Infodump

December 31, New Year's Eve, Again

Hello! Here's fragments of the handwritten journal I intermittently kept over the past week in Indiana. Enjoy. Dates in bold indicate the date the fragments were written.

12-23-01

Bah. Here in Indiana, and no computer (good, as my right wrist has been complaining of late), and I forgot my good hardcover journal (bad). This spiral-bound dealie will have to do.

"Instead, over the years, I have managed to take a random selection of bad habits and herd them together into a life." --Louise Jenkins, "The Life of a Poet"

Even simple Indiana,
template of the heartland, can be
a strange land to a stranger
like me. It's the superficial
resemblances that get me,
the way the hills move
under the eye, the sub-
divisions with quaintly named
streets (whole themed
neighborhoods based on
trees, or holidays), the ugly
new houses erected in raw
fields -- those could come
from the Eastern Carolina
of my childhood. But there
are no slash pines, no swampy
lands, and the accents are
broader and more bland, constant
moments of presqué vu,
near-misses of perception,
here in the land that daylight
savings time forgot.

12-24-01

So, um, Monday? Yes. But anyway, yesterday, we went to Half Price Books, unexpectedly copious and lovely. Got an Effinger novel [Relatives] that I didn't have (which is rare, since mostly I only find his Budayeen books, and his Zork! and Planet of the Apes tie-ins), and Starlight 1, and The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction by Clute and Nichols, and Strange Monsters of the Recent Past by Waldrop, and the Best American Poetry for 2000 (which later proved to have pages sliced out, damn it, and will be returned), and a dictionary of Old West slang (which has totally changed my Rangergirl chapter titles -- there are some wonderfully apt and evocative phrases), and other books, too, like a Year's Best F&H I didn't have. So Sunday was fun. Bookish.

And today, Xmas eve, we went to Borders for (terrible) lattés and extended browsing. Then, in the evening, to see Lord of the Rings, which was a delight, and made me want to write fantasy, though not Tolkienesque fantasy. My current mood is for something darker, set in a public restroom, like "Gentleman" (by Skipp? Or Spector? Or both? Or neither?).

Tried to sleep, had trouble. Not usual pre-Xmas jitters, but job stress. Had a misunderstanding with my boss on Friday. He insists I never told him of my holiday traveling plans. I'm equally sure that I did (and that we had subsequent conversations about it, regarding Mid-Western weather, and Lois McMaster Bujold's possible residence in Indiana). Anyway, he was furious to hear I wouldn't be in to work Wed, Thur, Fri of Xmas week, and says he may fire me. He hasn't decided yet. I'm to come in as usual after the holidays, and at some point he'll let me know. So. Working beneath the sword of Damocles. And a bit of stress marring the holiday. I've never even come close to being fired before -- I have wonderful references, my past employers loved me -- and I've never had a job before where I'd care if I got fired. But now I have a job I love, and I would be most distressed to lose it, especially over simple confusion... Perhaps he simply didn't realize which dates I meant, perhaps I didn't make it clear enough, and he thought I'd be back right after Xmas, when I meant I'd be gone the whole week (It's enough to make me long for the "Request for Time Off" forms they had at my last job)... I don't know. I had a hell of a time sleeping, though. Visions of joblessness dancing in my head. And after working at A Certain Magazine, it would be so depressing to have to find some job I didn't care about...

12-25-01

Xmas morn! Gifts aplenty. Radiohead and Weezer CDs from Holly. The Brothers Grimm by Jack Zipes from Linda [Heather's mom], as well as Stableford's Dictionary of Science Fiction Places, and The Apple that Astonished Paris by Billy Collins. Heather got me nice clothes, and Sailing Around the Room by Collins, and quite surprised me with America McGee's Alice, so I must get more memory for my computer ASAP, so I can get started slaying the degenerate denizens of a debased Wonderland. Good stuff. A good time. Thus far, no post-Xmas-morning letdown...

Heather bought a great lot of bacon, for me. She's sweet. We've ("we" being me and Justin and Holly and Linda, not Heather, who does not eat such things) been eating it for days. It's good stuff, too. Premium yum-yum.

I like Heather's mom's house. The only drawback is the cats. More specifically, their dander. I am being smothered by a drift of dander. However, I sit now on the screened porch, where it's bracingly cold but the air is fresher. I sleep fine, as Heather's bedroom is reasonably dander free, but elsewhere... there are 6 cats. I've never been bothered by cats before, allergy-wise, but I've never been exposed to such a high-concentration, either. But I'll survive.

I've been dreaming of ex-girlfriends. This time of year always sinks nostalgic fingers into me.

12-30-01

No time to write, of late. Last days a blur of eating (Bobby Joe's Beef & Brew suprisingly nice), sleeping, reading Cryptonomicon. Quite homesick. Now in Cincinnati, faced with a 3-hour layover... will be home in 8 hours!

Still a little wobbly over hearing of the death of Keith Allen Daniels. He was not a friend (indeed, the only e-mails we ever exchanged were somewhat contentious, as we had some philosophical differences as poetry editors), but he was at least obliquely a colleague, and ultimately I think a force for good in the world of sf poetry. Anamnesis Press did good work... I wonder if it will survive?

Ah-- nice to be back in the Bay. I'm comforted by the billboards that say "Infrastructure: It begins with you" and "Oracle Database Clusters: Unbreakable". Now, I'm not even remotely involved in tech culture, I'm neither hacker nor cypherpunk (though I'm digging Cryptonomicon), but these billboards are a vast improvement over the ones I saw in Indiana, depicting (on the left) billowing white clouds (read: heaven) and (on the right) lurid red flames (read: Hell), and beneath, the words "Where Are You Headed"?

Shiver. Bleah. Give me geekdom over religious fundamentalism any time. Not that both don't have dogmatic drawbacks, but the geeks don't frown on as many of my lifestyle choices as the fundies do...

Present Day

So, that's the paper journal. It is a vastly incomplete record. Also: We attended a party. We went drinking. Holly misplaced her boyfriend (who incidentally once received a toy truck (or was it fire engine?) from Robert Penn Warren). We had many good meals prepared by the inimitable Linda Shaw. I received cat scratches. We slept on a most entertaining inflatable bed. We saw Vanilla Sky. We went, twice, to the mall, a fearsome jungle. I made many a pithy observation about the ratio of Steakhouses to Indiana Residents (roughly 1:4). We ate at Steak n' Shake at 3 a.m. I wrote about 1700 words of a new, and quite dark, story, which with luck I'll finish soonish. I found more books, and bought them. Upon getting home, I had a rejection from GVG, and a note from Zoetrope telling me that they're moving to San Francisco and I should re-submit in February, and a friendly rejection from Café Irreal (in which they compared me to a writer I've never heard of), and some bills. I listened to the new Weezer CD several times. I wrestled with my computer, which responded to my abandoning it for a week by giving me countless unfathomable errors, but which now seems to be mollified. I read a lot of e-mail. I went to work this morning to find that no one was there; apparently, we have New Year's Eve off, which I didn't realize. So, I'm a fool (but you knew that already, having read the previous entry). But it's like a snow day, without the snow, a happy surprise. And here I am. The house is a mess of scattered wrapping paper. Heather and I opened up more gifts last night; she gave me Gorey's The Curious Sofa, and Mongroid (from Tortured Souls -- I have the whole run!) and a naughty gift. And I gave her a Buffy coffee mug (quite tasteful, just the logo) and two naughty gifts (and believe me, it's hard to find naughty gifts for a person who works at Blowfish (I wouldn't click that link at work, if I were you), but I managed). I got her other (non-naughty) presents, too, over the vastness of Xmas, but I'll let her tell you 'bout those, if she's so inclined.

There are more entries coming, soon, possibly even more today. Lots to say.

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