In Which Transpire Many Lovely Things

November 4

Hello, my dear ones, my lovelies. I've had a fantastically fine weekend, and I hope the same can be said for all of you.

Let's see. Friday night Heather and I went to see The Others, miraculously still playing in the most inhospitably cramped corner of the Emeryville Uberplex. I enjoyed it rather a lot. I thought it was a better movie than From Hell, certainly more tense and scarier (though I liked From Hell very much, too). Heather saw the twist coming rather early, but knowing didn't detract from my enjoyment of the film; it was still nice to see it play out. Heather sometimes tells me the plots of short stories she's reading (often with Tiptree stories), and then laments that she's "spoiled" the story for me. Not so! Granted, there's a pleasure in coming to a story with completely wide-eyes and no preconceptions, but there's also great pleasure in seeing the way the story's wrought, in experiencing the story. Why else do I re-read books, and see movies more than once?

So, lo, there was The Others. Before which there was a meal at Chevy's. Why did we have this sudden urge for chain-restaurant-food, an impulse worthy of Patrick? It cannot be explained, but the fajitas and the margarita satisfied the craving. Even the ludicrously bad service failed to annoy, instead amusing me. And after that evening, we went home, la.

I woke earlyish on Saturday, intending to be a good little beaver and do scads of work. But when Heather began watching an, um, adult movie that she'd been asked to review, I was distracted by the fascinating and prodigious images on the screen. So I watched that with her, and certain inevitable and lovely rompings and frolics followed, delaying my workday in a delicious and entirely acceptable way. We lunched at Mama's, then returned home. I spent the afternoon reading, if I recall, and typing in the last handwritten chapter of Rangergirl.

To my surprise, I found I already have 20,000 words of that novel completed! It's 1/5th (or, perhaps, 1/6th) complete! And the way ahead is clear, and exciting, and my enthusiasm is not at all dimmed for having taken a few weeks off to concentrate on short fiction and to endure my strange malaise. I printed out the first chapters and read them last night-- and I think they're good, quite solid for first-draft work. I'd expected to loathe the words, but I'm quite happy with the novel's development. That's to be the main project, for the foreseeable-- finishing Rangergirl. With the occasional break to revise a couple of short-stories I still have hovering in a slightly uncompleted state.

In the evening we went to the abode of the lovely Susan Marie for a dinner party, featuring lots of wine, garlic mashed potatoes, white fish and black bean sauce, and broccoli, tra la. Also conversation on topics ranging from classical music to quantum mechanics (I know nothing about the former and find it interesting, and know as much as any interested layman about the latter, and of course find it interesting). A very pleasant time, and it reminded me of how big the world is, how different people are. These East-Coast intellectual/musical types, with a totally different experience-set than I have. It got me to thinking about my upbringing, weird little things-- like the fact that my hometown was a hotbed of every imaginable form of bigotry and racism, except anti-Semitism. I always had difficulty comprehending movies and books that featured aspects of anti-Semitism. The only reason that particular unlovley bias was absent from my childhood was the fact that there were no Jewish people in my hometown (or if there were, they were well hidden). I didn't meet a verifiably Jewish person until I went to college. Very strange. It's a big country, the United States. And it's a big world, too, as small as it sometimes seems.

Heather and I adjourned, not too late, and once home I spent a few hours reading, and also wrote a poem, called "Put Asunder" (which I sent today, along with two other older poems, to an editor that requested some of my work-- perhaps I'll have a sale to report, soon). Productive enough.

This morning we again rose early, to the music of buzz-saws and loud conversation in our backyard (which is, alas, the landlady's front yard; they have no respect for the circadian rhythm revisions that one might wish to make on weekends). I read more, and then we went to Mama's (our decadence is extraordinary) for lunch. Very good. From there we walked over the hill to the tea bar-- where we spent the whole afternoon in workful bliss! Hours and hours, la!

Heather wrote lots, while I mostly read. About that: Voice of Our Shadow is Jonathan Carroll's scariest, most sad book, in my opinion. Of the half-dozen of his I've read, anyway. Some of the same kinds of pain appeared in From the Teeth of Angels, but it was much more effective and disturbing and unexpected in this book. And Kiln People was good enough that it makes me want to read other stuff by David Brin, even though I've always been pretty fundamentally uninterested in the work of the "Killer B's" of hard sf.

We got sandwiches for dinner, and a video (Wonder Boys) to watch later, and came home. I paid rent and, otherwise, puttered. Decided to write this entry. Will probably work on Rangergirl a bit tonight; there's a wonderful train-wreck of a scene coming up, and I should figure out exactly how it's going to play out.