If we hired like we vote

Thanx to Jesus' General.

I've been awake since four AM, because the house across the street is burning down.

Actually, at this point, I have to say, the house across the street was burning down, as the good offices of the West Hartford Fire Department have arrested this development in progress. (This is, yes, what I pay my taxes for.) And it doesn't appear, from the vantage of my front windows, that anyone was injured. However, it was pretty darn spectacular for a bit there, with flames through the third story and firefighters scrambling around chainsawing holes in the roof of a hundred-year-old three-family.

This is the house with the extremely annoying and loud deterrent system, which tends to announce BURGLARY! BURGLARY! BURGLARY! in stentorian tones every time a cat crosses the yard. Which is why I missed the first five minutes of fun, because I thought it was just the usual late-night loudness. But then I heard the sirens--we're just around the corner from the fire department--and realized I should probably get up and put my pants on and close the windows.

And comfort the cat, who does not like chainsaws.

And now I am trying to decide whether it would be more productive to go for a walk, go back to bed, or try to get some work done, since it appears the apocalypse has been averted for the time being. I think coffee, a hot shower, and work are winning, because while I am still sleepy I'm not actually all that tired, and the sun is coming up, and I think it would annoy the nice firefighters less if I didn't traipse through where they are trying to work today.

Also, there's that toe I'm supposed to be going easy on. And the cat says her feet are cold, and can I please sit down so she can put them on me?

As a reminder, if anybody in the Midwest wants to come see me, I will be at WisCon the weekend after this one coming up, and I will be the Guest of Honor at Duckon (Chicago) and Fourth Street Fantasy (Minneapolis) in the middle weeks of June. I am moved to mention this because Fourth Street has just moved their pre-reg deadline back to May 31. truepenny will be my date for both cons, so you can rely on the full magnificence of the Mole And Bear Show in all its questionable glory.

Fourth Street is looking suspiciously as though it will be an unofficial Shadow Unit convention, as the whole crew except stillsostrange will be there, and WisCon will have me, truepenny, and stillsostrange. (But no coffeeem or shetterly.)

Someday we will all be in the same place at the same time, and there may be a singularity.

From my Twitter page:

• 09:12 Are _you_ raising Free Range Kids? freerangekids.wordpress.com/ #
• 09:36 Retweeting @codinghorror - Dynamic Languages Strike Back is.gd/fkK #
• 09:40 @TechCrunch - you don't see a contradiction between "government doesn't respect due process" and "I'll impeach for lying about sex"? #
• 09:54 Argh. The WWT installer conflicts with Cygwin? #
• 09:56 Ah, WWTSetup runs whatever "setup.exe" it finds, which in this case is Cygwin. #
• 09:56 Thanks to MeFi for the setup info: tinyurl.com/5s8jgs #
• 10:04 @meyerweb - ALA's fine from here... #
• 11:14 Retweeting @davewiner - weirdest web app I've seen in a while. tinyurl.com/48r2fg #
• 14:15 @akselsoft - I don't know. It's fun, but I don't know how practical it would be for routine use. #
• 16:14 @tedroche - Erin has been identifying forsythia like crazy since she found out what it was. :-) #

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• 00:25 Thinking I should tweet more. It's not like nothing's happening... #
• 08:36 Just saw a life jacket high up on a thicket on the side of the road. Must've blown off a towed boat. (Or the thicket knows something.) #
• 09:42 This morning's choco milk really hit the spot. Didn't know I needed it so bad! #
• 11:02 1,000 tweets! Huzzah! #

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I've been in no mood to do much. I have a HUGE to do list; proof a book, work on new books, catch up on 2 months worth of manuscripts, fill orders, grade papers, finish up this year's issue of the school lit mag, and head out on Friday after school to Montana for a trip to see family (an aunt's 90th birthday, and many relatives I've not seen in a long time). And more.

And tonight (much like last night), what did I do? Ate a little dinner, then sat in front of the TV, with Netflix DVDs at hand, and watched an episode of season one of Rome, and the first three episodes of season five of "24." It was relaxing, but I felt a little guilty. 

My back's aching--probably too much sitting in a too comfy chair for 4 hours.

I mentioned a while ago I had some good news I couldn't yet share. Well, it's official now: I sold short story "Joy is the Serious Business of Heaven" to Realms of Fantasy (my third sale there).

This is my "bureaucracy in Heaven" story, which I originally wrote at Clarion West (2000). It was the best-received of the lot and I knew it wouldn't take very much to make it publishable. And indeed I didn't make a lot of changes to it... it just took me until 2006 to get around to them. And then it took two years and eight rejections before it finally sold. Just another overnight success.

This story is the bookend to "The Curse of Beazoel", my "bureaucracy in Hell" story, which appeared in the anthology All Hell Breaking Loose (2005). However, although "Beazoel" appeared first, "Joy" was written much earlier.

One last reminder for Portland folks: I have a Space Magic reading tomorrow (Wednesday May 14) at Powell's in Cedar Hills at 7pm. Hope to see you there! And if you aren't in Portland, after tomorrow you should be able to order a signed copy from powells.com. Or you can order an unsigned copy from wheatlandpress.com and get it in front of me somehow, and I'll be happy to sign it.

Whee!

[Crossposted from stonetable.org. If you'd like to comment, you can do so either here or there.]

4.) Sixty Days and Counting, Kim Stanley Robinson.

Okay, I've finished the trilogy (I read Forty Signs of Rain a while ago; I just needed to come off of writing the book to have some reading time). What do I think?

First of all, I think Fifty Degrees Below was the strongest of the three. This trilogy is one of those extended volume books. While you could read the others as stand-alones, there
s pretty much one set of storylines carried through three books.

And now that I'm done with it? I liked reading the trilogy but I don't know that I'd reread it. Too much blogging in this book, and the tone just didn't read right for a blog. The engineering got pretty fantastic and I'm not certain I completely bought into it.

What I do find interesting is that this set is definitely a strong character/relationship trilogy with a backdrop of hard science--in this one, climate change. Integrating the themes of the politically and then environmentally displaced Khambalung with high-stakes political black conspiracy games and high-end science came up with an interesting mix. Certainly a big, big story with a number of storylines unfolding besides the high-concept global warming--Frank's musings about sociobiology (if you're interested in it, it's fascinating, if not--well, you aren't), Charlie and Anna's attempts to raise a family in a non-traditional mold, and Frank's adventures with Caroline--I'd have to go back and compare it to the Mars trilogy (or I would if I were a book reviewer or a college prof instead of a middle school special ed teacher) to see what sort of growth we might have going here...

Or not. The trilogy as a whole is well-worth reading once; I'm too close to it right now to decide on a second read.

Meanwhile, I'm off to reread Steinbeck. Haven't decided yet if it will be Working Days (the journal of the writing of The Grapes of Wrath) or Journal of a Novel (the journal of East of Eden). Or both. Whichever it is, I plan to reread the book the journal is about afterwards, with an eye toward craft.

Still unwinding from Pledges, and feeling some pressure to work on Freeriders. And thinking that this is a good summer to be thinking about craft--not just for myself but for the group of students I will be teaching next fall.

Comments on this entry are screened. If lnhammer, slobbit, enevarim, and clarentine would be so kind as to comment with their addresses, I will get their books out post-haste!

I also have two copies of the All the Windwracked Stars ARC to give away, but I have not yet decided what I am doing with those....

This last weekend brought us the Emerald City Comicon, which I was unable to attend. But Phil was there, and he took the Large-size Kid with him for one day. (The Fun-size Kid stayed home with me. She is unruly and not yet fit for human company.) Aaron and Cristi Williams came to Seattle for the con and stayed with us for the weekend, which was lovely. It's always fun to see your friends at a con, but it's also nice to have some time to talk in a more relaxed setting. As Aaron put it while we were sitting around the living room: "I keep thinking someone is going to interrupt us to ask how much something costs." Look at Aaron's comics here!

Cool stuff that came home from the con:

There's a new collection of Dave Kellet's  Sheldon out: A Blizzard of Lizards. Remember: Sheldon comics heal the sick! (Well, they certainly helped ME feel better.)

The Kid came home with a great Smash Bros. BRAWL poster by Bleedman. I recognized the art right away, because I really REALLY like his Grim Tales comic, and if the official PowerPuff Girls cartoons were anything like his PowerPuff Girls Doujinshi, I'd actually watch them. Yes, it's copyright violation city, and I'm well aware that if somebody did this with our stuff, it would be a huge headache, and yet... I'd love to have this stuff in a book. I am a conflicted monkey, and make no excuses. Heh.

There were lots of other nifty con things, but I'll have to write about them later. I have to go out tonight so I should wrap this up.

But of course, you're all dying to know what I got for Mother's Day, right? (What? You're not? I will tell you anyway!) I got a soft, cuddly Necronomicon. My kid is a Good Boy Who Is Kind To His Mother.

joculum advises: 

The signed limited edition (250 copies) can only be ordered on the Subterranean Press website, and then only through the page that contains the description of the book. Their catalog order page lists only the 1000 copy edition.

The general edition is clothbound, the limited signed edition is leatherbound.

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Got to see the asthma/allergy folks today. They now have me on three meds plus my emergency med and whoooieee, I'm breathing!

And exertion isn't pushing me into scary shortness of breath. I couldn't do the allergy shot today because my reaction scared the nurses badly enough they're consulting with the doctor again on Thursday.

Thing is... my inner adrenaline junkie, now fed on various adaptations of... well... adrenaline and steroids, is occasionally jumping into my brain and going, "Oh oh oh oh come on, Come On, COME ON. Why the F-- are you GOING SO SLOW!!!"

Ahem.

I am now very glad that I did not buy the Z3 M roadster or even the other M series cars I was looking at while in the midst of my upper management high a few years ago. I am glad I did not take up a friend's offer on a good deal on an AMG series Mercedes. I am even more glad I do not have a Tesla or a motorcycle.

Because it makes the temptation mostly moot. Even as it was I was forcibly taking my foot off the accelerator of the Passat as I would just blow by everyone from the stop lights.

I now understand Jyuushiro's calm control just a little more. *laughter*

Happy Birthday, cakmpls and akhmed!!

What we actually bought were two "Ben Ten" action figures. The receipt makes things sound so much more... interesting:




And a detail: