One legal, and one illegal photo from the Woodruff Center in Atlanta.

They have some *fabulous* Duerer prints from the Louvre, but I didn't make the attempt at sneaking a photo in the crowded room, with security looking on.

Close to the end

When you get close to the end on something big, everything around you is in shambles. My clothes are piled everywhere - clean, dirty, whatever - and dishes are everywhere and take-out is everywhere and books are everywhere and the bathroom is a wreck and the kitchen is a wreck and you can't imagine how it got that way, because you've been cleaning so hard, so hard... Just, your prose, not your apartment.

Almost there.

An exciting day at work, yesterday. Coming back from lunch, we discovered that the neighboring office had an electrical fire. Four fire engines arrived, and quickly. Good job Alpharetta Fire Department!



I particularly loved the the flashy, spinny things on the front of the fire truck. Those were nifty.

Where will you sleep, tonight?
Will it be the same place you wake up?

Got some time on your hands...?

Worth watching, or at least letting it run in the background.

I don't understand people that think private, for-profit health insurance is net good for society:



My favorite part is where these guys sit in front of congress and say they will not stop rescinding policies for mistakes made in good faith by the insured.

Write your senators and representatives. How can this bullshit possibly get any worse?

For all you Transformer Fans...

I didn't go see the movie, because it got panned by the critics, and because I'm still scarred from Optimus Prime's death in the 80s cartoon movie.

Found this, though, and it's pretty frikkin' awesome. Kudos to the creators.

Lost in a Maze...

In the cave, Saitan snuffed the torch out. He pressed into my arm. He pulled me close, and wrapped his hand over my mouth to keep me from screaming. Shh...

I heard the footfalls, steady as stones.

A flash in the dark - a moving shadow against ghost light - and Saitan held me, and hushed me.

Like a dead tree and a lizard and a man, it poked and prodded so carefully upon the bush of the ghost light.

We watched it, Saitan and me, prodding the branches and the fountain of light like a gardener. Under the long, spindly fingers - talons? - of the monster the bush seemed to expand a little and tremble with ecstasy.

We waited. It moved on, down and down the cave, beyond our light.

We waited longer.

Saitan let go. He ran his hand along my hair. He whispered something in my ear. Don't fear, he had said.

Excerpt from poem I'm working on.

I do this for fiction a lot. Might as well do it for poetry, too. Here's just a piece of something much larger I'm working on:

[quote]
...I read these advertisements here, and wonder where people
meet in this city. A woman in a car shouts in all caps. I SAW YOU
I SAW YOU I SAW YOU... driving a car, two eyes locked - woman
and man - but there's no way to speak in cars. Nothing to do
when the highway bends the lanes apart. A man in a grocery store describes
your summer dress, the way you touched your beautiful son's hair,
and he couldn't think of things to say in time because you
were already loved by a man – your younger one – who
wouldn't breech an interruption. Another man stumbled in
all the rings on your hands, dozens of beautiful rings, and doesn't know
what they mean, but he describes a tattoo, where dolphins
swim in circles around your navel, their bodies
curved like chasing each other's tail in the lunar water. You're looking
for him at the gym, where he hides inside his headphones, like you do
now, with me, on the train.

Was your smile on the train something real, or a memory of fish...
[/quote]

Warning Signs on a Small Tractor

Tractor, very small, but apparently very dangerous.

Every time you see a warning label, you're also seeing a history of injuries that gave the label birth.

I find warning labels fascinating. If you don't, naturally, move along.

What's next in the realm of publications?

1) "Death's Shed" was finalized with the editors for Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet.

2) "Dragon Came To Galveston To Die" is awaiting editorial approval at Space Squid, who had needed a slightly shorter story than the one I sent them - and I am always going to try and help the editors out where I can, everywhere I go.

I know there will be more news, soon-like. If the news is good, I'll post it here. If not, well, you know how that goes.

Back to work, party people!

Interesting Reading from L.E. Modesitt, Jr

"Yet they'd be outraged if someone applied the stereotype of "parochial" or "limited" to mainstream fiction." - L.E. Mosesitt, Jr, source

What was really interesting was also that people who work hard in the F&SF genre were also outraged that anyone lay such a claim against the mainstream genre.

Question of control...

http://nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com/1345886.html

The strange thing about Nick's claim is that the people who are being silenced are going to write more, and longer, because they're being silenced.

It's not silly at all. It's human.

What he describes as "interesting debate" is made so not because I left the discussion. There's another human fact at work here.

(BTW, Nick, in case you're google alerts pop up to lead you here, or something like it, in fact, I was in the middle of BFE Maine with limited web access, doing graduate work morning, noon, and night, while still working on my dayjob and new writing. So... No, Nick, it actually had nothing to do with you, or your continued insistence on shoving my voice and thoughts into your own experiential narratives. Your odd insistince on engaging in rudeness is part of why I'm posting this right now.)

The thing is, when Nick describes the debate as "interesting", it is also because he took the reigns of it, and forced it down a path he wanted. He shoved everyone into his experiential worldview at the expense of other narratives.

Look at how many posts Nick makes in comparison to everyone else, after I left, and the shape they took and you see how the discussion shaped itself around one man's voice, the crankiest one, the first one to engage in true juvenalia up above, like putting words in my mouth, or thoughts in my head. Once again, he's shaping the narrative around his own preconceptions of what that narrative should be, and if you watch, you'll see him shutting down perspectives that don't line up with his own.

It's a control thing, man. It got interesting to him because he took control of it, not because it actually got more interesting. It was just as interesting the whole time.

Try to see yourself from the outside, party people.

The thing about publishing and books is that no one has the whole picture. We all only know a very small slice, no matter who we are. If we actually want to create a whole, we can't use our little slice to cut away other experiences.

We learn more by approaching everyone's perspective as inherently valid in the soft knowledge learning of books.

It's weird to know the many things Nick's done to try and increase the liberation of the mind, yet to watch him engage in discussion in a way that is loudly and softly bullying.

Cats are like the crazy ex-girlfriends...

Cats are like the crazy ex-girlfriends. You see them. You think they are cute. They look at you with cat eyes and mew. You think this means - because your body and brain and biochemistry are built to think this - that the animal loves you.

Actually, what that animal is saying is "If you were only a little bit smaller, I'd kill you slowly and eat you."

We think they are rubbing against our leg, we think this means they are engaged in an act of affection. We hear their purrs and think we are beloved.

In fact, the cat is marking you as their possession, in preparation for the day when you die, and they get to eat you. The purring you hear is just the anticipation of a meal.

Serve them, if you must. Clean up after them. Brush the mats from their hair. Coo their name into their ear and tell them they are so cute.

You're misreading the signs in their human-like faces. It's like those crazy ex-girlfriends that you thought, at the time, you loved, and it turns out they weren't wired the same way you are wired, and it's only a matter of time before you are devoured. They want to devour you.

There was a cat at my doorstep this morning, with a collar around its neck. It looked up at me like I was everything in the world to it, with big, cat eyes. It pressed against my leg.

"Does the one who loves you know you're cheating on them?" I said. I refused to open the door. I refused to pet the creature. "Go on, now, pussycat. Go home."

Had I but known this ten years ago, about certain women and all the cats...