An Ongoing, Erratic Diary - January 2001

Last night turned out much more pleasantly than I expected. I was still too sick to go party-hunting, so I curled up with a book and read until about 11. I wasn't planning on staying up 'til midnight -- there was no one here to kiss, Kevin was still on the road heading home and I assumed Jed would be out at a party somewhere. And while I usually enjoy New Year's parties when I go to them, it's never been a holiday I got sentimental about. I think I'm just too aware of the arbitrariness of calling today the first day of a new year.

And yet...when I logged on for a last e-mail check and found a note from Jed saying that he was home, and that I could call if I were up -- I was pleased. I called him up and climbed into bed, and we chatted for a while. And then at 11:45, call waiting beeped. I clicked over, and it was Kevin calling to let me know that he'd just gotten home. So I told him I'd call him back, and then I talked to Jed until midnight, kissed him, said goodnight, and then called up Kevin and kissed him too. Silly, yes. And the date is arbitrary. But nonetheless...a nice way to start the year.

I did stay up a little later than I probably should have, and when I woke up around 8 and came out to the living room, I sat down on the couch -- and then ended up lying down, pulling a throw over me, and falling fast asleep for another three hours. As a result, I feel a bit off today, in addition to the lingering sickness; I know lots of people don't get up until noon, but it always makes me feel unsettled. I enjoy living through morning, afternoon, and evening, in that order. :-)

I should be making resolutions, shouldn't I? There's not so much I'd want to change, though -- so here are my resolutions, such as they are:

Umm....that's about it, actually. I'm not sure I've ever had a New Year when there was less I wanted to change about my life. That's pretty cool.

Well, sorry for the rather dull New Year's entry. Why don't you stop by Strange Horizons instead? We just updated with a wonderful story by Ursula Pflug (I tried to buy her "Sewing Forgetfulness" for Maiden Voyage, eventually bought it for Clean Sheets, and am very pleased to be buying another surreal story from her now), an interview I did with Pamela Dean (poly fantasy author, very charming!), a poem, a review, and a rather long editorial I did on how to start a magazine. I wrote it in a mad doped-up Day-quil-induced rush yesterday, and I make no claims regarding its truth or usefulness, but you might at least find it amusing. I think I used up all my writing ability for the week on it, though, so I'd best go back to reading through all of my Mercedes Lackey novels. She wrote a lot of them, y'know?

Oh, I'm going to be typing 2000 for a while, aren't I?

I was reading over my entry for yesterday and realized that I sounded kind of self-satisfied and smug in it. Like my life is going so great that I don't have anything to worry about. Which is a funny impression to give. A better assessment might be that I'm still surprised by how well the last year has gone -- and I *think* I know some of the reasons why it's gone well, and how I think I can keep some of that going, but I'm not at all sure, and a lot of me is just crossing my fingers and hoping it keeps up.

One thing that definitely did go badly last year was my body. Oh, I finally had health insurance last year, so I got to the doctor and had my thyroid levels checked, and now I'm on double the dose I was on before. Which is good, I suppose -- it helps explain where those fifteen pounds came from in the last three years. But y'know -- I can't blame it all on the hypothyroidism, much as I'd like to. Last fall was insane, and I ate a lot more junk food than I normally do. And I missed Kevin, which made me mopey, so I just plain ate more than I normally do. And because I was running frantically most mornings to get to class on time, it was too easy to talk myself into jumping on the bus instead of doing that half hour walk...

Anyway. Point is that I *really* have to stop neglecting my body. And something I read recently (in a Mercedes Lackey book, of all things, talking about weapons-training, I think), reminded me that I don't *have* to do a full organized workout on a regular schedule to do my body some good. That no training is ever wasted -- which means that if I spend five minutes jumping around in my kitchen to Chip's bagpipe music, while reading my morning journals, that's better than lying on the couch reading them. And if I look silly, who the heck cares? Yet another advantage to living alone...

Interestingly, I also discovered today that clothing makes a huge difference to my desire to dance. I met with a lawyer today to talk about Strange Horizons incorporation, so I actually shed my pyjamas, showered, and dressed in real person clothes. Which happened to be a black leotard-type top, a long black skirt, black knee-high socks, and my new black boots. I threw a grey cardigan over the whole thing for warmth, but when I got home again, I took that off. And y'know -- it's the sort of outfit a dancer would wear. And while I most surely do not have a dancer's build, dressing like this makes me feel like a dancer. It reminds me of all those modern dance classes I took in college. It has me rising up onto the balls of my feet (I took off the boots when I got home too) and sliding down again, stretching my hamstrings. The clothes and music have me lifting a leg out behind me while I type, balancing and stretching and remembering that once upon a time, I could lift my leg straight up in front of me until it touched my nose. I might not be able to get down to the weight I was as a freshman in college -- but I bet I could get most, if not all, of that flexibility back. That'd be cool. So, here are some more concrete plans for taking care of my body -- trying to stay within the bounds of reasonable expectations, rather than grandiose dreams. :-)

Anyway. Silly little things for the most part, but I suspect that if I implement half of these, my body will be a lot happier with me. Which should mean that I get more work done in the long run... :-)

*When* did I turn into such a workaholic? I swear, it snuck up on me when I wasn't looking...

My 'puter's back!!! It was at the shop, poor baby, and it just got back, and I didn't even realize how much I missed it until I had in my hot little hands again. I much appreciate the loan of Kevin's old thing, but my baby is fast -- I have my cable modem again, and I even type faster. There was a lot of stuff I've been putting off because it was just too much of a nuisance trying to do it on his computer. I spent yesterday evening, much of last night, and this morning burning through another Lackey trilogy -- I'm close enough to the end that I'm going to finish it, but then I'm going to spend the rest of the afternoon working, and I can't tell you how happy that makes me.

I know, I'm a weirdo.

This evening, department buddies coming over for pizza, a game, and catching up on the break. This weekend, putting together a syllabus for tech writing this spring, and as much of the semester's reading as I can burn through. I'm taking a heavy academic load this time around, and the more I can get done in advance, the better. I may actually stick my tv back in the closet after next Monday -- my evenings are probably going to be spent reading for the next few months.

Heh. I remember, when I was a kid, wishing there was *some* job that would let me get paid to read. I didn't realize then that that was basically what a professor did... :-)

2:00 -- almost forgot. I meant to invite/ask/beg you all to consider voting in the Preditors & Editors Readers' Poll -- if you like Strange Horizons, if you've enjoyed our stories, poems, articles, etc., this is a good way of letting the world know that, and hopefully directing some more lovely people over to the magazine. Thanks!

Lots of computer futzing today, which resulted in some coolness -- I can now easily transfer photos from digital camera to computer. Which means that there will soon be photos illustrating the journal, at least occasionally. I'll try not to go too nuts with it -- I know it slows down load times, which is a nuisance for those of you on slow modems. To start that out, here's some from my recent train ride from Connecticut to New York:

We start in Berlin, Connecticut. That's the closest Amtrak station to Hartford. To be honest, I don't know a lot about Berlin, so I can't tell you much interesting about the city.

But their train station is kind of charming...

...and I really like that mailbox. It seems exceedingly New England-y somehow.

Before long, you're heading out of the city. The scenery is generally gorgeous, and I enjoyed it this time too, in a sort of bleak, winterish sort of way. You should see it in autumn though; that's just incredible. I was a little tired on this ride, so I probably didn't really appreciate it properly.

And in fact, I got tired enough that I mostly snoozed after Bridgeport. Except when the woman next to me insisted on talking to me. I had spent a little while chatting (very quietly) with Jed on the cell phone about magazine stuff (I didn't feel guilty about it because she had her cell phone out too, so we were boorish together), and she had overhead some and struck up a conversation about internet publicity and on another day I might have even been interested, but that day I was just tired. Serves me right, I suppose -- if I had just read a book, she wouldn't have bothered me.

Not the world's most exciting photos, I know -- I'm still getting used to the camera. And I got quite a few good ones of various family members, but I don't feel comfortable putting those up here without their permission. Maybe someday...

Now I've spent two hours on camera stuff, though, and I really ought to get back to doing some work. I'll talk to you later, my dears.

3:30. Sorting through old e-mails, trying to catch up. You'll remember that I mentioned Cat's song, "Acts of Creation" a few days ago -- Jed pointed me to her website, and I recommend it until you. She has lyrics and sheet music for many of the songs there; I'm listening to one of them now, "Word of God", which isn't what you might think from the title. Terrific stuff.

And while I'm recommending music, I've gotten addicted to the two Clandestine songs on the mix Chip and Shannon sent me -- I play them both over and over and over again. They're apparently from their first album, To Anybody at All -- "Peggy" and "Babylon". I thought perhaps they'd written "Peggy" themselves, but it's credited as traditional; it's another version of the "Gypsy Rover" song (aka "Black Jack Davy"), but my favorite version so far. And "Babylon" is their own arrangement of a traditional set of lyrics:

How many miles to Babylon?
Threescore miles and ten.
Can I get there by candlelight?
Yes, and back again...

They do a beautiful job with it, and it's especially satisfying to me because only a few months ago I read a fantasy novel based around those old lyrics -- so now I have music in my head to go with the story. I'm blanking on the author/title of the novel, though -- it's on my shelves somewhere, but the gods know where.

Anyway -- I have both of Cat's CD's ('cause Jed replaced my lost copies for Xmas :-), and I'm going to be picking up Clandestine's the next time some spare cash comes in. Recommended to you all.

9:45. Why is it that sometimes I can write nothing but poems about love? Though I suppose it's better than not writing at all...

Hey, munchkins. Feeling a bit random today. I've been working since I got up, but on such scattered things that it doesn't quite feel like I've been working. I did manage to read two plays (Ariel Dorfman's "Death and the Maiden" and Bernard Pomerance's "The Elephant Man", both good), Henry James's short story, "The Pupil" (also good), and am now three chapters in to De Silva's A History of Sri Lanka. I'd be further in, but I'm taking copious notes as I go; this is the first general history of Sri Lanka that I've read -- it's all new to me, and it's going to be very useful grounding for my stories. So I'm trying not to rush it. I would post some of my notes here, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't make much sense to you. I don't know if any of you are interested in Sri Lankan history anyway. I didn't actually think I was -- I decided to do this reading course out of a sense of duty, feeling that I needed the grounding to do a good job with my fiction. But oddly enough, so far I'm actually enjoying the reading. We'll see if that continues over the course of the semester.

I've got about forty pages 'til the end of this section of the book. The plan is to do that, and then decide what I want to do next. Now that my CD-ROM drive is working again, I'm very tempted by Heroes of Might and Magic III -- but I also have SH contracts to send out, and a syllabus to prep. Those can both be done tomorrow morning, though. Life is full of hard choices. :-)

Kinda sleepy, kinda unmotivated, but generally content. Not bad for a Sunday afternoon.

It's a Strange Horizons kind of morning. The new issue is up, with a story by Cecilia Tan (who bought *my* first story; it's such a pleasure being able to return the favor), a review of Anne Harris's Accidental Creatures (hopeful cyberpunk(!)), and a topology article. That last one is particularly fun for me -- it's by Bryan Clair, who I've mentioned in these pages before. He was one of the mathematicians at Chicago, friend of mine and Kevin's, and eventually married Elissa (who I roomed with at one point). He and I dated very very briefly. I'm not sure you can even call it dating -- but we did kiss. :-)

Anyway, he's written a really fun article, using puzzles and pictures to introduce people to some basic topology. I've always liked that kind of thing -- I actually scored higher on the analytical part of the GRE (which is basically this sort of stuff) than on the verbal. Is that weird or what? I sometimes wonder if I would have stayed with math, if I'd gotten some decent math training early. Wouldn't that be strange? Mary Anne the Mathematician. Hah! I did enjoy his article, though, and now I know what a manifold is. At least kinda sorta. :-) I suspect this is the kind of thing that Kevin was doing in 8th grade. (Kev's also a topologist; not sure if I ever mentioned. It always seemed the funnest part of math to me.)

Our regular newsletter editor is out with some personal business, so I took over for this week. I did it this morning, and was suddenly overwhelmed with this wave of nostalgia for the early days of CS, when I *was* the Articles and Reviews departments, wrote weekly editorials, *and* sent out the newsletter every week. Things have changed, and for the better. But it was kind of fun doing most of a magazine by myself every week. In a weird stay-up-all-night-swearing-at-the-HTML-code sort of way. Did I mention that I did all the coding? (Well, Kirstin X designed it, but I put it up every week. It was amazing how many errors would creep in that had to fixed. Will's got it all automated at Strange Horizons, and I suspect it goes much more smoothly for him. I hope so, anyway.)

Anyways, I have contracts to write and checks to send out. I may check back in later; it's a day for finishing off lots of little tasks, including a bunch of errands on campus, so I'm not sure how long everything will take. I'm also going to try to do another big chunk of the history book I'm reading; I'm meeting with the professor supervising me on Thursday morning, and it would be very satisfying to walk in having already read and finished taking notes on the first book. I get so ambitious at the beginning of the semester, and so much more...expedient...later on. :-)

Did I mention that I love grad school? I *love* grad school. If there weren't so much that I wanted to get done, I think I could happily be a perpetual grad student. Hey, Tim Pratt? You reading this? Go for it. Choose your program very very carefully, and be sure it's someplace you can be happy -- but then go for it. Grad school rocks.

I'm tired and cranky and I don't wanna start classes today. I wanna stay home and watch videos. Sadly, this is not an option.

Oh, I'm sure some part of me (probably a large part) is excited about the start of the semester. But I got into a mopey mood last night, continued mopey until about midnight, finally fell asleep after a long talk with David, and then woke up, still mopey. I know why I'm mopey too, and it's really not anything I can do anything about right now. That always drives me crazy. Helplessness is not my favorite state.

Let's think of more positive things, shall we? I got all my silly errands done yesterday. I bought new fish, and new filters for my tank (which was getting really scary). Hopefully the new fish won't eat the old ones (or vice versa) and the new filters won't kill off all the good bacteria in the process of cleaning out the bad gunk. I haven't dared to look at my tank yet this morning. Fingers crossed. It certainly was more interesting to watch last night, though -- the new fish are much more active than the old ones, who had somehow gotten in the habit of just hovering in quiet corners. Lazy buggers.

Okay. Positive. I'm thinking positive. I walked a lot yesterday; that's good. And I'm in good time today to walk to campus, which would also be virtuous. I should probably go make some tea, and then take advantage of the hour or so I have now to get some work done. I have been collecting rejections for "A Gentle Man" from the lit mags, and I need to sort them out and record them. Then I need to send a copy to Glimmer Train; we're in the January reading period now. Oh, and I had to wait on sending out the CS contracts because I didn't have #10 envelopes, but now I do (that was one of the errands for yesterday) so I can put those in the mail too. That'd be good. Heh. I wonder if any of the people getting contracts are reading this journal, tracking the progress of their checks. :-) Don't worry -- they're coming!

I'm feeling better at the thought of the work I have to do, which is a good sign. It's just early-morning-crankiness, not anything actually wrong. That's good. It's going to be a long day today, and I'd really rather not be unhappy all the way through it. I teach first, then I have narrative theory. That course has no reading list, so I couldn't get ahead over break, so I'm still not at all sure what narrative theory actually is. I suppose it'll be good for me, though. Fingers crossed. Then I have the class of Kathryn's that I'm auditing, Canonical Perversions -- mostly 19th c. British queers. Should be fun. :-) And then a short break for dinner, followed by three hours of fiction workshop. My Tuesdays are actually a little longer than a full workday; 10:45 - 8:00. I could complain, but since I'm here for half that time on Thursday and not at all any other day, I suspect complaining would be a bad idea. I do expect to be fairly tired at the end of the day Tuesday this semester. I can live with that.

Okie. Tea. Work. Long hot shower. Spiffy clothes to impress the students, since it's the first day (and never mind that by the end of the semester they'll be lucky if they get a real shirt instead of my pyjama top over my jeans). Pack up. A nice brisk walk to campus. It's all good, right? Right.

Hey, munchkins. I'm feeling much better today; sorry for the grumpiness yesterday. By the time I finished teaching my first class I was feeling fine. By the end of the day I was feeling exhausted, but still reasonably happy. Tuesdays are going to be long. This is a pretty heavy semester for me; I decided to actually take Kathryn's class, rather than just auditing it, which makes four courses I'm taking, plus one I'm teaching. Big load. I think I'll be okay, though -- I read several of Kathryn's books over break, and I do read fast in general. That's an immense advantage in grad school. Today I need to read about a fifth of a book on semiotics (for narrative theory), Jean Genet's Querelle (for canonical perversions), and the rest of that Sri Lankan history book (for my independent study; I'm meeting with the professor at 10 a.m. tomorrow). By Tuesday I need to do some fiction writing for workshop -- I think I know what I'm doing there, so that's not so bad. And I'm going to have daily writing for that class as well -- she wants us to keep an 'image notebook', where we record (in text, photography, sketches, whatever) a sensory image every single day. I know from past experience that I'm not terribly good at keeping this kind of thing regularly, so I think I'm going to try to put it in here. I'm hoping that'll make it more likely that I'll be consistent about it. They're likely to be very random -- just whatever image struck me the most that day. Things I see, memories, dreams, etc... Feel free to ignore them if you like. Or, if you're a writer, you could try joining in.

In other news, "A Gentle Man" was rejected by The Southern Review, Harper's, and Atlantic Monthly -- but Atlantic Monthly sent a nice personalized encouraging rejection, which thus shoots them to the top of my lit market submission list, along with Glimmer Train. I've just sent the story out to Glimmer Train, Agni and Black Warrior Review, and updated my literary markets list with some new info that came in over the holidays. Interestingly, at least one of those magazines actually takes sf/f as well -- mostly no, though.

2:30. Finished semiotics, fell asleep for a bit; still sick, and my cough got a little worse yesterday, so I'm inclined to let my body rest when it wants to. Genet and history left to read today. Also a bunch of e-mail I should answer, though that may get put off to tomorrow or Friday. We'll see. And I should at least look over the chapter I'm teaching tomorrow, though, since this marks the fourth time I'm teaching it, I'm not too concerned.

11:45. Well, I've read half of Querelle, but I got so grossed out that I just had to put the book down. We're inside the head of a murderer for part of it, and a lot of other men for the rest of it, and it's a really unpleasant place to be. It gives me much the same feeling that Fight Club did -- that if this is what men are really like on the inside, I don't want to know about it. I turned off the movie, but I have to finish the book for school. Ick. Yuck. The language is gorgeous, but that doesn't redeem it for me. Neither do all the sex scenes.

I called Alex back instead (he'd called yesterday when I was in class), and we had a really nice talk. And then I talked to Jed for a couple of hours. And I talked to Bryan earlier today (I wanted to tell him how much I enjoyed his article at SH), and between the three of them, I now feel reassured that not all men are as gross as the ones in that book. I decided not to even attempt anymore tonight; I'm setting my alarm for seven, and I'll try to finish it in the morning.

I've just spent half an hour reading history, which is remarkably soothing. I'm starting to suspect this author of having something of an anti-Tamil bias, which is a little distressing, but even if he does, it's showing up in such a mild way that I can easily live with it. And it's surprisingly peaceful reading about this invasion in the 13th century, and that war in the 14th century...who woulda thunk it? I'm being to suspect that I missed out, not reading any history between high school and now.

Before I go back to it, a quick note -- one of you asked what the image notebook was *for*. :-) If I understand the teacher correctly, it's not exactly for anything -- it's a space for free play, brainstorming, experiment, in a somewhat focused fashion. It's certainly possible that some of these bits will turn into stories sooner or later, but it's not required. They're experiments meant to keep your mind limber. We'll see how they go.

I'm thinking that I'll keep them at the bottom of the day's entry, so you can easily ignore them -- but maybe that's going to be confusing on days when I update multiple times? Tell me if you'd rather I just put it in at whatever point I wrote it that day -- I have no strong feelings on the matter.

G'night; sleep well.

Image Notebook

A few days ago I bought a family pack of chicken - eleven legs and thighs. I live alone, but it was cheap, and all I would need to do was break it up into two packages and freeze it. Later I would thaw it, and with some onions and spices, I would make two curries, enough to feed me dinner for at least a week, for less than five dollars. But I was tired when I got home, so I ended up just sticking it in the fridge. Sunday I got hooked on a computer game and ate mac and cheese for lunch and dinner because I didn't want to leave the game for longer than that. So that by the time I finally opened the package on Monday, it had started to go bad. It looked okay, but it smelled just slightly off, a whiff of foulness that I wouldn't have even caught without leaning close and sniffing. But if I'd thought about it, the smell alone would probably have made me sick. I remembered that in medieval times, lacking the benefits of refrigeration, they'd often used strong spices to disguise the taste of meat gone bad. So I cleaned and curried half of it, putting in plenty of chili powder and salt; I froze the other half, as originally planned. It seemed fine at dinner last night, but if I look at the curry and think about what's in it, I start to feel queasy. I spent twenty dollars that same day, on fish - the decorative kind, not meant for eating. I think my priorities are messed up.

Gods, I'm cranky! I set my alarm for 7:00, figuring I'd get about six and a half hours of sleep -- it's now 5:30 and I'm wide awake and I feel cruddy and I can't sleep anymore; I can't even lie down. My body does this weird thing sometimes when I'm sleeping where sheets and such around it feel incredibly uncomfortable and constrictive, to the point where I just can't stand it -- the feeling is not unlike miniscule ants skittering across my skin. Clothing has much the same effect. And it's too cold to sleep naked right now, which sometimes works. So I'm up. And actually still feeling that weird skin thing, but at least I can distract myself a little with typing; eventually it will go away but it's driving me nuts now. I'm not exactly tired -- I'll probably be okay today, since I had that little nap yesterday, but neither do I feel well rested. Argh.

6:15. Okay, writing in the darn image notebook made me feel better. I suppose that's one point in its favor.

8:30. Finished Querelle, thank the gods. I'm okay with discussing it, as long as I don't have to read any more of it. Really not my kind of book, for a variety of reasons. Showered. I feel somewhat better, though still a little cranky. I didn't finish that history book last night, of course -- I can get another half hour of it read before I head in to campus, which is not going to be quite as impressive as I'd hoped, but such is life. I'm sure he'll be fine with my finishing it for our next meeting.

I'm actually itching to write; the assignment for next workshop is to do what she calls a 'split personality' story, one in which you switch POV. I've done a fair bit of that kind of thing, but I had an idea while she was talking for one that could potentially work really well. We'll see if my execution lives up to my imagination -- and probably won't see until tomorrow, though it's possible that I'll get to it this evening. I don't want to mangle it through tiredness, though, so I may just rest this evening and go to a cafe and write all day tomorrow. That sounds like a really attractive option. I want it to be tomorrow now.

Image Notebook

When I knew him, he always wore jeans and a t-shirt. His features were so strong, and his body so long and slender, that he looked awkward, uncomfortable in his clothes. Bones jutted out at odd angles, and his face seemed too large for the rest of his body.

Naked wasn't much better, to be honest -- the limbs still long, the bones even more protruding. And he seemed to grow thinner every year, which only reinforced the sharp prominences of cheekbones and chin.

I first saw him in a suit at his dissertation defense. The lines of the suit draped elegantly over his too-long-limbs, and what had seemed overbearing in a t-shirt was transmuted into power. He took my breath away.

He wore suits for a few years on Wall Street, wore them to work every day. Working with millions of dollars daily added to his self-confidence, and to that look of controlled power. He was still too thin, and always looked hungry -- but in the suits, it looked good.

Wall Street decided some months ago that suits were no longer mandatory; they hang neglected in his closet now.

While I am happy for his increased comfort, it does seem a shame.

Yesterday turned out okay, despite my crankiness. Tech writing went smoothly (though we spent most of the class on introductions, so it would have been kind of difficult for it *not* to go smoothly), and narrative theory was fine. I'm supposed to write up something for Tuesday in that class, somehow explicating Saussure, Barthes, Derrida, Lacan and Benveniste. Meep. He said I could do anything from a purely academic analytical piece to a piece of post-modern fiction -- that sounds well and good, but I'm not sure what a piece of post-modern fiction really looks like. I suspect this may be causing me some stress this weekend.

Canonical perversions went really well; Querelle is certainly an interesting book to talk about, even if some of its contentions about masculinity do distress me. I wonder why it is that when fiction and film examine masculinity these days, they seem to focus on violence? Is that really such an integral part of being male? And why does it bother me so much? I grew up on the image of the hero, after all, and I'm really not a pacifist -- as long as he's defending his family, for example, I have no problem with him blowing away a bunch of bad guys. That's the sort of traditional 'manly' image that I do actually respond to positively; I admit to liking the idea of guys as defenders, strong protectors. Though, of course, I also want the text to acknowledge that the woman could also be blowing away the bad guys, should the need arise. And maybe that's part of it -- if the woman is just as capable, then where's the part that gets defined as solely manly? Does it end up being purely a readier access to violence? I'm just not comfortable with that. Part of me wants to urge writers to work on this -- to say that we need better images of masculinity. And of course there's another part wondering if we really ought to be perpetuating this feminine/masculine dichotomy -- does it really do much good, in the long run? How arbitrary is it, in the end?

Oog. Tough stuff. I'd be interested in hearing what the guys among you have to say on the subject. Is it important to you to think of yourself as 'male'? And which personality traits (or perhaps physical traits, like strength), do you think reinforce your male image?

After class, I ended up spending about an hour and a half copying with Jenn -- it would have been longer without her help. Nuisance. And sometime by Tuesday, I need to go buy some course packets at one place, and some textbooks at another place. I could wish that my professors could somehow consolidate all this into one place for the benefit of those of us without cars. Each of these errands is going to take at least an hour. But I'll read on the bus, so it'll really be fine. I'm just complaining for no real reason.

The rest of yesterday I spent reading fluff, watching tv, chatting a little with Jed, and talking with Ian Hagemann about an upcoming panel at Potlatch. I'm ringleading a diversity panel at Potlatch at the end of February (and if you're in the Bay Area, I'd love to see you there. :-), and it's a bit of a trick to figure out where, in the whole wide question of diversity, I want this question to go. I'm also trying to pull together my panelists, and it's tough 'cause Potlatch only lets people serve on one panel, and some of the people I wanted are already taken. You'll probably be hearing more from me on this.

At any rate -- I have a whole pile of little things to get done this morning, and then I'm going to go meet Jenn at a cafe and write, so I'd best get to it. Happy Friday, guys.

2:15. Today's not turning out quite as I expected. No sign of Jenn (she's sometimes a little...umm...flaky's not really quite the right word, because she's very responsible and capable and all that. I really don't know what is the right word, but sometimes things we plan on happening don't happen), and while I got a lot of computer work done I needed to do, I haven't done much else, and certainly not the writing I had sort of planned to do. I'm feeling blue today; sad and mopey and having a hard time getting up the energy to do much. I have a fair pile of reading to do, so I think I'll try to sit and do that; perhaps it will help. What I'd really like to do is sit with a friend on a couch and cuddle and drink hot chocolate, but that is sadly not an option.

10:45. I'm feeling much much better. Jenn called, and of course the thing that had come up was a very reasonable thing to come up. That's why she's not actually a flake -- she always has a very good reason when she misses something. She's just very busy. We're going to take another stab at it tomorrow.

I like to think I might have gotten some work done today if I hadn't called Kevin around 2:30. But it's just as well I did, since we talked until 9:30, and I felt a *lot* better by the time I got off the phone. We've both been very busy this past week, and so I haven't done more than check in with him briefly since last week, and what with all the beginning-of-school-craziness, graduate-student-anxiety, confusion-as-to-whether-Karina-will-be-able-to-come-visit, trying-to-schedule-a-little-time-to-see-each-other-in-the-next-two-months-in-bet ween-conferences,-friends-visiting,-and-job-presentations-for-him, it's been more than a little difficult to find time for a proper phone call. Which means that when we do finally have time to talk to each other, everything spills out, and it takes a while to sort through the muddle.

I'm not even sure what we talked about. Somewhere in there was almost a fight about whether it was good enough just to be ethical, or whether it was better to be actively honorable as well. We ended up with him acknowledging that there was something to be said for the honorable impulse, and with my acknowledging that the honorable impulse was generally the wrong thing to do in the situation if it wasn't agreeing with the ethical analysis, and somehow we managed to come to a peaceful resting place, but it got exceedingly heated along the way. I'm honestly not sure how I can get so incredibly upset with him over philosophical disagreements that wouldn't bother me at all in a classroom. I suspect it's because in a classroom, I'm generally quite sure I'm right, whereas when I'm arguing with him, I generally suspect I'm wrong and boy, do I not want to admit it. Luckily, this time I didn't have to. Quite.

Not everything that's been bothering me this week is resolved, but it's so much nicer having talked it all out with him. I feel like I can cope again. And I'm not going to let that narrative theory assignment defeat me, nope nope. G'night, munchkins. Hopefully, I'll get more work done tomorrow.

Image Notebook

Light suffuses the sky, glowing
behind thin clouds; the world
is luminescent in the early hours,
and the air above the mountains
is clean, every tree, every branch
sharply outlined and defined; it is easy
to make grand pronouncements, believe
in absolutes, in this cutting light.

My current compulsion is checking our standings in the Preditors/Editors poll. I'm very pleased that Strange Horizons is steadily climbing up through the ranks; we're at #7 as of this morning, and even if we don't climb any higher, that's pretty darn good for a magazine that came out just last September. And even better, Clean Sheets is on the list too, currently at #11. Considering it's primarily a sf/f poll, I was particularly pleased to see CS show up -- and I admit to a little pride to both of my magazines doing so well. CS isn't really mine anymore, and Susannah's doing all sorts of great things with it, including seriously increasing our readership there -- but I still figure I get some credit for starting it. :-)

SH and CS are also at #6 and #7 for poetryzine, and we both show up about midway in the nonfictionzine category as well -- CS somewhat higher than SH, which isn't surprising. Susannah's doing very well in the top editor category -- Jed and I appear to be splitting a fair number of votes for SH; it's too bad that we can't consolidate them. I don't really care in which direction, and I don't think he does either -- it's just a shame that one of us can't be up there in the top 5. More visibility for SH.

We may have a shot at winning at least one of the individual piece categories as well -- we have nominated pieces in each, but "The Passing of Sadly True" is up to #7 in the short fiction category. Very satisfying. I don't think it's quite my favorite story from last fall, but it's definitely up there.

I don't really know how much the poll is helping our readership, but the numbers have been slowly but steadily climbing nicely this last week, especially the last few days. Dunno why, but I'm not complaining. Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell them we'll have mugs and t-shirts soon! :-) And if you want to follow along in the poll results, you can.

Which reminds me that I need to get the specs to Lucy so that she can design them. Right. My brain is so scattered these days -- a thousand different things to do, and if something doesn't get onto my todo list, it almost certainly won't get done. Here's a sample:

Lots of random things, most not due at any particular time but needing to be done at some point. Some small, some big. I think I'm going to make some tea and try to finish off my reading now; I'm not quite in writing head yet. But that's the main goal for today -- write write write. We'll see if that happens at all.

8:00 -- Hey -- I was just looking at the poll again, and suddenly noticed my name in the best book editor category! That hadn't even occurred to me; I must be nominated for Aqua Erotica. That's so cool. :-) I'm way down at the bottom of the list, but I'm still pleased as punch about getting on there. If it was one of you munchkins who did it, thanks!

Image Notebook

He was suddenly crying hard. I could hear him clearly over the telephone, words muddled in the midst of tears. I could see him too, his hand tight around the phone, head bent, other arm hugging himself, curling into a small tight ball. And I, shocked by the tears appearing out of nowhere, silent, waiting for him to calm down, trying to decide what to say, if anything.

I woke knowing that he would never cry that way over me while we were both awake -- knowing this, even though he had, several times.

SH Poll standings: Fictionzine (#6!), Poetryzine (#6!), Short story: "The Passing of Sadly True" (#5!!). Still holding reasonably strong in Nonfictionzine, Poem, Zine Editor, and Nonfiction categories. Yes, I'm obsessed.

So I did some writing yesterday, of a rather odd sort. I took two stories, "Mint in Your Throat" and "Ghosts", which are both about the same event, from two different POV's, and combined them. I did this for an assignment, but I think I may like the result -- I'm not sure yet. If you're on the readers' list, haven't read the new version, and are going to in the next day or two, please skip the next paragraph for now. Thank you.

The thing about these stories is that "Mint" is inherently a much more dramatic story than "Ghosts". It has a lot of dramatic action, and it had a very punchy ending. I wasn't sure how to combine them, since if I just told them forwards, alternating, I think "Ghosts" would have been completely overshadowed by "Mint". I ended up telling "Mint" backwards -- and I'm not sure that helps. I suspect it confuses the reader, and while some paragraphs do play well off each other now, I don't know that all of them do. And I'm not sure that it accomplishes the purpose of highlighting "Ghosts", allowing it to be more of a clear focus. I think it's worthwhile trying to combine the stories, because they both deal with the issue of consent, but from very different angles. The main focus of "Mint" is on a) trying to retain some control in a situation where control has been taken away from you, and also b) exploring what happens when your own body betrays you -- in some sense, when it participates in your coercion. It does a fair bit; I think it's one of my better stories. "Ghosts" is different, and I think doesn't do as much, but it does also try to explore consent, through another situation in which a male is coerced into sex. It's a subtler piece in some ways, because he does actually want to have sex throughout, wants it badly -- but at the same time, this is not how he would have chosen to have sex, and he is being coerced by her needs and force of desire, though he may not quite understand it herself. Part of what does interest me about this piece is gender-related; the question of how men can be coerced into sex, whether they can recognize the coercion, or if they're so culturally programmed into thinking they must want sex all the time that it doesn't ever become evident to them. I'm not sure all that came through in the original, though, and I'm particularly concerned about it being overwhelmed in this merged version. Perhaps what I need to do is really work on his part and try to bring all of that out more. Hmm...puzzling. I'll probably call up Jed and pester him about all this later -- he's excellent at helping me think out the problems in a story. Part of why he makes such a fabulous editor. :-)

So I worked on that for a while yesterday, and I reviewed the Starlight anthologies -- which, may I say again, are just excellent. And really unpredictable. I then drafted a set of questions to ask their editor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden -- I'll be interviewing him for SH in March. I'm not entirely happy with the questions -- it's a little hard to know what to ask beyond: "So how did you find such great stories?" I've sent the list off to Jed and David for comments, and hopefully they'll come up with something more precise and useful than I did. If you have any questions or thoughts on the subject, please feel free to send them in!

I also finally started reading Dark Matter, which Jed got me for Christmas. So far, I'm very impressed! I'm about a quarter of the way through; I'm hoping to finish it today. If I can manage that, then around the end of the week I'd like to get back to work on that Asian sf/f book proposal, which is now about a month behind my original schedule. Sigh. I'm not certain how much work I'll get done this weekend, since Kirsten is coming to visit for her birthday, yeah! But I suspect some. She's very good at entertaining herself with books, and she's more of a stay-up-late person, so I can still work some solid hours in the early morning before she wakes. We'd hoped that Kev might be able to come out this weekend too, but the fares were painful. Either in three weeks or four, though, depending on his talk schedule. He's not exactly actively going on the job market, but there are some schools that may be interested in him for next fall, and if they ask him to come speak, he needs to be available to do that. Makes scheduling tricky.

So, finish Dark Matter today, possibly work on the merged story some more, reread theory more slowly, trying to understand it, and hopefully revise "Savariian" and get it into shape to send out. That may be overly ambitious a goal, but it's on the list, at any rate. I think that's probably enough to keep me busy, especially since I should also do laundry and clear my desk. (Doesn't clearing your desk sound like a simple, straightforward task? But it means dealing with everything on the desk, which means that it takes from 1-8 hours. :-)

Weekend? What's a weekend? :-)

Heh, don't let me fool ya. I like this stuff. I did take a little time last night to veg out over Disney's Hercules, which I hadn't seen before. All sorts of weirdnesses about that movie, including the convolutions they went through to make Hercules mortal, because of course they couldn't admit that Zeus screwed around with mortal chicks even though he had a goddess wife. And frankly, the music sucked. I really like gospel music, which is what they were trying to go for, but this stuff was often incomprehensible, and definitely not catchy. Very sad. The whole sports metaphor also did little for me. I did like that the heroine, Meg, was an actual adult, with actual adult relationship/personality-type issues. I thought she was pretty interesting and cool, for a Disney heroine. On the other hand, she seemed pitched for an older audience than the rest of the movie, which was pretty disconcerting. And making Hades out to be 'evil' irritated me. Weird all around, but the big battles with the Hydra and the Titans were pretty cool. I think we could have used way more of the Herculean tasks (like cleaning out the stables -- they really missed the comic boat not using that one) and way less of the constructed plot and bad songs. Ah well.

Theoretically, I was going to a party last night, but too tired, and starting to cough again. Didn't feel like walking even five blocks through the snow at 9 p.m. So today, tea, honey, and possibly some Nyquil tonight. I don't feel ill -- but I don't feel well either. Better safe than sorry.

9:30. Oof. Those stories in Dark Matter are intense enough that I feel like I need to take a break between each one. There is so much pain in some of them...it sometimes makes it seem hard to breathe. So I walked away for a moment, and I'll take this chance to tell y'all to send Todd a note, congratulating him on what I believe is his first print fiction publication -- "Expanding on an Idea" has just appeared in Best American Erotica 2001! Woohoo! And I *think* (though my memory is weak) that I get credit for convincing him to let us publish it in Clean Sheets, which is where Susie found it for BAE. Ah, the moments that warm an editor's heart. :-) I know Todd doesn't really think it's an impressive story, but it's fun and interesting, which is rarer in fiction that you might think. I could wish that Susie had chosen one of my more serious stories for BAE 1999 (she took "Fleeing Gods"), but better to be published than not, eh? Let's also note that Todd's story opens the collection -- very nice!

And while we're noting publications, Best Women's Erotica 2001 has just come out, with a light piece of mine, The Survey. I had fun writing this one; I imagine it set at the U of C (at about 53rd and Kenwood), with some dreadfully earnest virgin undergrad -- maybe a math geek? :-) I used to work for NORC, the National Opinion Research Center, and while I didn't actually work on a survey like this one, they did run some strange things out of there...

11:00 p.m. I was just reading Patrick's journal, and he spends a while today talking about how he's not sure if he's on the right track -- and wondering if everyone else wonders that sort of thing all the time too. And I don't, really. I mean, some choices feel very right (like grad school) and some feel very wrong (like my third year of temping), but there are a lot that are fairly random -- where I just went with what seemed like a good idea at the time. And not all of them work out well, but somehow it doesn't feel like I made the wrong choice, but more as if 'well, this is the way my life is going these days'. Hmm...that sounds awfully fatalistic, and I don't usually think of myself as fatalistic. Maybe cheerfully fatalistic though, if that description makes any sense at all.

Almost done with Dark Matter, did another revision of the merged story that I think I'm much happier with (after long conversation with Jed, of course), watched Howard's End, which was very good indeed. Sleepy. Going to read one more story and then go to bed.

Image Notebook

Two cream pillars on brushed gold stands. One coconut-vanilla cube on a low steel platform. One textured wine pillar on a waist-high wrought-iron stand. Two cream tapers in brass and steel twisted candlesticks. Two pear votives in gold ball holders. One tea light within a globe of red and white mosaic. Six tea lights in blue glass triangles, suspended by thin silver wire from a branching silver tree. Icicle Christmas lights.

And one glowing laptop screen.

SH Poll standings: Fictionzine (#5!), Poetryzine (#7!), Short story: "The Passing of Sadly True" (#4!!). Still holding reasonably strong in Nonfictionzine, Poem, Zine Editor, and Nonfiction categories. Still obsessed.

I really did mean to update yesterday; I thought about it off and on all day. But I was so anxious with everything else that was due today that it just didn't happen. S'okay, though theoretically that image notebook is supposed to be every day. Monday is clearly a day I should just not try to do anything but work, given that everything is due on Tuesday this semester. Instead, I played a little bit of computer game in the morning, and had lunch with Jim and Kerry, which was fun, but somehow stretched out for a long long time. I finally got to really working around 5; it was a late night.

But I'm reasonably happy with my semiotics piece, which did end being a piece of postmodern creative nonfiction after all; I did it in the form of a letter to Kevin (one I will actually send, since there's stuff in there he doesn't know) talking about semiotics through the lens of our relationship. I'm not sure I can summarize that in a way that makes any sense -- here's a random sample paragraph, which also probably won't make sense. :-)

"And then my junior year I met you, a grad student mathematician. And before long, when I heard the word "math", I also heard the word "love". As the years went by, more and more signified meanings were added to the sign of "math". Failure had to make room for sexy, and for brilliant, and for socially inept. And those were perhaps already part of the broader cultural myth of "math", as witnessed by Good Will Hunting, but they became inextricably part of my own private signification. Society may reinvent the mathematician's image ten times in the next ten years, adding layers of meaning to the myth, but my own "math" will never again be the same as theirs."

What's particularly odd about this piece is that it's nakedly honest, in the way my letters to Kevin generally are (perhaps a bit more so than most, actually), enough so that I'm not comfortable posting it in its entirety here -- and yet I'm handing it in to class. I know my classmates will be reading it through the lens of 'this is an assignment' and perhaps not trusting the truth of it as a real letter...but then again, they might. And if they do, they will know far too much about me. I had some of the same feeling when I handed in a piece on poly stuff to a workshop at Mills. This writing thing; is scary.

At any rate, I've done more writing this weekend that I have in months. In fact, I'm not sure if I've ever (other than at Clarion) gotten so much done so quickly. I blame Tim Pratt. (I know he's shocked at seeing his name show up out of nowhere. :-) Hi Tim!) Seriously, the man is fiercely productive. It scares me. I think he has a full-time job and everything and he still produces like mad. Reading his journal maks me feel that if I don't write or revise something every day (preferably twice a day), I'm a big fat wuss who doesn't deserve the honorable title of writer. Which is nonsense, of course, but it does serve as a motivating force, so I'll just take advantage of that and continue with the nonsense.

Hungry, sleepy. Must eat something and drink tea if I'm to get through the day. Later, munchkins.

Aw, guys. It sounds marvelous. He sounds gorgeous. I wish I were there.

Karen and Par had their son, and my only actual regret about leaving the Bay Area for Kevin and then for grad school is not being there to get to know them better -- them and the new member of their family. There are other people I miss, of course, but those relationships are old and strong and generally pretty stable. Karen and Par and I were still pretty close to the beginning of ours, and I do wish that the timing had been better on this whole Utah thing.

At any rate, I don't want to have a lot of mopey wistful thoughts distracting from the joy. This news made my day and probably my week. I want to call and burble at them, but they're probably exhausted. I'm pretty sure the civilized thing to do is send a card. I'll send a card, but I'll probably break down and call too. Par can fend me off if Karen's too tired to talk.

Will probably check back in later -- have some things I need to do this morning. In the meantime, go read this week's issue of Strange Horizons -- I forgot to remind you Monday. David's got a Top 5 books in sf which I know you could argue with (he wants you to! :-), there's a new story by Jo Walton (who did "Relentlessly Mundane" some months back, which I do think is one of the best fiction pieces we've published), a new poem by Kurt Newton (we're moving to twice monthly on poetry, remember), and a review of The Coen Brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou? -- the film sounds interesting.

12:15 a.m. -- so technically tomorrow, but we'll leave it here. I should be asleep, and probably will be soon, but at the moment am feeling wide awake; I've been reading for a couple of hours (Elizabeth Moon's Liar's Oath) and am all full of the book and not sleepiness. I'm writing because I'm pretty sure that I had a whole bunch of things I've been wanting to mention in the journal but haven't because I've been distracted by other things (like Heroes of Might and Magic III). And now I can't remember what they are. I think I sort of vaguely wanted to address the productivity thing -- both Tim and Todd wrote me protesting responses regarding how productive I was, and how I managed to do so much...and, and, and....I dunno.

I know I accomplish a lot. It's true. But I also know that I don't *feel* like I'm working nearly as hard as I felt I was working when I was dragging myself to a secretarial job every morning. Yes, I read several books over break, getting a head start on the semester, when I could have been goofing off. But I enjoyed them. It wasn't a matter of doing work I didn't like -- it was just letting my awareness of what would be quickly productive help select the kind of work/play that I would be doing. And I get really frustrated when I play computer games these days -- I enjoy them when I'm playing (and I have great trouble stopping), but I feel almost sick afterwards with all the time that has just been used up on what is basically distraction -- no added learning, and making my body feel awful in the process (though I don't notice that until I stop).

I just figured out at some point that I really had more fun doing the productive work. I think it's like those exercise junkies -- the ones that get a high from exercising. Yes, it's sometimes difficult getting over the initial hump -- sitting down to write the paper, or the story, or even start reading the dense book (or face a new class of students). But the pleasure I get from that is just so much better than the pleasure of watching tv or reading a string of fluffy novels (which I did a lot of over break, if you remember) or playing computer games. It's not virtuous. It's not even all that hard. So I feel very weird when people try to give me credit for it.

(I sort of want to make a parallel claiming it's like sex with a partner(s) instead of masturbating. But I'm not sure that really holds up very well. And I'd have to tell you far too many personal details to do the comparison justice, so we'll leave it for now.)

I was talking to Kirstie a little while ago and she mentioned something about my living below the poverty line these days. That's not quite true, since I have some writing income to add to the measly grad student salary. But close enough. You'd think that I'd be frustrated by that -- but it feels right. I'm having much more fun than I would in a secretarial job; it makes sense that I would be paid much less, right? What's going to be strange will be when I finish, become a professor, and do work that I suspect will be even more fun -- but for much more money. That's just strange. It makes me think about becoming a communist all over again.

I do understand how hard it is getting over that initial hump, though. I haven't exercised in weeks. So much for my good resolutions.

Image Notebook

Small magnets at the base
of the shower curtain have disappeared
over the last year; as the hot water
pounds down, the curtain billows up.
Mostly a minor nuisance, except
for yesterday, when it slid up
against my slick body and I
stepped into the curtain,
instead of pushing it away --
stepped into it and was enveloped
within it. Thin wet plastic
held me like a ghost of a caress;
imagined skin, against my loneliness.

Kirstie comes today! Not 'til late tonight, though, so I do have to think about the work I need to do first. Mostly classes and then coming home and cleaning -- she's not going to care if my place is a mess, but I will. A bit silly, since she was my roommate for years and knows just how messy I get...oh well. I have some vague idea that I might try to do some sf writing this evening, but I suspect that's just goofy. I really do want to revise "Savariian" and send it out, but maybe we'll have time for that tomorrow; she's bringing some work with her, because she has a big presentation due this week, so I suspect I'll drag her to Borders tomorrow.

Hmmm...I thought I had more to say. Ah well, maybe later. Hope y'all are having a good week.

Image Notebook

I washed two jam jars and painted them with stained glass paints -- one a translucent red, the other an opaque cobalt blue. Filled halfway with blue glass pebbles, a little water, a paperwhite bulb nestled above. Over the last week they grew in the sunlight, small green sprout shooting higher and higher until they were taller than my arm is long. Lovely small white flowers at the top -- but they smelled wrong. I remember the scent from last year as spring rain; these smell more complex, less pure. And I do not know if it is the bulbs, or my memory, or me, that has changed.

I'm not quite so out of touch that I don't realize that it's also inauguration day, but frankly, I was a lot happier focusing on Kirstie's birthday instead. :-) Lovely visit so far; we spent much of yesterday shopping (found a cute blue velvet dress, and possibly a rocking chair), and today doing various and sundry. Umm...I brought her fruit salad, danishes and tea in bed; we lounged around for hours listening to music (very reminiscent of college roommate days); eventually bought groceries and I made Sri Lankan food for her -- nothing fancy, just shrimp curry and green beans and rice. It's what she wanted, and since it's her birthday, that's what she gets. :-) Then I dragged her to Lynn and Jason's baby shower, where she endured meeting lots of people she didn't know. After about half an hour of that, we ditched them all and went to see Chocolat, which was utterly charming and recommended. I have one minor quibble at the end, but it's not important. And may reflect more on myself than on the movie anyway. Then we went for some more food (it's been a fairly food-oriented birthday) at an Italian place next to the theater; we split pasta with meatballs, and then had dessert. Talked for a couple of hours, ran into sf author M. Shayne Bell at the restaurant (!) and gave him a SH card, of course, and now we're home again. Jiggity jig.

More soon, probably including a bunch of photos because I've been going a bit nuts with the camera lately, as has Kirstie. I got a reader comment recently asking for more photos of me in the journal. Your wish is my command:

Sunday morning, and we're quietly working. I've enjoyed a lot of living alone, but it is awfully nice having someone here to make tea for (and vice versa), someone to appreciate my cooking, someone to steady me while I perch precariously on a chair (and two phonebooks) hanging a light. Having Kirstie visit offers all the pleasures of having a roommate again without any of the problems. I wouldn't mind if she stayed another week or two, but she goes back tonight. Oh well...

I did promise you more photos, didn't I? She's kindly been helping me fix my appalling photos-of-myself-in-Utah-deficit. Now, keep in mind that it takes something like twenty photos of myself before I find one I can tolerate, and you'll get a sense of what a true friend she is. :-) She's actually really interested in photography, though more nature than portraiture, I think, so she tends to take artsy-type photos:

We'll probably spend some more time today putzing with the camera though, so you may actually get a photo of my entire face at some point. I bet you're excited. :-)

Other news -- well, I'm really behind on my e-mail, so I'm not sure what my other news is. Someone did ask what ever happened to those CD's I was going to record. I did actually record them, but I don't have the funds right now to duplicate them. I'm expecting a biggish check (which should have arrived more than a week ago), and when that gets here, I'll jump on Blue's case to finish the graphic design and then get the CD's copied. I had hoped to have them done in time for Valentine's Day, but I don't think that's going to happen, since it generally seems to take 4-6 weeks for duplication. That's a shame, esp. since I already missed having them for Christmas, but such is life. Not the top priority in my schedule, so the project has been a bit neglected. Here's a list of what's included though, so you can start thinking about whether you'll want a copy. I'm not sure of the pricing yet; I'm guessing it'll be about $10 each, but it depends a lot on how much the final duplication costs are.

Esthely Blue

  1. And the sea is shaking...
  2. Dreams of a Lover
  3. Renewal
  4. Her Body Awakened
  5. Poem for a University
  6. Lessons
  7. Letter
  8. One Week After Departure
  9. Systematic Pressure
  10. Chorus
  11. Return Visit
  12. Spinning Down
  13. Invocation
  14. the bones, they want to fly
  15. Johnny's Story
  16. Cobalt Blue
  17. Last Night
  18. Thoughts Before Going to Bed, Alone
  19. Fringes
  20. Feasting
  21. commuting
  22. Esthely Blue
  23. Sitting Under a Tree, in the Rain

Currently Untitled (suggestions?)

  1. Blind
  2. A Jewel of a Woman
  3. You'll Understand When You're Older, Dear
  4. Japanese Garden
  5. Letter Found Near a Suicide
  6. With Ocean Waiting Below
  7. Morningsong
  8. God's Body
  9. Kali
  10. Confessions of a 26-Year-Old Female Porn Writer
  11. Fleeing Gods
  12. The Ongoing Adventures of Gorgeous Gracie
It looks like the second one is a lot shorter, but they're both pretty close to a full CD. The second one is mostly stories, though, and the first is mostly love poems. I think I'd give the first one a PG-13 rating, and the second an R rating, if that helps distinguish them. Pretty much all of them are available in either the Poems or Stories sections of this site, I think.

Okie, back to work. I'll talk to you munchkins later...

9:30 p.m. It's quiet here. I miss her already.

I should have worked this evening, but kept getting distracted. I messed with a pile of photos for a while, and then started reading a book Kirsten bought me, Michelle West's Hunter's Moon. It's okay so far; Kirstie said later books in the series were really good, so I just had to get through this one. There are very few people who I would trust to make such a recommendation -- trust enough to read a not-great book for. Hopefully, we'll see that trust rewarded.

I know I have tons to do; my desk is a mess, but I just can't face all these bits of paper. I've gone through most of the backlogged e-mail, but there's still a few things to be handled. I've been fighting off a cold all weekend; dosed up on Nyquil last night because I was up coughing half the night before. I think I'll take Nyquil again tonight; I need the solid rest if I'm going to get through tomorrow. Lots of reading for Kathryn. Some reading for workshop. Some reading for narrative theory. Lots of reading for history. Meep. I suspect I'm going to have tired eyes by the end of tomorrow.

It'll be okay. I'm just a little mopey right now. I think I'm going to write in my Image Notebook, drink some Nyquil, and take the West book to bed. The rest can wait until tomorrow.

Image Notebook

In the cafe, she laughs, a forkful of chocolate mousse in one lifted hand. Light glints off the citrines at throat and earlobes; she is very beautiful in that moment. Before the light can fade, I have grabbed camera from coat pocket, snapped the photo heedless of the other restaurant patrons. It is her birthday, after all; they will have to cope. But when I come home and examine the photo, the gems are dark and her eyes are closed. I have missed the moment of light.

I don't know why I'm typing when I should be reading. How odd that writing seems easier at this moment than reading. I think it's the sheer bulk of the reading that daunts me...

That's a fairly typical pose -- I'm not wearing the same clothes I was wearing then (Saturday?), but otherwise, it's a decent representation of me in this moment. Picture blue flannel pyjama bottoms and a black t-shirt with the collar cut out and Sandman's Death on the front for a more accurate image. No watch. Messier hair.

It's also the closest you're going to get to a full face photo for now; we spent yesterday afternoon working and making candles and never got back to photo taking. Oh well. Karina may come for a brief visit shortly -- if she does, I'll push the camera into her hands and make her take pictures of me. She won't mind, since I'll be doing the same for her. We're both somewhat narcissistic that way. :-)

Okay, I will now exert discipline and go read. We shall meet anon...

9:00 p.m. Not as far ahead as I'd hoped, but not as far behind as I'd feared. I may go a bit short on sleep tonight, but it's my own fault if so -- I took a few hours to finish that Michelle West book, Hunter's Oath (I think I got the title wrong yesterday). It definitely improved as it went, and I'm now eager to read the next one. Which sort of sucks, 'cause I think that means that I'm now in the midst of three epic fantasies, none of which are completed yet (by the authors). Frustration. Confusion. It's my own dang fault for not waiting until the series were written before starting them, though. At least the West theoretically only has one more book left to be written; I think the Martin does as well, but I'm not sure. I have no clue about the schedule on the Rhapsody series.

Exciting news, though -- Karina's coming! We weren't sure if she'd be able to make it out this year, but it looks like all's well, and in fact, she'll be here Saturday (which means she has several very busy days ahead of her now). She'll be staying with me until the third week of February, and Kevin will be coming out to join us for at least one long weekend. :-) :-) :-) I don't know how to explain it, but there's a part of me that only feels truly right with the world when it's the three of us.

Of course, this means that the rest of the week will be insanely busy, as I try to get as ahead as I can so that I'm not completely swamped with work and ignoring her while she's here. While, at the same time, trying not to get sick. Hmm...more Nyquil tonight? Maybe. My cough seems better, but a guarantee of a good night's sleep is worth a lot.

Back to my reading now -- and if you're looking for something to read -- it's Monday! Strange Horizons Day! With a great and chilling story by Michael Jasper, "Crossing the Camp" (especially pleasing to carry because he used to work with us, where he was fondly known as Jasper), an interview by Cheryl Morgan, whom I met at WisCon, with Jane Routley, who apparently writes something in between fantasy and romance, and a review of the Dune miniseries which will be out in video soon! I missed it on tv, and after reading the review, I am eager to see it. David has seen it two or three times now, I think.

Image Notebook

the snow in her hair melting and her eyes brightly shining under the streetlights and she is laughing she is tilting her head back and eating snowflakes eagerly she is more alive in this moment than some people are in months and I want to kiss the pulse at her throat and I wish I could pick her up in my arms and whirl her around in the falling snow laughing!

Everyone say happy birthday to Heather -- and make her smile, okay? She's having a rough month.

As for me, I've had a long long day. Up at 7, working straight through 'til 9 p.m. Meep. I'm okay, but feeling pretty brain dead, so I think this is going to be an exceedingly brief entry. I think Voyager is on.

Morning, munchkins! It's barely morning here -- I slept 'til 10, bizarrely. I think my body is trying to tell me it doesn't want to get sick. I'm okay with that in theory, but in practice -- that's four hours of the morning, wasted! Eep.

Before I give you the laundry list of what I'm doing today, here's something far more interesting and amusing -- Bruce Sterling's Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackout. The man is funny and educational at the same time. I wanna be able to do that. Oh well -- I can at least link to those who can.

Here's today's plans:

Yah, only about half of those will probably get done. 'read history', for example, is due tomorrow morning and will probably take a good six hours, since I have an entire history book and an article to get through. And of course there's laundry and dishes and cleaning in there. But the list sounds good, doesn't it? It almost seems manageable.

7:00. Well, we're progressing, slowly. I just finished a very interesting essay on how historians have been reading ancient Sri Lankan texts. This sounds dry as dust, doesn't it? Until you realize that an awful lot of the current ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka is based on some of these ancient texts, and on the way they've been used as justifications for a particular sort of belief in the importance of early Buddhism in Sri Lanka. There's a lot of rhetoric in this conflict about ancient Sinhalese Buddhism (supposedly 'pure'), and the invading Tamils from South India, and much of it is based on these ancient texts that have been taken as 'true' and 'historical' by academics.

The author of the essay proves (pretty conclusively in my opinion) that in fact, these texts were very much constructed at the time with particular religious and other ideological/political purposes -- that it's not at all safe to pick one of them and call it 'history'. And he does a really good job of explaining (in a footnote to his conclusion) why it's critically important for academics to seriously rethink what they've been doing. If there are words you're not familiar with here, just skim over them; I think you should be able to get the gist without them:

"Obviously, scholarship alone cannot solve the problems in Sri Lanka. But just as the mass media have been employed in order to reinforce the communalist program that has torn Sri Lanka asunder, so they can be employed in order to undermine that program. There are hopeful signs at the time of this writing that steps in this direction are now being taken, as the Sri Lankan press begins to focus upon the needs and goals common to all ethnic groups in the country, and as Lankika ("Sri Lankan") begins to displace "Sinhala" and "Tamil" as terms of national identity. But undoing the damage done by scholarly constructs requires redressing the construct of Sri Lankan history as well as the construct of modern social divisions. It is incumbent upon the Sinhala press, broadcasting corporations, textbook designers, and especially politicians to make use of scholarly reexaminations of the complex manner in which the traditional Sri Lankan polities, both before and after the Okkaka dynasty, worked to forge union rather than disunion among different linguistic and religious social groups, on the basis of subtle grammatical and theological epistemologies which, hierarchical though they surely were, constituted all Sri Lankans as parts of a larger whole, and moreover understood Sri Lanka itself to be part of a still larger whole. It is especially incumbent upon scholars to start making those reexaminations." ("Buddhist History", _Querying the Medieval_, Jonathan S. Walters, 149)

That all sounds very calm and academic, doesn't it? But it's really a strong demand for academics to a) realize that they've been interpreting things wrongly, b) realize that those interpretations have contributed to the conflict -- and to many many deaths and other tragedies, and c) start doing something to make amends for that damage -- or at least to stop contributing to it. I'm going to meet with my professor tomorrow and ask him what effect, if any, this essay has had on current scholarship (it's very recent). Hopefully some.

11:00 p.m. 100 pages to go. And a poem.

one of the ways in which you amaze me even though it has been so long
that one might think that I would have gotten used to everything by now

what amazes me
is that
you know
when I am not
being true
to myself
even though
it is not
evident
to me

and even better
that you wait
for me
to figure it out
for myself

and even better
that you simply
wait
for me

Image Notebook

It starts with a rustling, barely perceptible through solid glass. And when you look up, the branches are still -- but the leaves are shivering, everywhere. A large piece of battered paper skips across the neighbor's roof, dancing. You know that if you open the window, your hair will lift and tangle. And as the rustling grows louder, for no good reason at all, you are happier than you were a few moments ago.

It's snowing, really hard. I should have anticipated this; last night it felt like a storm rising. But somehow my brain translated rising wind into 'rainstorm' instead of 'snowstorm'. I'm a goober. My students will be happy, though -- they get great skiing. And Karina will be delighted; part of why she comes out here is love of snow, rather than love of us. :-) I had been worrying a little, because most of the snow on the ground had melted by yesterday; I needn't have worried. If only she were here right now so she could go dance in it. And even better, so I could talk her into going in and teaching/taking my classes so I could stay inside with a nice cup of hot chocolate. That's what people are *meant* to do in a snowstorm.

I need to go wash my hair now if I want it to be close to dry before I start walking in to campus, so I'll try to check in later with y'all. I also have about forty pages of that history left to read before I go in; I have an hour to do it, so I should be fine, but not if I spend too long futzing about here. Until later, munchkins.

Image Notebook

Hey, munchkins. Having a good Friday? Mine's pretty good so far -- met with a student, churned through a bunch of mail, ate a Lean Cuisine meal for lunch that is supposedly their top seller, which makes me think that I really ought to call them up and offer to give them a better recipe, 'cause that one was pretty sad. I'll cook tonight, but I'm in enough of a work mood that I didn't want to pause long enough to chop onions and make a curry.

Here's what's left for today:

Hah! I'm so optimistic in the mornings. You've surely noticed that many of those have rolled over from the last time I made such a list. :-) S'okay. I'm actually making good progress on item #2 on there, which is one that's been hanging around for a long time, so that's good. I think today is mostly going to be a SH day -- trying to get the promotional items going, getting that Hayden interview underway, sending out the updated guidelines with the new pay rates, reading Heir to review, and in the process of clearing out my desk, sending out some checks and contracts. If I manage to get all that done today, I will be very satisfied with myself. Exceedingly so. Fingers crossed...

Image Notebook

Sitting across from me on the bus, a big man, bulky with crew cut and camouflage jacket; the kind of man who I tend to assume is someone I would not want to be stuck in an elevator with. And then he reaches into his duffel bag, pulls out a library copy of Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone, opens it eagerly to somewhere around page twenty or so, and I am feeling very embarrassed, but also delighted.

Please note that if you're reading this in the monthly format and experiencing significantly faster load times, you have Jed to thank for harassing me into putting height and width tags into the images. I'll try to remember to put them in in future. Let me know as well if the 4x6 images (such as the one below) are too large for you (either for your screen or your load time) -- I can shrink them down to 3x5 at least.

I'm supposed to go run around with Carol this morning doing errands; she'll give me a call when she's up and ready. I think my brain must have been anxious about sleeping through her call; it started waking me up around 6 or so, even though I strictly told it last night that I needed to sleep until at least 7. I opened my eyes at one point, groggily pulled over my clock, and saw that it said 10:30. I couldn't quite believe it, since it was still pretty dark in my room, but the wind was howling outside my window, and I figured that it was possible that a rising snow storm might make it very dark. When I got up and went to the kitchen, that clock said 6:30. I came back and realized I'd read the second hand on my alarm clock at the 10. I banged my head against the wall a few times, then went and got my camera and took a picture from my bedroom window. The wind was fierce, and I wish I could have taken a picture of me, in my nightgown, with my sheer white curtains billowing in around me. Like something out of Interview with a Vampire. You'll have to settle for the mountains instead.

I was feeling particularly disgruntled because I'd just woken from a bad dream. And not that I wanted to stay in the dream, but I wanted to shift into a better dream before waking up, so that I wouldn't have the memories of that one lingering in my head. Orson Scott Card and I were both guests at a convention -- he was Guest of Honor, and I was one of the little piddling panel guests (one of hundreds). It wasn't WorldCon, but it wasn't a tiny con either. Something in between. He had finally read my writing, and he hated it. Thought it was somewhere between puerile and disgusting. He had been publically vilifying all through the first day at the con, getting worse and worse until he was finally insulting me personally. My two younger sisters were at the con, and were defending me to him, but they just weren't cut out for the job. What shocked me, was that the convention programmers heard about this, and decided to ask Mr. Card to leave the convention. I protested, expecting a horde of angry fans, but it turned out that they weren't willing to budge -- he'd been very demanding and difficult about all sorts of things (like the lighting for his GOH speech) and this was really just a convenient and politically expedient excuse for dumping him. As I woke up, the fans were rising up into a mob, and I fully expected that even if I survived the convention, my career wouldn't. Card had already put out a broadsheet denouncing me and the con committee. The analysis of this dream is left as an (easy) exercise for the reader.

The day has slowly improved; by the time I finished redoing all those image tags, I felt better and brighter.

There's not sunshine quite yet, but the sky is now very light, and my tea is steeping. (I've settled into a tea schedule: two cups of English Breakfast, one of Irish Breakfast, one of Chai, and sometimes one of decaf English Breakfast before bed -- I don't always have all of them, but I do pretty much always have them in that order). I'm feeling capable of coping with my work, so I think I'll try doing the last few things for Strange Horizons that didn't quite get finished yesterday. (Heh -- took a break to make my tea and put on music -- hit shuffle on the CD player, and it started up with Tori Amos, the song that starts, "5 a.m., Friday morning..." -- some people have it worse than me.) Lots did get done, and I think we'll very soon have t-shirts and mugs, which is quite exciting. Don't *you* want a SH t-shirt? Actually, I'm not sure I can sell you one. As a non-profit, I think our selling of things is very strictly regulated. But I'm not sure. And I *think* we can give 'gifts' in exchange for donations...that seems like a technicality, though. There must be some way the IRS distinguishes that from actual selling, no? Otherwise everyone would be doing it and avoiding sales tax. I don't understand. :-( Hopefully someone will explain it to me.

We *are* getting more and more official. We have a real business bank account now (with imprinted checks *and* a credit card), and I signed us up for PayPal yesterday. The amount is left blank, so people can donate anywhere from a penny to a pound. Well, not a pound, 'cause I think it's in dollars, but you get the idea. And PayPal is doing international payments in quite a few countries now, which is a cool improvement on the last time I used it. I heard some foreboding rumors that the company might be in some trouble, but I'm just going to cross my fingers and hope. It's only a supplemental solution in any case; one of my tasks for Monday is to talk to Pair and figure out how to set up credit card acceptance on-site. I suspect that will make it significantly easier for most people to donate.

I'm really proud of Strange Horizons, y'know. Readership has been climbing very steadily in the last month, and while it's not such a trick to get a spike by advertising somewhere, it's much more impressive to retain those visitors. :-) I think my editors are doing great work, and we're starting to move past the 'scrambling to get every issue up on time' stage to the actual planning ahead stage. They've done a great job of putting together the special Waldrop issue for this Monday, with pieces coordinated across three departments (I don't think Waldrop wrote poetry, or that anyone's written poetry about him. Too bad.) And just in general, things seem to tick along pretty smoothly. We're still young yet -- not even six months old -- but so far, I'm very happy with our progress.

CS is doing splendidly too. Susannah's done a great job of getting readership up even higher, of cutting costs and bringing in more income. She's a lot better at all of those things than I am! Though I'm watching and slowly learning. They're doing really amazingly in the Preditors poll -- to the point where I'm tempted to go and change all my SH votes to CS votes, just 'cause CS actually has a chance of winning some categories. SH is doing quite well, but at this point, I'd be really surprised if it won a category, and I think it's only the top scorer in each category that gets an award. I'll probably dither about this until the night of the 31st, and then jump on the computer and change my votes at the last minute. We'll see.

It's just astonishing to me that I started CS practically on a whim; just a vague idea in the back of my head that 'it would be fun'. :-) And I would never have had the nerve to do SH without two years of experience with CS...

Carol just called -- it's going to be about an hour and a half before she's ready to go, because she has a heat inspector stopping by. Or something like that. So I'm going to go try to do some work. It's difficult to concentrate when there's a little bird in my head peeping "Karina's coming! Karina's coming!" She'll be here around 7:30 tonight...

Morning, dears! Gods -- yesterday was a full day. Although very little actual work got done. 'Work' being defined as academic, writing or SH stuff. :-)

Carol came and got me, and we went to the post office, and the drugstore, and the grocery store, and the garden store (I found a gorgeous gardenia plant -- mmm....made me think of you, Heather :-) and finally the used furniture store, where they still had the lovely maple rocker that I'd been lusting after a week ago. I had needed to make sure I still wanted it, you see, so I hadn't bought it at the time. You live with your furniture for a while, after all. Carol dropped the me and rocker off, along with a small chest that I'd found at one of the stores, rather flimsy but very pretty, and far better for storing office supplies than the nasty falling-apart cardboard box that I'd been using (instead of working at a desk, I work at a large table; I prefer having lots of workspace -- but there had been a lack-of-drawers dilemma, now solved). And before putting the box junk into the chest I of course needed to clean out everything under my table, sweep, etc. The sunroom ended up looking much better when I finished, but that took a while. And, of course, it meant that the living room looked extra shabby by comparison, especially with a large dead tree in it. :-)

So I got the tree into the dining room, cleaned up the living room, and put the rocker in its happy place. Mmm...what pleasure. What satisfaction.

rocking chair
Although the dining room was still a mess, of course. Anyway, most of the rest of the day was spent cleaning and then cooking a few of Karina's favorites (egg curry and potato curry), and then going to get her (thanks again to Carol) and then staying up late eating and talking and taking photos like the one above. I have a bunch of her, but she made me promise not to put any up until she looked at them again and agreed that she looked good in them. She's still sleeping. Later...

The whole looking good thing is interesting. I was realizing, when I was deciding whether to put the above photo up, that I don't really care if y'all think I'm beautiful or sexy or not. Which is odd, because I know that for a while, I really felt that I shouldn't put any photos of me on my pages that *weren't* sexy. I think that my attitude shifted when I switched from writing entirely erotica to writing a mix of stuff. Somehow I feel much less obligation to...umm...try to be a sex symbol in order to promote my writing. Weird, huh? It's not like I'm a model, or an actress, where my livelihood is directly tied to my looks. I'm a writer, and it shouldn't matter. But while I was writing primarily erotica, I knew that if I looked sexy when I did readings, that gave me an edge. That if I'm in a horde of writers giving readings, the audience would remember what I read (hopefully), but would almost certainly also remember if they thought I looked hot. And it's not that I mind looking hot -- I enjoy it. But it did meant that I felt this strange obligation to wear skimpy black tank tops with short, tight skirts and black stockings...pretty much the direct opposite of the outfit above. You can't see my skirt under the afghan I'm crocheting, but I assure you that it's long and suitably demure for my granny look. :-)

And it just doesn't matter anymore -- anyone reading this journal for any length of time probably knows much more embarrassing things about me than the fact that I sometimes stick out my bottom lip too much for photos. :-) And even if you're a casual journal reader, even if you just stopped by and that photo was the first thing you saw of me -- so what? I'm busy! I have a pile of reading to do, and magazine things to run, and etc. and so on and somehow it just doesn't feel as important to project a sexy image all the time as it used to. Maybe it's the shift in genres. Or maybe I'm just getting old. :-)

Speaking of reading, I'd best get to it. Later, my dears.

4:00 p.m. Well, I'm about halfway through the history reading, Stephen Kemper's The Presence of the Past, a very interesting book on the way historians and others (including Sinhalese nationalists) have used The Mahavamsa as history, and constructed narratives of nationalism around it. Similar in basic contention to the essay I mentioned a few days ago, but more historically based (the other was based on a comparison of various version of the ancient texts). I can see the pull of wanting to claim the tale to be history -- if you do, it gives Sri Lanka a basically uninterrupted 2500-year written history, which is just astonishing. Not just stomping America into the ground, but India and England as well, I think. I'm not sure when British written history first showed up -- David?

At any rate, that's about it for accomplishments today. :-) I'm hoping to finish the book by 5:30 or so. Paul and Marcia are coming by for dinner and cards at 6:30, and while we still have a fair bit of the curries from last night, I'll make some more accompaniments, I think. A coconut sambol, maybe some simple raita (I have some yoghurt I want to finish off in the fridge), and a sweet carrot curry, I think. Shouldn't take more than forty-five minutes, so if I start at 5:30, I'll be in good time.

Before I go, here's one of the 'approved' photos from yesterday. :-)

Karina's face

It's so delightful having her here!

Tim's been musing about being a great writer -- and how he knows that while he may become very good, he knows himself well enough to know he'll never be great. It's interesting -- I don't know him well enough to know whether to believe that self-assessment or not. But I know that I feel that same pull, that desire for greatness. I know exactly when I realized it too -- after Beth Meachem and Tappan King's meeting with me at Clarion:

"...they basically told me I probably shouldn't be submitting novels to them....but that was because they thought I might be better off submitting to mainstream markets. In the discussion we all realized that yes indeed, I do appear to have literary pretensions." (7/15/97)

That was a turning point for my writing career because up until that point, I'd been telling myself that it was all for fun, that it was okay to just be Piers Anthony and entertain people, that I knew I'd already made a few people cry, and that was enough to know my worth had meant something, that it would all be *enough* -- and they made me realize that it wasn't enough. Not for me.

"It's an interesting question -- what to do with my life right now. They said that I was at a crux, and could choose to shoot for the fantasy market squarely (and risk getting stuck in it) (but probably make a decent living there), or aim for the wider 'real' market (and risk disappearing entirely). My momma always told me to aim high, and I got to admit that the idea of 'settling' for just the fantasy audience (much as I love them), when I could potentially have a much broader audience to preach at, sticks in my throat."

Of course, it's not a fantasy/mainstream debate, really. It's a mediocre fantasy/Pulitzer-winning mainstream debate. It's so much safer staying in little ponds. It was relatively easy to be one of the best erotica authors; so little competition, compared to other genres! (And oh, there are particular difficulties and braveries involved in writing erotica, that I do give myself credit for, but we're just talking about the writing quality right now). I just realized at Clarion that I knew I could get by, and that it would be much harder not to just get by -- and still.

"I described my novel to them as sort of a mix of Jane Yolen tale-telling, Guy Gavriel Kay scene-setting, and Amy Tan cultural/personal issues. They liked that. I liked that. I think it could be a damn good novel - lush and rich and deep. I don't know for sure that I have it in me right now to write that, but I think what I decided today is that I'm going to try. Do my plotting. Do my social/historical research. Brace for some more failed attempts. And brace for possible rejection -- or even worse, indifference. I must admit, I'd rather a glorious failure than a mediocre pass."

Though that glorious failure is terrifying. I'm not sure it would feel all that glorious. And there's just no guarantee that I'll make it to 'greatness' -- I know I'm not there yet, and I don't even think I know how to assess how close I am to it. I try to take satisfaction in all the small accomplishments along the way, so that if I don't cross over, I won't feel like an utter failure. But I know that if I ever have to admit that I'm not going to make it to greatness, I'm going to be deeply disappointed. And if it takes me another thirty years to figure that out, I may even be heartbroken.

But hell. I have to try.

Karina's face

Image Notebook

Sometimes I feel overexposed. The light of the world is shining too brightly on me, and I just want to go hide, to huddle in a corner and whimper, "turn off the lights, please!" Mostly I stand up to it. Mostly I can cope. But sometimes I do go find my corner, I do pull back from the scary bright light, I do say -- "not yet. maybe not ever." Sometimes, the world wants too much from me, and I must believe that it's okay to not quite be able to live up to the world's needs, and expectations, to hide from that bright and shining light. But what I do not know, is what to do, when the light that is hurting me is inside my own head. I do not know where I can escape to.

Morning. *yawn* Feeling more than a bit groggy this morning. Yesterday was a killer day, reading theory from morn to dinnertime -- then a little tv-watching with Karina -- then writing until bedtime. I's tired. I would have slept longer this morning, but I got a call from a student at Duke; the South Asian student group there is trying to schedule a conference they want me to speak at, and they're having some trouble because of some sort of sporting event...honestly not sure of the details; I told her to e-mail me.

Everything's seeming a bit fuzzy this morning, including the news I was reading about the results of the Florida recounts. But it does seem pretty clear that Gore would have won. Nothing to be done now, really, and while on the one hand it does feel like a moral victory for our side, it's also frustratingly futile as well. Everything Bush does in the next four years will be subject to extra-strong questioning, I think. At least for a while -- maybe four full years is too much to expect. I'm just not politically astute enough to have any clue whether that will be a good thing for the country or not. I wonder what the rest of the world thinks of all this too. Maybe I should go read some foreign newspapers.

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with work. It's not that Karina's actively stopping me from working; it's that it's so lovely cuddling on the couch with her, or talking for an hour before falling asleep, or chatting in little bits in between reading essays. It's entirely my doing. But the result is that while I'm getting what I need to done, all the hours where I did the not-quite-to-deadline stuff have disappeared. I have one such hour now, and there are so many things that could possibly go in this space, and I can't think which ones I should actually put in it. I probably won't be able to read Heir in an hour, though, so that one is pretty much out. Ditto finishing the history reading.

Chatter chatter chatter. If I chattered less, I might get more done. Still, it's nice taking fifteen minutes to talk to y'all in the morning. It lets me pretend to still be civilized...which is important to me. Little pleasures like this are what keep the whole thing feeling good, keep grad school from turning into a chore that needs to be accomplished. Having some fluidity in the schedule -- the option of watching a little tv with Karina curled up against me, stroking her hair and listening to her chatter (while still trying to follow what's going on on-screen) -- that's lovely. Having this human contact is so good for me; and even though my brain's stress levels are probably high enough with all the unfinished tasks that my neurotransmitters are blinking at me wildly, waking me up an hour before the alarm most days, my body feels a lot better. It needed snuggling. :-)

Ah, I'm not really complaining. Work is progressing, Karina's here, and Kevin comes Friday. Life is good.

Image Notebook

Christmas ornaments

The remnants of last year's celebration linger; lights shine bright at night, and glittering gleaming fragilities of glass and ceramic and shiny paper nestle warm and comfortable in cobalt bowls. One by one they are put away; each day another ornament is wrapped in tissue paper, another bright decoration is taken down from the wall and replaced with one more demure, sedate. They are lovely, but distracting, and their time has passed for now. They are better off safe in boxes. But the passage is slow, savored. The holiday extends four, five, six weeks past its high point. There is a gradual lessening of joy, rather than an abrupt finale. A diminuendo. And perhaps one ornament will be left hanging in the window, one twisted spiral of cobalt blue and gold, one glass fragility, lovely and useless, to serve as a quietly joyful reminder of celebrations past, and celebrations yet to come.

Patrick has a good and intelligent rant on the new White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. I'm too sleepy and incoherent to write anything on it right now, but since I'd probably write something with very similar content, you might as well just read his.

My mind is working in small bobbles and steps right now. I'm not sure why I woke up at 6:30. I woke up with a very sharp, clear thought, though -- "I don't want to look back on my life when I'm 80 and find that I'd lived alone for most of it." Okay, well and good. Thank you, subconscious, for that moment of clarity. We did know that already, y'know. We have plans for dealing with it even. Did you have to wake us up (when we're already short of sleep and spent half the night coughing) to remind us?

Karina has a cold. Therefore I have a cold. I knew there was a downside to living with someone. I had forgotten the endless winter cold that Kevin and I traded back and forth from November to April in Chicago and Philly.

I think I wanted to tell y'all my travel schedule, but since part of it isn't finalized yet, I'll wait. Soon.

Read Strange Horizons! There's a great story by Howard Waldrop about...well, I don't even know how to describe it, really. Just a plot synopsis would be really misleading, I think. Trust me -- it's really good. Plus articles on him and a review of his new e-book (which is out from Electric Story, which is run by Bob Kruger, who I went to Clarion with (and could probably have developed a crush on, but refrained because a) I already had a crush on British Alex and b) Bob's happily married)). And a new gallery too. Pretty pictures. All good.

Oh, and I started to get kind of pissed off at Columbine's latest, but I don't have the energy. As for the Modern Library List, I will comment here only on the ones I've read, I've liked, and that I would also recommend to others:

1. Ulysses by James Joyce (I haven't been able to get into this one, but it's Kevin's favorite book; he's read it multiple times, for fun. Which is a good reminder of the difference in tastes.)

2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald -- read this in high school, liked it at the time, plan to read it again when I get a chance.

3. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce -- great story, very accessible; I like it better than Dubliners, which many people think of as the 'easiest' Joyce.

4. Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov -- I absolutely love this book. And him. The story is great, the language is a delight, I wasn't ever bored, and when I finished it, I went out and read all the Nabokov I could find in used bookstores. Ada is probably my second favorite (an incestuous relationship between siblings who are really cousins but aren't supposed to know they're siblings but do because they're very smart and precocious. Seems like it's just going to be clever at first; ends up incredibly touching).

5. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley -- also enjoyed in high school, on my re-read list.

6. The Sound and Fury by William Faulkner -- probably in my top ten books of all time list. Gorgeous. Heartbreaking. Yes, the multiple shifting points of view are a little tricky to manage at first, but if you just don't work too hard at it, if you coast along with Faulkner and let him carry you through these people lives, I think he amply rewards you for the extra effort.

13. 1984, by George Orwell -- liked in high school, must re-read soon.

15. To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf -- okay, I haven't read this one yet, but it's on my list, and her Orlando is not just great fiction, but great science fiction. Terrific story, beautifully written. Hilarious protagonist. Great movie version as well.

19. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison -- I really enjoyed this as a story; but it's one of the few books I would say you should read even if you don't like it as a story, because it's so important re: American race relations. It does a better job of conveying quite a lot of complicated personal positioning than an essay is ever likely to. And the feeling you have at the end of the book, as you huddle with the protagonist in that little room...completely chilling.

25. A Passage to India, by E.M. Forster -- brilliant. Terrific. His heroine here is one of my favorite heroines in fiction. Even though she's not a heroine for most of the book. Especially because of that, in fact. I think most of us don't manage to be heroic all the time; if we manage one moment of actual heroism, that is something astonishing.

31. Animal Farm, by George Orwell -- not sure I'd call this a good story, but lots of fun nonetheless. Full of fantastic elements.

38. Howards End, by E.M. Forster -- yeah, Forster! Very creepy ending to this story. If you like Jane Austen, try Forster. Great movie as well.

45. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway -- this is the book that redeems Hemingway for me; and does it so well that I forgive him all his other excesses. There's this one conversation between the couple...ah, makes my throat get tight just thinking about it.

50. Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller -- he pisses me off every other page, but damn, the man can write. Not sure I'd call him a great storyteller, but I pick up this book periodically and read a few pages just to get all caught up and excited about language again, about the sheer beauty of words on the page (even when they're disgusting, repulsive words -- does he really need to refer to all women as 'cunts?)

53. Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov -- not only turned my ideas of what made a novel upside down, but managed to tell a terrific story at the same time. His protagonist is a man eaten up by jealousy; and it's just perfect that his story is told in footnotes. Hey, I just realized that this is academic satire as well as a great story! (I'm clearly slow.) It's fascinating the way academic's real opinions/personalities only show up in the (extensive) footnotes of some books. Did I mention the man is brilliant?

73. A House for Mr. Biswas, by V.S. Naipaul -- I liked this; David adores Naipaul, so we'll leave him on the list for that. :-)

78. Kim, by Rudyard Kipling -- read as a kid and liked a lot; must read as an adult. Great adventure story.

79. A Room with a View, by E.M. Forster -- Terrific and a lot lighter than the other Forster I've read; a great starter story; romantic :-).

90. Midnight's Children, by Salman Rushdie -- Gorgeous, irritating, lush, intense, a completely idiosyncratic narrator; much fun, especially if you like storytelling. And a massive dose of the fantastic. I don't know what Columbine is talking about -- several of the books listed here have strong elements of the fantastic. This one is practically science fiction -- the protagonist is telepathic, after all.

So, I haven't mentioned so many. I'm recommending almost 20 books on the list; I've only read about 25 or so. That sounds like a pretty damn good average; my friends' recommendations rarely do that well. I think my conclusion after reviewing all of these is that while they may not draw you in quite as quickly as the latest-epic-fantasy-of-the-week does, you remember them a hell of a lot longer. *And* you can't put the book down once you get over that initial threshold. I can't, at any rate. So I don't really know what Columbine is talking about. These are *great* stories!

11:00. Lay down on the couch to read; fell asleep for two more hours. Woke up still tired, but too awake to sleep more. So I took photos instead: (It Takes) Three for the Blues. This is a necklace that Elise gave me at WisCon years ago; in exchange, I was supposed to write a response to it (she titled it). I fell in love with it because it seemed so perfect for me and Kev and Karina...but while I wrote a song, I'm not happy with the song. I need to write something better. I'm still thinking about it. But in the interim, I'm still wearing the necklace...

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