Beauties

June 25, again

This is going to be a piecemeal entry, I think-- lots of little things to mention. I rather like these hodgepodges, myself. I hope you do, too.

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Head over to Tor's website and read Ted Chiang's long story "Seventy-Two Letters." It's lovely. I don't think it's quite as well-done overall as "Story of Your Life," but I like the subject matter more. I met Ted (briefly, too briefly!) at WisCon, having read only one of his stories. I wish I'd read "Seventy-Two Letters" before then, because it concerns many of my fascinations-- particularly old notions of biology (abiogenesis, maternal imprinting) and magical systems of nomenclature. I would've had fun talking to him about such things, I think, even though his own knowledge puts mine rather severely to shame. I've always been fascinated by those old scientific ideas, though-- mice being born from oily rags and paper, snakes being born from horsehair and puddles of water, Lamarckian biology (the whole passing-on-acquired characteristics thing)... I should write something in that vein. Though not for a while, I fear; I have enough other stuff on my desk already...

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I wrote a speculative poem today, about a man and a parrot and a squatter on the beach. I think it's pretty good, though I got a bit florid with my adjectives. It'll probably have to be compressed and cut-down before it's publishable. Well. Before I'd want it to be published, anyway. I don't have a title for it. I'm pretty lousy with titles, truth be told. I tend to go with one-word titles for my poetry, because then at least my lousy titles are short. Even "The God of the Crossroads" originally had a shorter name, but one of the editorial suggestions was to change the title (they thought my original title, "Forking Paths," referred to a Robert Frost poem, and they considered it rather clichéd, when in fact I intended the title to refer to a Borges story-- but I didn't argue, because I wasn't especially attached to the title). Hmm. I'll read the poem to my sweet Heather; p'raps she'll have a good suggestion. I prefer not to leave poems untitled. I like titles; they're just tough sometimes, for some reason.

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G'bless Strange Horizons! Every Monday they give me good content, and this week is no different. There's even a couple mentions of my poem on the feedback page now; that's always nice. Even if Mike doesn't like my last two lines. :)

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After I left work, the day got... well, sublime. Work itself was pretty long and dull, since I was more-or-less alone at the office. I did some work, read some journal archives, read some fiction. Nothing special. In the afternoon, clouds rolled in, and the temperature dropped-- this in itself is pretty fascinating for Santa Cruz at this time of year, and I enjoyed the change in the weather.

I'd worried that my daily transcendent moment would be ruined by clouds. Every day I come out of the hills to see a gorgeous view of the bay, and the sweep of mountains that hem the water in. It never fails to lift my spirits (even if they were high to begin with). The clouds didn't ruin things at all, though, because they were high clouds. In fact, the air was surprisingly clear, and I could see even more of the mountains than usual. I drove homeward down back streets and passed a tree in glorious flower, hundreds upon hundreds of blue (or maybe purple) blossoms. Gorgeous!

I came home, had some dinner, and then went to Pergolesi, where I wrote a bit of poetry. I walked home in a light rain, and as I approached my corner I saw the beautiful perfect arc of a rainbow. I stood in the drizzle for quite some time, standing beside a profusion of sweet peas growing through a white picket fence, looking at the arch of color in the sky. Mmm. Beautiful. A day of beauties.

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I'm making incremental progress on the Mr. Li story; it's starting to feel a bit like Xeno's paradox, though-- I keep approaching the end, but not reaching it. I did a few hundred words on it tonight... I know exactly how it goes from here on out. A little banter, a little exposition, a little mayhem, a little emotion, a little resolution... Maybe I can work on it more at work tomorrow. There's always the possibility.

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Fun stuff coming up, lovelies. Tomorrow I'm having brunch/lunch with M'ris and her coterie of compatriots (which entails a longish period of time away from work for me-- hurray!). With luck, assuming he's free, I'll have beer with D. in the evening. Wednesday, of course, is the good Radiohead rock in Mountain View. Thursday my sweet Heather is coming to visit me for another weekend! So, nothing but goodness ahead. Well, not nothing but goodness-- there's some errands to run and bills to pay and so on. But mostly lots of goodness. And tonight I cleaned the bathroom, which was a bit of unpleasantness I'd been dreading, that wasn't so bad once I actually got around to doing it.

Now, um, sleep. Yes. Sleep.