The Storyrain Blog

Persian cucumber salad. Pan seared quail. Grilled peach on the side. This is what I had for dinner at the East Side Showroom last night. Okay? Okay.

After our fab dinner I showed my visiting friend How to Train Your Dragon, which she hadn't seen. Officially on the list of my favorite ever movies, I think. Then I started Naomi Novik's Tongues of Serpents. A dragonish evening. Then Tinker periodically lost his mind and meowed piteously all night long, which he does when I have an overnight guest, for at least the first one or two nights. I mean, piteously. Last time he did this I was worried something was actually wrong and took him to the vet. Stinker.

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Between bouts of dayjob work yesterday, a good bit of work on Deep Terrain got done yesterday, and there will be more at writing date tomorrow.

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Recently I wished there was a thrift store in walking distance from my loft; then I discovered one has recently opened less than two blocks away. And it is written of as the Austin-est thrift store in Austin. Will check it out at some point this weekend.

Last week I scheduled another test for Aristotle with the vet, an ultrasound, which is expensive, and for which they have to arrange for a special tech to come in with his equipment (meaning it's not an appointment you cancel). Then I realized a couple days later, that it was scheduled for the anniversary of the death of Tavi, the cat I had before Aristotle and Sula. Tavi traveled all the way from Downeast Maine to Austin with me, watched over the writing of my first published novel, and was, of course, a much loved dear companion. Then, I had a sitcom on last night and a character talked about how she had a dog when she was a kid and it went to the vet for a routine procedure and never came back.

And, then, for jeezub sake, when I brought Aristotle to the vet to drop him off this morning, the assistant greeted me by saying, "Is that Sula?"--my cat who also went to this vet who died a while back. Oh random coincidence and subconscious primed to hear certain things!

I don't have a conclusion to draw, other than, yes, I am awaiting a call from the vet somewhat nervously. (eta--just got it, he's fine; we suspect mild pancreatitis and some IBD).

So here's a conlusion, if you're going to read things into stuff like this, you may as well read that this means Aristotle, in contrast, is going to live until he's well old, 20 or so, a long and happy life.

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In other news, the lofts water main sprang a bad leak late in the afternoon on Superbowl Sunday. So, water shut off. The city is turning it back on for us, theoretically, evenings 5:30-7, mornings 7-8:30. In practice, this is more like 5:50-7pm and 7:45-8am...but I still managed to get the hot water heater on and glory in a hot shower last night (by obssessively checking the faucet every few minutes to see when the water was on so I could get the heater on asap). Hot water, water in general--it's good to be reminded not to take it for granted.

Dear GOP and libertarians, maybe you should think about that. Infrastructure costs money.

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Last week was...rocky. So over the weekend I bought myself some expensive salt caramel dark chocolates. One of those with a London Fog--decaf Earl Grey w/a shot of vanilla and steamed soy creamer--of an evening is a nice way of being kind to oneself. Or meself, anyway. Tea and chocolate, tea anc cake, tea and fruit & cheese. Tea.

Came home yesterday to find two little puddles in odd places on the concrete floor. Didn't smell like anything, looked like and seemed to be water. No trails leading to anywhere they might have come from, not near the cats' water bowl, no discernible patches or leaks to have made them.

Ghost piddle? Condensation from the metal girders on the ceiling 14 feet above? (it has been mega humid) Spontaneous water?

It's like that time there was a dead finch (which definitely wasn't there when I left) in the loft when I came home, all the doors and windows shut.

Ideas?

Around 4:30 this morning, a fat full moon setting in the southwest woke me, peering through my window all silver-gilt and bright. Eventually it went more parchment gold, sinking into the trees, veiled by our tainted atmosphere.

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One of the medications my father is taking apparently can cause nightmares. My father's reaction to this yesterday was to fixate, by my brother's report, on a Sherwood Anderson book he remembered, published in 1919, something about the grotesque. This is through the screen of his impaired speech and my brother's attempts to understand. But he was clear about Sherwood Anderson, 1919, the grotesque. My brother asked me to find out what book it was--which was very easy to do. It's Anderson's story collection Winesburg, Ohio, which has a kind of prologue story that more or less subtitles the book, called "The Book of the Grotesque." The book was, indeed, published in 1919.
It's on bartleby.com, http://www.bartleby.com/156/index.html. Here's an excerpt from the Book of the Grotesque, which is about an old writer and his strange notion of truth and the grotesque:

The idea had got into his mind that he would some time die unexpectedly and always when he got into bed he thought of that. It did not alarm him. The effect in fact was quite a special thing and not easily explained. It made him more alive, there in bed, than at any other time. Perfectly still he lay and his body was old and not of much use any more, but something inside him was altogether young. He was like a pregnant woman, only that the thing inside him was not a baby but a youth. No, it wasn’t a youth, it was a woman, young, and wearing a coat of mail like a knight. It is absurd, you see, to try to tell what was inside the old writer as he lay on his high bed and listened to the fluttering of his heart. The thing to get at is what the writer, or the young thing within the writer, was thinking about.

I find it somehow reassuring that this is what my father is thinking about, this little tale and the book from which it came.

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Vonda McIntyre's fantastic Nebula award winning novel The Moon and the Sun, is available as an ebook through the Book View Cafe site. A really great read, this book (as are, in fact the other books of hers featured there). (You have to register with the site, but why wouldn't you?)

Via many folks on my flist, but I'm cadging from marthawells: 

Save the Dragons Dave Freer is posting a new novel online to raise part of the money needed to get his family pets (three dogs and four cats, mostly rescues) through quarantine when his family moves to Australia. You can help by stopping by, checking out the novel, donating if you can, and spreading the word.
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Loft is almost to the point where I will be allowed to put my curtains back up and move things back into a liveable configuration--but I don't know that I'll have time to do that before I head west tomorrow morning. Seeing as I'm at the dayjob for most of the day, and then have errands and packing and stuff.
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As per usual lately, worried about leaving Sula-cat, whose eating has been off. But it's only four days...and man, I need a break, a real one, in a serious way. Haven't been truly relaxed at all the last few weeks (until last night when I got a massage, when it became painfully clear--before I actually became relaxed--that I was wound really tight).
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A little progress made on Deep Terrain, which is good, given all of the above, I guess. Oddly, I seem to have gotten the most writing done the few times I was home from the dayjob, tuning out the infernal racket of the construction.

Utopian views of future cities as one with nature.

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I could use a little utopia right now.

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Too much to do this weekend; I'm already worn out. Might need to take Monday off...but then I can't take next Friday, the day before my birthday, off. Plus, they actually really really start putting up the scaffolding around my building on Monday, which means it won't be particularly peaceful at home...

A few pictures of the communal gardens here at the lofts. I can't take credit for any of this, but I enjoy it.

A thoughtful and worthwhile essay on personal choices and climate change: The Way We Live Now: Why Bother?
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I went to see The Forbidden Kingdom; a little slow at first, but I was very happy by the end. Much fun. Kind of a kung fu Wizard of Oz meets tales of the Monkey King and Journey to the West.
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Part one of Five Good Things About Meghan Sheedy, the latest of A.M. Dellamonica's (planetalyx) squid stories is up at Strange Horizons. The stories in this universe are awesome--highly recommended reading. 
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The Wuxiapedia is very cool. Currently I'm reading Legend of the White Haired Demoness.
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Writing proceeding slowly, but proceeding. 
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There was a big wedding at the lofts this weekend, with a huge white tent and all--including the obligatory bad bad dj'ed music, very loud. Only until 11 pm, but why must wedding reception music be so very bad? In this case, it was bad American mixed with the equivalent in bad Mexican music. With so much good music in the world, for the love of Charlie, why?

Snurtched from tacithydra, because it is teh awesome. I also include her description, because I am a lazy thief.