Technical Difficulties

So, basically, this week has been a clusterfuck in a shitstorm, but I want to also note that there are awesome things out there:

1. The white ravens of Qualicum Beach.

2. Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1915-1973): I picked up a cheap 2-CD compilation, and holy fucking shit that woman could sing.

3. This video. I usually eschew this particular internet acronym, but I admit it: Reader, I LOLled.

4. George Takei.

5. Deer eat dead people. Forensic scientists have pics to prove it. ETA: See also, giraffes gnaw bones.

Mateusz Skutnik has released Submachine 9. I am beside myself with glee.

(If you want more Submachine, the entire series is here.)

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Gandalf checks his email. BEST PHOTO EVAR.

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I believe Catzilla turned off the little Cthulhu machine this morning by walking on it. Proof (a) that the people who designed the damn thing have never lived with a cat and (b) that my cat is THE SPAWN OF THE DEVIL.

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I had not known about EarlyWord until it was drawn to my attention that The Goblin Emperor got a nice shout-out on their GalleyChat summary for March 4.

There's also a very positive review from Justin Landon at Staffer's Book Review, who admits he went in prepared to hate the book and was won over anyway. I think that's the first time I've pulled that trick off.

(I know if you're reading this blog, you probably don't need to be persuaded to buy the book. Humor me.)

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I finally have a day job that is both permanent and part-time (instead of working as a full-time temp, which is what I've been doing the past two and a half years). I am very happy with it; it has taught me that, oddly enough, I enjoy accounting, which is a piece of self-knowledge I wish I'd had in college. It satisfies the same part of my brain that likes Latin and calculus (and Submachine, come to think of it). And I totally get an endorphin cookie when my numbers balance.

Also, if anyone knows any good resources for DIY double-entry bookkeeping, please share! I took a Continuing Education Accounting Intro course, but the textbook, as it turned out, was not very reliable. And my employer is unlikely to be able to spring for accounting software any time soon, so it's just me and Excel.

1. This guy's art is AMAZING.

2. The thing I forgot to mention in my previous post is that I now have a little weather prediction center in my right ankle that FAITHFULLY lets me know when the weather is changing. You know, just like characters in books always do. I must tell you, however, that it is not actually as much fun as you might think.

3. I love this proof that cats have always been cats.

4. I have rubbed a raw spot inside my nose with my sleep apnea tentacles. DON'T ASK ME HOW I DON'T EVEN KNOW.

5. If you are in need of laughter today, this site made me laugh so hard I nearly ended up on the floor.

1. We have a new car. The elderly psychotic Swedish car had devolved into panic attacks (the car started setting the car alarm off randomly--and silently, so it was like panic attacks IN MIME) and we finally just said fuck it, and bought a new (used) 2009 Subaru Forester. With all-wheel drive, which I am going to be loving come next winter, I tell you what.

2. The University of Wisconsin-Madison has a hawk cam, which as I type this is showing three fluffy baby hawks. (Ooh, and a parent just showed up with a small dead thing. Rock on.)

3. And speaking of fluffy!cams: Kitten Cam! (via heresluck)

4. Not a cam, but to complete the fluffy trifecta: Clouded Leopard cub getting some really primo chin skritches.

5. Neil Gaiman likes my Sandman essay!¹ This is the first time in my life I've written an analytical essay about a work by someone who's still alive to have an opinion. And he likes it! I have some cognitive dissonance, but it is the most awesome dissonance in the history of things that jar your brain when you put them together.

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¹@neilhimself For the record CHICKS DIG COMICS contains the best SANDMAN essay I've read & I've read too many. http://bit.ly/GT3TLe Well done @pennyvixen<sup>2

2</sup>Oh, come on. How could I not footnote at a time like this?

1. The ebook of Somewhere Beneath Those Waves is available from Weightless Books.

2. Apex 31 includes my Booth story, "The Yellow Dressing Gown" (originally published in Weird Tales by the fabulous Ann Vandermeer).

3. Over on the Whatever, John Scalzi is hosting threads for authors to promote their own works as holiday gifts. If you're looking for ideas, I commend the Whatever Shopping Guide 2011 to you.

4. The pictures of these African Sulcata tortoises and their progeny fill me with delight.

5. We are still worried about our Jellicle Ninja. Good thoughts appreciated.

1. My trip to Boston in a nutshell. (In case you can't tell, the chained up books in the MITSFS library are the Gor novels.) There was also a great deal of Giant Ridiculous Dog, of which I totally approve.

2. Despite the fact that I really liked the Star Trek reboot, kateelliott has come up with something that would have been SO MUCH MORE AWESOME ZOMG THERE ARE NO WORDS.

3. A brief resurgence of Q&A, since somebody had questions:
(a.) Is there any hope of you writing another Labyrinth book?
Another book is unlikely, unless the clouds open up and the angels descend and I am struck by an idea of such IRRESISTABLE GENIUS that there is clearly no other choice. But I do intend to write a novella about Cardenio Richey and Vey Coruscant's copy of the Principia Caeli and a Jack the Ripper analogue called Jean-the-Knife. The title is Yes, No, Always, Never, and it's in the list of things I'm gonna get to Real Soon Now.

(b.) Secondly, I was kind of expecting for Felix and Kay to wind up together. Am I completely off base?
No, you're not. That was what originally happened, in the very bad and embarrassing draft that I wrote when I was paying more attention to the deadline than to what the book (and the characters) needed.

4. elisem has written a Lovecraftian hymn, for which she blames me.

I'm cool with that.

5. My introvert meter has expired and I'm out of quarters. Good night, internets.

1. (via cmpriest) The search and rescue dogs of 9/11. These are wonderful photos of wonderful dogs, and they damn near make me cry.

2. The Tempering of Men launches today! (It's the sequel to A Companion to Wolves if you need that info.) matociquala is having a contest.

3. Speaking of matociquala, she made a post yesterday about the cunning ways PTSD encourages self-sabotage. And, I think, about the importance of telling the people you love that you care about them. Because they may really need to hear it.

4. Ariel the dolphin and her baby, which you may file under omg cute! or omg dolphins are awesome!.

5. First successful use of laparoscopic(!) artificial insemination with Pallas' Cats.

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(Yes, I like animals. Frequently more than I like people.)

1. Happy Fourth of July! Also, belatedly, happy Canada Day!

2. I was very sad to discover that Edward Hardwicke died this May. He was my favorite Dr. Watson, and he was astonishingly excellent in Sir Ian McKellen's Richard III. It's obvious from reading what he says about Jeremy Brett, just on the IMDb page, and then reading what Brett had to say about him (and I am still sad, sixteen years on, that the world now lacks Jeremy Brett), that he was a lovely human being and that the friendship he and Brett show between Holmes and Watson was also part of their real-life relationship.

Rest in peace, Mr. Hardwicke. And thank you.

3. And a quote from Jeremy Brett on playing Sherlock Holmes: "I'm so miscast; I'm a romantic-heroic actor. So I was terribly aware that I had to hide an awful lot of me, and in so doing I think I look quite often brusque, or maybe sometimes even slightly rude. In fact Dame Jean Conan Doyle, Doyle's daughter, who's a great personal friend of mine, did once say to me, 'I don't think my father meant You-Know-Who to be quite so rude', and I said, 'I'm terribly sorry, Dame Jean, I'm just trying to hide me'."

4. So, after fifteen years of living in this piece of the Upper Midwest, mirrorthaw and I have finally started exploring its natural wonders, starting with the state parks. The bit of it I want to blog about is, in one of the state parks, there's a pine plantation--i.e., planted by someone who intended to harvest the trees for lumber. (The park information is very carefully passive voice, so it's hard to tell quite how we ended up with a pine plantation in a state park.) Walking from the mostly oak forest into the pine plantation was one of the more eerie experiences I've had recently. Because, you see, the thing about pine plantations is that they kill all the other vegetation. No smaller trees, no bushes. No Virginia creeper, no grape vines, no mayflowers or ferns. No animals. No birds. Just these tall, straight trees, and a carpet of dead pine needles. And the mosquitoes who followed us in.

It'll probably get into a story eventually, but in the meantime, it's this odd lump of experience like an inclusion in quartz.

5. There's nothing like disgusting humid sweltering heat to make Catzilla feel snuggly.

1. Simon's Cat has a website. Also, a new cartoon.

2. Life on White does absolutely stunning photography. All kinds of animals, vertebrate and invertebrate. (oursin, I commend to you the hedgehogs.)

3. The Indianapolis Zoo has a baby dolphin. I recommend the video, especially if your own species is getting you down today.

4. Sadly, Cinnamon, the doyenne of Disapproving Rabbits, has died. She was thirteen, which is a darn good run for a rabbit. All my sympathy to her humans.

5. There are snow leopard triplets (and their gorgeous mom) at Zoo Basel.

1. The tow truck guy, bless his tattooed heart, figured out what's causing the Saab's psychosis before I had to pay him to tow it to the service guys.

2. It's the ignition switch. Now we wait to find out whether the service guys can rebuild it or whether we have to get a new one . . . on which there is no ETA. I love my 1997 Saab, but there are drawbacks.

3. Speaking of drawbacks, my insurance company voted no on the Lyrica prescription. I need to find time to call my doctor's office and find out what we do about round 2.

4. On the other hand, the acupuncture is working. I took a walk with mirrorthaw yesterday after my appointment and had to double-take twice. Once because my ankle didn't hurt and once later because my thigh muscles weren't stringed-instrument-tense. It didn't last, but boy it was nice while it was there.

5. And finally, today I had the odd experience of consciously witnessing myself have a breakthrough. I've been struggling for most of a year, since before I broke my ankle, with cantering. (Yet another thing fantasy writers don't think about.) I fell off the first time I tried cantering off the lunge line--actually it was three hundred and sixty-three days ago, May 19, I just went and looked--and since then I've been struggling both to learn how to canter and to stop being afraid of it. (The huge hiatus because of the ankle did not help.) But today we were working off the lunge line, and I asked my teacher if we could try cantering. Not because I thought I ought to, but because I wanted to. She was delighted.

Milo and I cantered. I didn't fall off and I wasn't terrified I was going to (although I do need to quit trying to grip the stirrups with my toes). It was splendid.