[Originally written 12-31-2007]. Cut-tagged 1-27-08.

( Resolutions 2008 )

I have a new cat! She is an 11-month old longhaired torbie adopted from the Boston Animal Rescue League.
She is tremendously skinny and almost all her hair is shaved off due to her having mats in it. Apparently she was taken from a home with too many cats where they weren't being treated properly. She's SUPER FRIENDLY and so cute!

We're keeping her separate from our regular cat for about a week so they can smell each other through the door and her spaying sutures can heal.

SO MUCH PURRING!!

Pictures to follow.

No, I haven't thought of a name yet.

She really likes being brushed. :)

:D

Before the rams' horns
they raised nautilus to their lips
and listened to the sound.

Nothing to break down the walls
of Jericho, this chambered
salt grass' rustle,
and the water in the deep places
echoing with a voice of God
(no less triumphant
or kind than the one on land;
but more alone,
and thus more feared,
despite the gentleness
of the drowning waves).

For Sonya, on her birthday, and for Cephalopod Appreciation Day

Friday, I made a present for fiddledragon and read an adaptation of "The Great Gatsby" by Niki Greenberg (recommended!) as well as a few selections in the Best Romantic Fantasy 2 anthology and went to bed rather late.

However, I woke relatively early on Saturday and cleaned my fishtank (the fish are happy! Does anyone have any idea what to name four neon tetras? One of them is smaller than the other three. Thematically grouped names win extra bonus points.)

I was all set to go to fiddledragon's birthday party due to my misreading the two sets of directions I had because I'm special like that. However, she was gracious and we're going to get together later this week. So I sighed and went back to Harvard and ordered food from the restaurant my friends and I go to every week; I specified no meat and no egg and no shrimp on my takeout. I got about half of it full of shrimp and had to pick them out. I didn't usually eat shrimp even when I was eating fish. Ick.

But today was great! baniszew and I went for a four-hour hike! We went to Wachusett Mountain and enjoyed it a lot! We hiked up the steepest, speediest trail to the top, and walked down this kind of rocky, bumpy trail to the end--after seeing beautiful views from the top, some odd mushrooms, a toad, some salamanders, and a lot of really happy dogs hiking with their people. We stopped at two farm stands on the way back. Hopefully she will post some pictures.

Tonight a delicious supper of farm stand corn and spiced cider and burgers on the grill and oatmeal cookies.

Tuesday I am going to get a kitten! Meow!

Is it any wonder I dreamt of puppetry? Man, I miss that stuff. Apparently FAO Schwartz in NYC is going to have a build-your-own Muppet section soon.

The Smithsonian's traveling Henson exhibition - E., this is in DC right now! Go and see it! Sadly, not coming to Boston, though I am thinking of traveling to PA.

Interview with the designer of Miss Piggy

Interview with current puppeteer of Kermit

This perked up my rainy morning.
Also, if you're in the Boston area, Porter Square Books in Cambridge is now stocking copies of "A Field Guide to Surreal Botany!"

Yay! I am going to see Dar Williams tonight! And eat Tibetan food before!

I feel like my BMC lesbian cred just shot up about 100 points. ;)

I wrote a lot today. I have a new short story that came almost out of nowhere. It's not finished yet though. It's about 85 percent done. It has nothing to do with anything else I've written lately.

Observations toward a Stillborn Novel

( The speed of conversation with deaf people is different. )
--
Some commentary on the ETech 2009 Call for Submissions BoingBoing post by David Pescovitz

Note: I have since skimmed the actual 2009ETech Call for Submissions. It looks both more interesting and less interesting than the Boing Boing post made it out to be, and may or may not bear any resemblance to what I wrote about.

"We live in two worlds: one filled with abundance and the other with constraints. Each has its own favorite—or essential to survival—inventions and directions. Each has been deeply affected by technology."

( You live in two worlds; you get to live in two worlds. )

What I wanted to do today:
1.) Laundry
2.) Grocery Shopping
3.) Brunch
4.) Get Aquarium setup
5.) Go through paperwork
6.) Hookup new computer
7.) Garden

What I did today:
1.) A little bit of laundry
2.) Clean out flooded basement 9-4, talk to Landlord re: new water heater for downstairs apartment
3.) Tequila and dinner with friends
4.) Grocery shopping
5.) Clean dishes with gross basement water in them
6.) Stay up until 12:30 finding housemate

Oh man.
Today sucked.
This whole week has sucked. Next week has to be better.

As a comic! www.reboot.com

I feel like crap. This is the 3rd day of sore throat, the 6th day of hearing problems, the 3rd day of PMS, and the 3rd day of trying to find a housemate. :(

I was posting a "we need a housemate" ad to the Davis Square LJ community when I found this song:

Somerville, by David Misch.

I downloaded it, and was enchanted. It's the perfect mix of irony and genuine love for a place. Apparently it was very popular on the radio in Boston in the early 70's. I felt like I was getting a little present for coming home.

I couldn't find the lyrics online, so I wrote them up. Here they are.

( The city center there/is filled with streets... )

There was one lyric I couldn't get. Was he mumbling? Is it English? Does anyone know?

Do you live in the Boston area? Are you a foodie willing to travel there?

Then go to eat at Prose, now, before they close!

Prose, a tiny restaurant whose only chef/hostess goes to the farmers' market to get fresh ingredients every day, is in danger of closing.
You can help: eat some of the most delicious food I have ever had on this continent or off it for less than the normal price.

raxvulpine and I usually go there on special occasions because it can get pricey; but this is a special occasion. When I get back to Boston I am going to bike over there and treat myself.

( They have a special not-Restaurant-Week menu, which is relatively cheap! And vegan offerings! )


(NB: This is not a restaurant to go to before a movie; the food will take up your entire evening. However, it is food worth a whole evening. When you are not eating, you will be thinking about how incredibly good the bite of food you just had was, or how good the next bite is sure to be.)

They do not have a website, and as the restaurant is tiny, they like you to do reservations.
Call 781-648-2800.

Yes, that's you, now. Help save a tiny restaurant which is the embodiment of the slow food movement; the Boston food world and your tummy will be better for it.

Just to let you all know, my paternal grandmother died yesterday. She had been very sick for about a week and had not been well for about 5 years before that, so it was expected, but not welcomed.
I am still coming on the trip to California/Seattle.

Order your copy of A Field Guide to Surreal Botany today!

Featuring an entry, "Ozymandias-plant," by yours truly.

--

Though I've been publishing on and off since highschool, I feel very excited about this piece.
I think it's partly because I might get real live bookstores to carry it -- rushthatspeaks, can you help out here?--and partly because I might be doing a reading in the Boston/Somerville area (hopefully with watermelontail, whom I finally met at Readercon), but mostly because it has illustrations. In my head, that somehow means it's a 'real book.'

I don't know if the illustrations give life to the words, or the words give life to the illustrations--I suspect it the latter, knowing my head and its mechanisims--but that's the clincher, for me. Many of the books I read, the best ones, had incidental pictures. Rackham, other turn-of-the-last-century illustrators--and simple cover pictures could evoke the whole story within, and the worlds and people I knew were lurking, made of words.

And these pictures are brilliant--watercolors. They look gorgeous. I'm so excited.

(Also, it's nice to have a story I can finally give to my parents which isn't too dark, or too lesbian, or both).