Cruz

September 30

Darlings! I now return to my regular life, alas, after a weekend of magical difference...

Friday night, after work, Heather and I loaded up my car and zoomed south to Santa Cruz... and the weekend was marvelous, thanks wholly to the kindness and goodness of Scott and Lynne. The first night, we arrived to find Scott brewing beer, a recent hobby. We tried some of his last batch, and it was damned yummy. Then to Saturn café, my old beloved haunt, for coffee and ice cream and good chat. After that, we went to the Tea House and hot-tubbed. I had no idea there was a bamboo forest right off Pacific Ave! It was beautiful, serene, wonderful, and while the tub was a bit small for 4 people, we didn't mind being cozy. Then back to the original House on Maple Street, with the lovely mural, the balcony Scott has transformed into a garden, the cool loft. I love that house so much.

Saturday we rose early and had breakfast at Zachary's, just beating the Saturday-brunch rush. Then a nice amble downtown; I bought the new Beck CD (which, like Mutations, is an oddly homogenous album; every song sounds like the same song, but it's a song I like, so it's okay), and we got cookies at the heavenly Pacific Cookie Company, and I saw the Del Mar, which is now an actual, functioning theater! We wandered in Logos (where I bought an Ellen Bass chapbook), and Bookshop Santa Cruz (where I lamented that there were only three publications that had anything about me in them, because I'm whiny like that, but secretly I was gratified that there were even three). Lynne and Heather were sleepish, and went to nap, so Scott and I went to (mmm) Pergolesi, for coffee and couch-sitting, and talk about publishing and Scientology and other odd topics. After an hour or so we rejoined the lovely ladies and hit the beach, first going to watch surfers for a while, then going to Hole in the Wall, where Scott and Heather and I stripped naked and took to the waves (Lynne chose not to immerse herself in ohsocold water). We played in the surf for a long time, running away from big waves, letting smaller ones break over us, only getting tumbled over a few times (though Scott got bowled over rather badly at one point, and it's probably not a stretch to say that he might have easily died). But all was well. We hadn't brought any towels, so we had to lay on the blankets in the sun until we dried a bit. Very nice. Haven't done anything like that in ages.

Somewhere in there I had a Jones cream soda, and it was the best cream soda I've ever had, I think.

Scott drove us down West Cliff; I want to live in one of those houses, right next to the bay! We pointed out the surfer museum to Heather, and the statue that I joke is the Tomb of the Unknown Surfer. Then on to the wharf, where Scott bought us fresh salmon and bread. Back at the house Scott made us a feast of bread, lemon linguini, grilled portabello mushrooms, grilled salmon. Amazing. He's such a fine cook. We drank wine all night, and played Oh, Hell (what nice memories stirred up! What nice new memories made!), and it was simply divine. I don't have a lot of friends, but the ones I have are fabulous.

Sunday I woke up somewhat early, and read a bit; eventually the rest of the house stirred, and Scott made us huevos rancheros for breakfast. Yummiest breakfast ever. (Are you sensing a motif for the weekend?) We went to Pergolesi and played more cards, and I drank mocha chai (I'd forgotten about mocha chai! How did I forget?), and it was so so super fun. Heather and I kept pushing back our estimated time-to-leave, because we wanted to stay longer. We bought a dozen cookies for the road, and I had a burrito from Jalapenos (because they're the best), and we bid our sad farewells...

Heather and I want to move to Santa Cruz. If money were no object, if I didn't have to worry about finding a job, I'd be back there so fast... I'm lucky to have lived there a year, and it was worth leaving for Heather, and for the job at A Certain Magazine... but I'd like to go back someday, and stay, for a longer while.

Now, for non-weekend things... I wrote 750 words on a story tonight, after work, so I'm still in this Dare after all. Ha! Even though I'll have to throw away about 725 of the words, ultimately, it was still a productive night; they helped me figure out a lot of stuff about the story, which is important at this stage (that is, the very early stage).

I have a poem, "Plate Spinning", at Strange Horizons! Another "Bestiary" poem. Read, comment, enjoy!

Ben Rosenbaum (who is, incidentally, a fabulous writer, stunningly bright guy, and great conversationalist) has a nice long Worldcon report; get ye hence, and read.

I read a story in New Genre by Jan Wildt -- "Wonderfreaks" -- and thought it was marvelous, and so did a web search on Mr. Wildt... and discovered that we shared a ToC in Maelstrom #3, where I published my first story, "Mantis Dance". So I rooted around and found my copy of that issue... and discovered that Charles "Charliegirl" Anders also has a story therein!

Now's the part where we sing "It's a small, small, small, small world."

Charles has a journal now, by the by. Get in on the ground floor of her readership.

There's other stuff, but I'm sleepy, so that's enough for now... Here's Sean's latest Dare update, he's zooming right along:

I got about 2000 words done on the Moe story this weekend while at Rebecca's writer's retreat. It was much fun, even though I missed Friday night and Saturday night due to other engagements. It's at about 7500 words now and will go over 10,000 I think. Strange stuff. Saturday's writing session proved fruitful, with many funny lines coming up. I feel good about this thing, at least for the moment.

Words written since February 1, 2002: 168,750

Words written since last entry:
750

Send me ceramic pantaloons.

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

Your lovin' give me a thrill. But your lovin' don't pay Heather's dental bills.