Jitterbox
September 24
An entry made up of various snips and snippets, sweepings and leavings, oddments and endings...
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So Aboriginal SF is folding; that's a pity. It was a fun magazine, and I always kept it in mind for my rare adventurous-science-fiction pieces... I always found it edgier than Absolute Magnitude, though the inventory at Aboriginal is going to be published in upcoming issues of A.M....
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The boys in Agent Ink are hosting a benefit concert for victims of the terrorist shit. Details are here. I always knew they were good guys, but I've got a new respect for them now-- they've gotten up off the couch, and they're doing something. If you're in North Carolina on October 6th, give them your support, go to the show. And enjoy some damned fine rock while you're at it.
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I have a book review to write tonight (or tomorrow), tra la. It's not due for a month or so, but I should do it while the book is fresh. It's a pretty fun book, honestly, written with a high degree of glee, and some real inventiveness in parts. Fun junk-food for the horror-oriented mind.
I do kinda hope I like one of the other books I have for possible review better, though.
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I had a latté and a chocolate muffin for lunch today. Whoo! Now I'm a living jitterbox, all a-buzz. I need to take it down a notch. A nice big dinner of fettucine alfredo with chicken should make me nice and logy.
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Heather and I went to Bay Wolf for dinner on Saturday night. It's pretty cool, living within walking distance of one of the best restaurants on the West Coast. We couldn't afford to eat there often, but it's a nice special-occasion place (the special occasion this weekend was that we hadn't been on a nice fancy date in a while). I had the duck with the peach-ginger chutney... yum-squared, y'all. Not Best New Crack, but a better meal than I usually consume. Even my uneducated palate, which is thrilled by tater tots and a good club sandwich, recognized the artistry that went into creating the dish, putting the flavors together. And Heather's fish, of which I snatched several little bites, was amazing. If you have somebody you want to impress, take 'em to Bay Wolf...
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My job continues to absolutely rule the universe. During issue-production time, all energy goes toward getting the issue ready. In this down-time, though, I actually get to clean off my desk, la! I'm in charge of filling back-issue orders, which involves rooting through subterranean filing cabinets and looking at really amusing old pictures of folks like Tim Powers and Greg Bear and Norman Spinrad. All kinds of fun. And the people at the coffee shop down the hill from the office know me by name, and they know what I drink, and it's all lovely, really.
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It rained today. Very peculiar. And there's a strange quality of light in the air, it makes everything seem somewhat otherworldly. There were moments on the drive home when the perspective seemed so strange that I actually wondered if I'd taken the wrong exit, if I was seeing things I didn't normally see. And I was seeing things I didn't normally see; but it was the air that took a different turn, not me.
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Last night Heather and I read to one another in bed. She read me "Ship. Sea. Mountain. Sky." by Gavin Grant and Kelly Link (who got married in Asheville, NC this past weekend-- hurrah for them!). It's a nice story, about an imagined culture and their death rituals. Heather said (I'm paraphrasing) "What makes this a fantasy? Why isn't is sociological science fiction?" And I said "It's a fantasy because it has tree, not rivets. Science fiction has bolts, and fantasy has bushes."
Which is a simplification, but really, sometimes that is the only difference.
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I've been grazing reference books, and I have some lovely ideas for the middle section of Rangergirl. So I must write more quickly on this first third, so that I can get more quickly to the middle, and write of such wondrous things!
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Whoa! I just saw actual lightning! In California!
Er. Which I guess means I should shut down my computer, lest there be power surges and so on. Er.
