far away...

I have the Sunday-afternoon brain-melts, so this is going to be horribly non-chronological and perhaps infested with tangents, but I'm sure you'll endure, or else click away to a more orderly part of the web. Um. I finished reading Singularity Sky, and liked it greatly. Am now reading Lisa Goldstein's The Alchemist's Door, and like it quite very much so far. Also dipping into the latest Asimov's, where there's a good collaboration by Susan Fry and Daniel Abraham (both of whom will be at Rio Hondo, whee!).

Yesterday, Saturday, I rose and did some morning writing on the Frog novel. I realized I needed to know more about 5 animals kung-fu than I actually do (because what I do know could fit on the head of a pin), so I called my friend D., martial-artist extraordinaire, and left him a rambling message. Then Heather and I went to the bank and took out all our money and drove into the Oakland hills and gave a woman a bunch of money and brought home a car!

This is the car, photographed from the passenger side, because from that angle it looks fabulous (from the driver's side it looks fabulous except for a missing chunk of door).

And, because Mom asked for one (and it is Mother's Day), here's a picture of the house.

It's not possible to get a really clear picture of the whole house, because of the gate, which is covered in vines:

But we wouldn't have it any other way.

D. called me back in the afternoon, and told me all about snake style and jeet kun do (not a 5 animals style, of course, but a good style to counter snake) and other neat things, and gave me lots of good advice which will make my imminent fight scene rather cool; he also told me some fascinating things about traditional Chinese medicine, and in return I told him about all the neat books coming up that he should buy. I miss D. a lot.

Last night we went to the KFOG Kaboom. The fireworks were marvelous, but ultimately it wasn't worth the trip to and fro, being crushed among thousands of people, fighting our way along mass transit, bleah, it made me exceedingly grumpy, and I went to bed shortly after I got home. I don't think I'll be going next year. I don't do well with crowds.

I managed to put together the next issue of Star*Line last night and this morning. I really do love working on that magazine -- being able to publish great poetry makes me happy.

Did y'all hear about Nick's collection? It's coming from Prime, which is a small PoD publisher that does some absolutely marvelous stuff -- I'm thrilled for him. Prime does nice books (they published the best first novel I've read in ages, The Etched City by K.J. Bishop).

I got a wild hair the other night to count how many journal entries I'd done so far. Here's the results: 95 entries in 2000, though I began on April 20th, so it's not a full year; 251 entries in 2001, when I was all alone in Santa Cruz, mostly, with lots of free time for journalling; 169 entries in 2002; and 46 entries so far for 2003, not counting this one -- over 560 total so far!

And, on that wholly tangential note, I bid you good night...

Words written since February 1, 2003: 47,300

Words written since last entry:
1,000

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