strange radiation: the pool of radiance archive
Adventures with an unreliable narrator.
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Nov 25 04: one…zero…zero…one…one…
Incidentally? We’re in Ithaca until this weekend. This household, although delightful in all other respects, has dialup connectivity.
The comment spammers have hit strangeradiation.com/blog/ hard in the last 36 hours, and it took forever to hose things down, even with mt-blacklist. (Clearly, I gotta make the jump to MTv3, like, yesterday.) I cannot imagine the horror that my e-mail inbox has become, but I’m not going in there until I’ve had a chance to have SpamSieve run interference first. I don’t got that kinda time, you know?
I’m just saying: communications via the internets will be spotty until Sunday. If you really need me, try my cell.
thanksgiving
I have a husband whom I adore, even though something like half this nation thinks that to make such a statement is to attempt to bring down Western civilization. He knows how I like to have my back rubbed. He brings me flowers. Falling asleep next to him is the best thing there is, even if he snores.
I have a job that provides me with food to eat, a roof over my head, a way to pay doctors’ bills, and even a measure of discretionary funds beyond that for things like books and movie tickets.
I have a family I love, bound to me through blood and through marriage and through chance encounters that have grown into lifelong ties.
I have a niece who is the apple of my eye.
I sing with a kick-ass chorus. I swim with a fine, fine team.
I have not yet lost the support of the Muse, and in fact have just finished another revision of “Slow.” I think it has something that feels like a plot now. I’m going to send it out into the world soon. (Although I’d be delighted to share the current version with anybody who wants to see it, first. Some feedback would be welcome here.)
I’m going to go see The Incredibles again tomorrow. (Yes, it’s as good as you’ve heard. Better. Go. Just go.)
I live on a planet that continues to provide us with moments of transcendent beauty, even though we don’t always deserve it.
I live in a city teeming with humanity and bursting with stories. I live in a city that never fails to surprise and delight even in the midst of grime and despair and noise and crowds of slow-moving holiday tourists. I live in a city that offers those who love it an endless procession of new things to see and hear and eat and understand.
For all these things, and for all of the other things too numerous to list, I am deeply thankful. I shall continue to strive to be worthy of them all.
Nov 15 04: note to self
Okay, Andrew, here’s the deal, and you’re going to post this on the weblog because the threat of public humiliation seems to be the only thing that gets your attention: You may not buy the new Rufus Wainwright album until you’ve at least made an attempt at getting those edits to “Slow” working. Paul has a business dinner tomorrow night. You’ll have the house to yourself. This is your big chance. No more sitting down at the computer, looking at the place where the new material needs to go, and suddenly finding yourself at the other end of the house. Spend Monday evening writing, and then Tuesday lunchtime you can run up to NYCD and buy the record, plus that Tasmin Archer disc they’ve somehow managed to have lying about in the bins for months.
Besides, paralysis is boring. C’mon already. Please? Can we just do something fun now? Please?
Love,
You.
[If you’ve read this far, I’m sorry. This whole thing is dorky and self-indulgent, but I’m desperate.]
Nov 8 04: robot, redux
Well, that was quick. My first professional rejection letter, less than one week after the submission went into the mail. I got a polite note from an assistant editor at F&SF today with the dreaded “didn’t grab my interest.”
You know what? My day was so crappy that even this felt like an upturn in the general tenor thereof. I may even have it framed. All that remains is to decide where to send the thing next, and to send it.
Nov 1 04: query
If somebody is looking for a statistics project to undertake, I’d love to know what happens to the nation’s productivity on the day after Hallowe’en. Between those hopped up on Tootsie Rolls from the bowl in the kitchen, and those coming down from that handful of mini-Snickers they ate forty minutes ago, it’s a miracle that anyone gets anything done at all. Oog.
On a related note, my insulin rage and I would just like to say that if we find the lousy scum-sucker who cherry-picked all the Reese’s cups out of that bowl in the kitchen, we’ll flay him alive. We’re appalled, I tell you.
(Of course, however bad today may be, the next day or two may be crazier. Get out there and vote, then batten down the hatches.)