A simple choice, but it's one or the other

[sovay]

Rabbit, rabbit. It is now my birthday month.

This morning was appalling; I would not wish it on the start of any month. Very tired, very stressed, very cold and very rainy, and I woke from one of the worst nightmares I can remember in years. Fortunately, some things got better.

1. Just before dinner, the mail brought my contributor's copy of Not One of Us #52. Look at that number. It's like a Platonic year of alienation. This latest is the alternative issue and it offers a splendid array of divergences, including poems by ashlyme, hawkwing_lb, and ajodasso as well as fiction by asakiyume and equally terrific work by people who I don't know on LJ, like Finn Clarke and Patricia Russo. My short story "Like Milkweed" was inspired by something Asakiyume said while discussing burdock; it is as much about monarch butterflies as it is science fiction. I have also a poem in the issue, "The Antiquities of Herculaneum"; that one is the direct result of reading a disaster movie review and thinking the dead of Vesuvius deserved better. Written mostly to Talking Heads' "Sax and Violins," I don't know why. Pick up a copy! I find the black-and-white cover shot of mushrooms extraordinarily beautiful.

2. The Park Street cockroach lives! I saw it this morning as I came back from my dentist's appointment and other downtown errands; it was skittering healthily around the stairs, feelers twangling, quite unsquashed. I felt an unexpected rush of affection and reassurance. Like the ravens at the Tower of London. Boston shall not fall this week.

3. I am now reading poetry submissions for Strange Horizons for the months of October and November. Send me all the different voices you've got.

I must go make sure the latest adorable thing the cats have done was not also destructive.

P.S. I love everything about nudibranchs.

P.P.S. sairaali brought me honey from Germany! Definitely better.

Comments

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Somewhere in the non-Euclidean spaces under Park Street, a bug and Keith Richards are playing mumblety-peg.

Nine

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I am so honored and delighted to have contributed to such a beautiful story. I loved it. So many shades of orange and gold. And your Herculaneum poem does a volcano justice.

Hurray for the Park Street cockroach!!

And everything about nudibrances is lovable. These terrible cats are pretty good, too (which I know you will have seen, but still).

What flavor of honey?

[sovay]

Somewhere in the non-Euclidean spaces under Park Street, a bug and Keith Richards are playing mumblety-peg.

Is Keith Richards one of the symbols by which England cannot fall or just indestructible?

[sovay]

I am so honored and delighted to have contributed to such a beautiful story. I loved it. So many shades of orange and gold. And your Herculaneum poem does a volcano justice.

Thank you!

Hurray for the Park Street cockroach!!

It made me feel strangely so much better. That was not something I ever expected from a cockroach.

These terrible cats are pretty good, too (which I know you will have seen, but still).

Yes! I got them from my cousins.

"Other kinds of cat are a lot softer. And less shiny."

What flavor of honey?

Er . . . Honig geimkert im Park von Schloss Charlottenburg. So, whatever kind of trees and flowers grow there, I guess. I haven't put it on or in anything yet. I am saving it slightly.