Driving Rain

November 8

My darling Heather notes with annoyance that I did not link to her even though she posted a new entry, and so, lo: a link to her.

I'm feeling much better today, which is surprising when one considers that I spent the entire morning doing physical work outside in the rain -- filling sandbags and the like.

Yes, autumn has come to Oakland, and with it, the rain -- and with the rain, a million chores around my boss's house. (Bet you didn't know assistant editors filled sandbags. Bet you thought sandbaggers did that. If so, you were mistaken.)

Californians don't know how to drive in the rain. This is a gross generalization, but broadly it's true. Traffic was ludicrously bad this morning -- the weather isn't that bad -- and people were following too closely and driving too fast. I drove quite sedately, and still hydroplaned a bit on the highway, which didn't so much scare me as spark a faint nostalgia -- ah, for the days when I lived in a rainier place, and hydroplaned often!

The hills were positively choked with fog, and as I drove along the downward-sloping curves toward home through zero-visibility, my headlights refracting through the mist and reducing visibility still more, I thought I could have been in Boone, in the Blue Ridge mountains, where I lived before coming to California; it was that similar, that familiar.

Autumn makes me feel creative and productive, while at the same time mellowing me out. I take my time making tea. I sit, sip coffee, watch rain on the windows. I get nostalgic without getting wistful, I remember the sweet more than the bitter, I write my best poems in the autumn. Fall is falling all around me, and I love it. Getting the sniffles and a sore throat is a small price to pay.

We watched Kama Sutra last night (it's the one where the guy gets stepped on by an elephant), and I was struck again by how beautiful many Indian women are, and how strange it is that I've never dated one, given how attracted I am to them, generally...

After two days of no mail (Wednesday we received our neighbor's mail, yesterday the mail carrier never even came by), we finally got some today, notably my contributor's copies from Asimov's, the January 2003 issue, with my poem "My Night with Aphrodite". Whoo!

I'm reviewing again, for the January issue of A Certain Magazine, and much to my delight I get to cover the new Dark Terrors anthology. I love this series, and this one has a fabulous line-up (including a story by Jay Lake, who seems to make a habit of appearing in my favorite publications). I'll probably read it this weekend.

Yesterday I read Ford's The Physiognomy, and it's marvelous, strange in all the right ways, very satisfying. Now I have to buy the sequels. I started reading Dedman's The Art of Arrow Cutting, which is good, though not as beautifully written as the Ford book -- the prose is merely serviceable, but the story's interesting, and since I don't know much about Japanese mythology and monsters, I'm learning fascinating stuff.

Go read Nick Mamatas's story "Beer on Sunday" at Horrorfind -- good post-apocalyptic stuff!

I have Pac-Man on my computer now. Hee hee hee. This, and Tetris, could ensure that I never get a keystroke of work done again... but I suppose I can exert some degree of willpower, and find time to revise in between devouring dots and ghosts. (See, it's that nostalgia I was talking about.)

My car has been making strange noises from the vicinity of the rear wheels since Wednesday (only when the car's running, of course -- I don't have a loquacious squirrel living back there or anything). Peering underneath didn't reveal anything obvious, like an octopus wrapped 'round the axle, so I put it down to general vehicular decrepitude (I know the muffler is dying, for instance, so I figured it was just rattling a bit). Today it wasn't as noisy, and it drove fine... until I got home and attempted to parallel park, at which point my car simply refused to move in reverse. It was in gear, the engine was running, the parking brake was off, but something was preventing the car from going backward. I drove slowly forward with no ill effects, put the car in reverse again, and backed-up just fine (there were no loud snapping noises or explosions, either). I got out, peered underneath the car, saw nothing, and sighed. I'll look at it again tomorrow, in the daylight, with a flashlight so I can really see underneath. I just hope it's something minor. I can't afford major car repairs, and if I have to start taking the bus to work, I'll be commuting two hours a day (as opposed to the half-hour a day I drive now). Bleah.

Words written since February 1, 2002: 176,100

Words written since last entry:
Revising.

Want.

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

You can give us money, and tell us where you want it to go -- to Heather's teeth, grad school applications, Flytrap, or sushi. We'll work with you. We're flexible.