Watched The Big Clock last night, the 1948 noir thriller. Good flick. I’d actually seen the ending before, but not the beginning. Fortunately, I’d forgotten enough to enjoy the suspense.
Hobkin was a cuddle beast:
Feel a little twitchy today. Maybe we’ll catch a flick. Still haven’t seen Spider-Man 2 or I, Robot.
Hope to get some good, quality writing time in today.
Matthew told me an amusing story he read on the skunkchat community. Apparently a neighbor of the president of the ADSA (American Domestic Skunk Association) was sitting on his porch when a skunk meandered up and started rubbing against his leg. Knowing that his neighbor kept skunks, he reached down and pet it for a while, and then called her up, letting her know that one of her black and white babies had gotten loose and was on his porch.
Her reply: All of her skunks were accounted for, and besides, she didn’t have any black and whites.
Turns out he’d been petting a wild, fully-loaded skunk for the last ten minutes or so. Hee!
All skunks are lap skunks:
I’m so very, very pleased. I love “Running on Two Legs.” I think it’s one of my best stories, and I’m emotionally attached to it. I was getting a bit disheartened for a while there, despite Ann Crispin, Victoria Strauss, and Kathleen O’Malley giving it wonderful comments when I sent it through Ann’s Advanced Workshop at Dragon*Con in ’02. It also won an Honorable Mention in the WotF contest, but still no buyers, although I was racking up some very nice editorial comments.
Then I found out that Andy Cox had taken over Interzone and was reading all subs for both IZ and TTA. I’d already sent “Running” to TTA via their American first reader (cheaper postage) a year or so ago, but had been shot down. Since then, the American reader has been let go. I really thought it was a TTA story and not an IZ one, but since I couldn’t re-sub to TTA (even though I highly suspected Andy had never seen it), I sent it to IZ. And voila, serendipity!
I’m tickled! TTA is a beautiful publication with a fabulous reputation. And Andy said I could send subsequent submissions to him via email, which is extremely considerate of him. Also, it ensures I’ll be sending a lot more subs his way, as I’ve been holding off on overseas submissions of late because of that whole expensive postage thing.
Delighted squeeing to commence.
Head still hurts. Ow. Took the afternoon off from work to nap, to try to get rid of this ornery headache. Now I’m slept out, but still in pain.
Went berry picking again last night, right as the storm front started rumbling through. Managed to avoid getting wet, although I once again bear fresh scratch welts from the brambles. Bloodthirsty blackberry gods.
Hobkin turns into a ravenous fiend when he gets a whiff of blackberries and vanilla ice cream. It makes eating dessert something of a tricky enterprise. Yesterday, I let my guard down for two seconds in order to scoop some ice cream into my mouth, and a second later found myself in a tug-o-war with a very determined skunk. He hooked his front paws on the edge of my bowl, used that leverage to stick his nose in, and was busily trying to inhale everything within reach. He hung on so tenaciously that I needed Matthew’s help to rescue my bowl. And this was even after we’d given him a handful of berries for his dessert already. Greedy fuzzwit. At least we managed to keep him from upending the bowl on the floor, which I suspect was his primary goal. After cleaning the ice cream off my hands and the outside of my bowl, I retreated to the computer chair to finish my dessert.
Planned to do some writing last night, but spent the evening instead assembling my submission packet, a task made unnecessarily difficult by an obstreperous printer, and hunting for the flat-rate priority mail envelope that I knew I had . . . somewhere.
On the MIA editors front, my Tangent editor still hasn’t posted the review I wrote of Sci-Fiction‘s “Shadow Twin.” I emailed my review to him on June 27th. A week and a half lag for publishing a review for a weekly publication is irritating. And now there’s a new story up already. Dammit. I sent him an email ping to see if there were any signs of life in his vicinity, but so far, “no” is the answer. Also, NFG has been sitting on a story of mine that’s passed their initial round, and has been garnering some rather nice commentary. But they’ve had it for over seventy days, which is way long for them, and only four editors have looked at it. Humph.
In sobering news, one of the members of one of my writers groups has a brain tumor. She’s had it for years now, and has beaten the initial estimates the doctors gave her on her life expectancy, but recently she’s been declining alarmingly. She’s a wonderful writer, won 2nd place in the Writers of the Future Contest a couple quarters back. But it seems unlikely that she’ll be strong enough to attend the workshop and award ceremony. She just went into respit care and her primary caregiver/best friend is going to try to talk her out of continuing her chemo, since she’s pretty sure it’s just killing her faster. It’s all terribly depressing.
Yes, it’s the fourth of July, cheers and clapping and all that. But was it really necessary to set off fireworks last night, so close to our house that it sounded like someone was thumping on our front door? Humph.
In better news, we went blackberry picking yesterday. Our first crop of the season:
We had berries and ice cream for dessert, Hobkin had several with his dinner, and we’ve got enough left over for several more desserts and snacking! Amazing quantity, considering we didn’t plant them and aren’t doing anything to encourage them. We just go out and pick. I did get poked something fierce by a set of brambles. The price one pays to the blackberry gods.
Watched The Italian Job–the 1969 version with Michael Caine, not the 2003 remake. I was disappointed. The middle dragged, and the characterization was flimsy. I found it incredibly tedious by the time it ended. I actually liked the remake better than the original, go fig. The remake took very little from the original, actually, which is probably just as well.
Plan to see Fahrenheit 9/11 today. Looking forward to it.
Also snapped a couple pictures of Hobkin under his hutch: Continue reading
Took pictures of Hobkin the other day with our shiny, new digital camera. He doesn’t like the flash.
I took a picture of him eating dinner, and he scampered under the hutch, abandoning food even, to peer distrustfully at me until I put the camera away. Then he ventured out and went back to snarfing down his meal.
In the future, I’ll probably turn the flash off and just set the shutter speed slower when I take front-on shots of the poor, wee fuzzwit. I know I get blinded by flashbulbs at conventions, and typically the photographers there are considerate enough to ask (and therefore give me plenty of warning) before they pop them in my eyes. I can only imagine how disconcerting it must be for Hobkin.
Watched a strange B&W, soap opera-esque movie on AMC yesterday with Matthew. Think it was called something like Three Letters to Wives. It was about a woman (whom we never see on screen) sending a letter to three other women, informing them that she’s going to run away with one of their husbands that night, and the three wives fretting and worrying about this, complete with flashbacks as to how they got together with their respective husbands and their various and sundry marital complexities. It was enjoyable–better than watching the WB Superstar fiasco–but not a “must see” by any stretch.
I must have fallen asleep like a dead thing last night. Usually when Hobkin clambers up beside me, I wake up enough to tuck him in next to me under the covers. But last night, I was oblivious when he came looking for snuggles, and since he couldn’t get under the blanket with me, he curled up instead next to my head on my pillow. I woke up with a face full of warm fur at one point in the night, which is actually a rather pleasant experience as Hobkin is very soft and last night he smelled of celery. So I reached out to pull him closer and used him as a pillow.
However, there are trade-offs one makes when one opts to use a skunk as a pillow. One of which is resigned acceptance that one will inevitably be woken up by said skunk in the wee hours of the morning in a less-than-gentle manner. Hobkin decided at some ungodly hour that he was done being my headrest, but I had him pinned (hah! sweet, payback!) so he couldn’t get up. He decided to express his displeasure with this state of affairs via his teeth to my nose. Not my favorite way of being awoken, but indisputably effective.
Rummaged out the old webcam that we’d put away after we got the new computer. Installed it and took a few shots of Hobkin being a lap skunk. Not great resolution, but it was quick n’easy:
Hobkin has problems understanding skirts. I wore a long skirt to work today, and all morning as I was swishing through the kitchen, making his breakfast and packing my lunch, he kept standing up on his hind legs trying to lean his front paws on the hem of it. But, of course, it just yielded under his weight, and he’d flop forward at my feet, often with a perplexed expression on his fuzzy face. Silly thing.
He fell asleep with me last night on the couch. Very deeply asleep. A couple times he rolled over so suddenly I had to lunge to catch him or he would’ve rolled right off the couch. And he started to snore once with his nose right next to my ear. He has a good life.
I need to take more pictures of him. But our digicam is so damn clunky. It’s such a pain to get out. I need something sleek and svelte like the adorable camera wicked_wish has. Covet covet covet.
I keep forgetting what day it is this week. Undoubtedly a common mind glitch on Monday-holiday weeks. The headache I’ve been sporting since lunch hasn’t helped either.
Heard from the editor of Blood Lust, a UK gay erotica vampire anthology that I submitted a reprint to. My original submission was almost a year ago. I’d totally forgotten I’d sent it to them. They said they’re still working on final selections. So I guess I’m still in the running.
Desperately engaging in Cricket Magazine Group rejectomancy. I’ve got two submissions with them cresting or over the all-important 100-day mark. The one at Cricket is going on 111 days, and the one at Cicada is just hitting 100. With only one exception, everything I’ve sent to either of those markets that’s made it that long I ended up selling to them. I really could use another juicy sale to pick me up out of my funk. Well, actually I don’t know if it’ll get me out of it, but I’d be ecstatic for a bit, sure enough.
And finally, ring the bells and sound the trumpets! I cranked out 1200 words on a new fantasy piece. At last, I’m making writing progress once again. About slogging time.
We celebrated Hobkin’s 2nd anniversary over the weekend. It’s been two years now since the wee fuzzbump came to live with us. I can’t imagine life without him.
Hobkin got Sara Lee carrot cake again, which he gobbled up enthusiastically, then went bouncing through the house on a skunky sugar buzz, before crashing out on my lap, paws and muzzle sticky with cream cheese icing. We also bought some summer peaches, which he’s also quite enamored with. I gave him a slice with breakfast and watched him lick the plate clean, going after every last drop of peach juice.
The blackberries are beginning to ripen in the backyard. Matthew and I waded through the weeds and brambles and picked a dozen or so berries. It’s still going to be a while before they really come in, but it promises to be a bumper crop. Those things really do take over quickly. And goodness they’re pointy! Matthew paid his sacrifice of blood to the blackberry gods.
Wrote maybe 100 words yesterday on a brand new SF short story concept. Normally that’s not even enough to count as progress, but considering my current dry spell, I’m inclined to acknowledge any new wordage I can.
Also did a Critters critique. And fiddled around some more with Excel spreadsheets. Plugged in the numbers for the hardcopy submissions I’ve mailed out thus far in 2004. Total postage costs: just shy of $80. That’s fairly comparable with last year’s and 2002.
I feel terribly unproductive on the writing front. Makes me angry with myself.
Hobkin was very frisky this morning. He kept wanting to play, pouncing first on my feet, and then when I bent down to dislodge his fangs from my toes, he’d relocate them to my fingers (his fangs, not my toes). Once, when I was putting my socks on, he charged full tilt at me in my vulnerable foot-in-the-air position, but in his excitement, he misjudged the distance (being myopic and all), and careened head first into one of the pillars in our dining room. I was worried he’d knocked himself silly. And, to tell the truth, he did look a bit dazed for a moment or two. But then he went tearing off, most miffed with me as though it was my fault he’d collided with a pillar. Silly beastie.
It did make me wonder, though, about how our animal companions view us. Obviously Hobkin understands some cause and effect. He’s very good at training us to do things for him. But to what extent does he understand it? He knows that we are the source of food, and also things like comfort and companionship. But when it thunders and rains, does he think we cause that too? When something scares him, does he think we caused it? And when he runs into pillars, does he blame me for putting that pillar there?
Writing stuff:
Received the edits from Andromeda Spaceway Inflight Magazine for “Body and Soul Art.” Gleep.
1. I haven’t looked at this story in a while. I’m a bit appalled at how rough it is in places. I really thought I had it polished.
2. The editor who I’m working with is excellent, just fantastic. I’m so glad I get the chance to fix this baby up before it hits publication. A couple times in the past, my stories have gone pretty much straight from submission format to print, and upon seeing them again, I wished for a more meticulous editor.
