All out beyond horizon

[sovay]

And this morning I was woken by floor-shaking, ear-filling mechanical noise that appeared to be located directly outside our bedroom window. derspatchel got out of bed and verified that it was a woodchipper in the street immediately below our bedroom window, deconstructing the branches that came down in the nor'easter last week: it might as well have been out in the hallway. Downstairs was no quieter. The cats were panicking, so we let them ino the room; they dived immediately under the bed. And we lay in bed with earplugs and pillows and fervent, partly threatening prayers for the city to clear the sidewalk already and not bother checking out the tree in the backyard and eventually the agonizing judder and ripsaw moved off and the cats cautiously came up to the topside of the bed and I overslept from the interruption and I thought that was a completely unnecessary start to the week. It's getting better, though.

1. My poem "The Crane Husband" has been accepted by Not One of Us. After two months' drought of poems, it came very suddenly out of nowhere around midnight on Saturday. I credit taking a day in which I did absolutely no work whatsoever.

2. Yesterday, despite exhaustion and illness, I sang the "Lyke-Wake Dirge" at Music to Cure MS and I am very, very pleased with how it went. I dedicated it to klwilliams, for the living, and my mother's cousin Billy, for the dead. The rest of the evening was marked by (me) falling over and (Rob) discovering that his wallet had gone missing on the bus and waiting until ten o'clock at night to hear from the MBTA if anyone had turned in it. Remarkably enough, someone had. So that was exciting.

3. Saturday night was my family's annual Halloween party. We had a respectable complement of rushthatspeaks, jinian, sairaali, nineweaving, teenybuffalo, my niece who is now ten months old (and can walk if she holds on to things) with her parents, and friends of theirs with a seven-year-old daughter who was all about the pumpkin-carving. I baked a lot on Thursday, including a shredded-apple-and-crystallized-ginger cake-thing I plan to try again. Rush brought caramels. Rob took some pictures of our pumpkin and Greer took a picture of me.



An impressionistic close-up. I am wearing my bisexual unicorn T-shirt: my Halloween costume was me, well-rested and stable.



Rob says, "Making this was very easy. I simply cut out the parts where a cat wasn't."



I put the eyes on the other side of the pumpkin. It should always be able to see.

4. runedrum is now compiling Storyfox: A Database of Vulpine Science Fiction and Fantasy. (Introduction and explanation here.) I have already inundated her with all the fox titles I could remember over the weekend, but I know for a fact that I can't have gotten all of them. Go and make suggestions! Your own work, others', it's fair game so long as it's foxish. Foxfoxfox.

5. The Strange Horizons Fund Drive is still running, and there's quite a lot of special issue left to go. Two more weeks, I think. Help make it all happen!

There is sunlight today. I should walk around in it.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I love the idea of a database of vulpine SFF. I imagine it will be heavily East Asian folklore and heavily Alex Dally McFarlane! But with other stuff, too.

You look *so beautiful* in the photo, and the jack-o-lanterns are *wonderful*. Love the eyes.

[gwynnega]

Wonderful photos! The shredded-apple-and-crystallized-ginger cake-thing sounds good.

Congratulations on the poetry acceptance!

[sovay]

I love the idea of a database of vulpine SFF. I imagine it will be heavily East Asian folklore and heavily Alex Dally McFarlane! But with other stuff, too.

(Heavily Yoon Ha Lee, too. Lee writes excellent foxes.)

At least in the recommendations I could think of, there seemed to be three main strands: fox spirits from East Asia (When Fox Is a Thousand, The Sacred Book of the Werewolf), Reynard-tricksters from Europe ("Foxes," "Queen Elizabeth and the Fox"), and variations on the ballad of Reynardine ("The White Road," "The Maiden to the Fox Did Say"). Absolutely there are works that fall outside those traditions, David Garnett's Lady into Fox (1922), Rose Lemberg's "A body that is bold to come," and Alex Dally MacFarlane's "The Jar-Mouthed Fennec," just to name a few. But that's what I can see clustering from personal experience. Part of what I'm hoping to see out of this database is whether those strands are dominant or just my limited sampling.

You look *so beautiful* in the photo, and the jack-o-lanterns are *wonderful*. Love the eyes.

Thank you. I am trying to work on liking pictures of myself. My body is doing weird things again.

[sovay]

Wonderful photos! The shredded-apple-and-crystallized-ginger cake-thing sounds good.

I'll try to recover the recipe for it. My mother found it in the Boston Globe, we adapted it very slightly, and it was a hit.

Congratulations on the poetry acceptance!

Thank you!

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Making this was very easy. I simply cut out the parts where a cat wasn't.

Didn't Michelangelo say something very similar?

I put the eyes on the other side of the pumpkin. It should always be able to see.

Why do I finf this so scary? A pumpkin that can see is no problem, but a pumpkin that can see both ways at once is scary? Apparently. Go figure.

Hope your Halloween continues to be satisfactory.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Whew. So glad that some good person turned derspatchel's satchel. You sang beautifully, a shadow that defines the light. Afterward, I met the Titania at the bus stop, eating takeaway, with her frou frou pink sparkly dress bundled up under her arm. Faerie off duty.

And your Halloween party was quietly wonderful.

Nine

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm touched.

[beowabbit]

Great photos! (And great pumpkin, although if it turns out to be Great Pumpkin I’ll be a little nervous.) Congratulations on the poem and the music.

[sovay]

(And great pumpkin, although if it turns out to be Great Pumpkin I’ll be a little nervous.)

We left it on the porch. We should check if it's still there, or if it's begun making its rounds to the deserving children of the neighborhood.

Congratulations on the poem and the music.

Thank you!

[sovay]

Didn't Michelangelo say something very similar?

I believe so, yes.

Why do I find this so scary? A pumpkin that can see is no problem, but a pumpkin that can see both ways at once is scary? Apparently. Go figure.

Does it help if I point out that strictly speaking the cat on the front of the pumpkin has no eyes, or is that just making it worse?

Hope your Halloween continues to be satisfactory.

Thank you! Today we saw a telecast (from 2013) of Shakespeare's Globe's The Tempest with Roger Allam and I don't know how Halloweenish it was, but we really enjoyed it.

[sovay]

So glad that some good person turned derspatchel's satchel.

Me, too. The alternative would not have been fair pay for coming out to hear me sing.

You sang beautifully, a shadow that defines the light.

Thank you.

Afterward, I met the Titania at the bus stop, eating takeaway, with her frou frou pink sparkly dress bundled up under her arm. Faerie off duty.

Nice.

I am glad the party was good.

[sovay]

Thank you! I'm touched.

You're welcome! I'm glad it was not out of line.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Does it help if I point out that strictly speaking the cat on the front of the pumpkin has no eyes, or is that just making it worse?

Oh, dear. No, that doesn't help at all.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

You made a pumpkin cat, with eyes in back! I approve of this project very heartily. Also, you do, as another comment pointed out, look very luminous. Clearly absorbing sunlight is agreeing with you.

[sovay]

You made a pumpkin cat, with eyes in back! I approve of this project very heartily.

I am glad! That is a very appropriate icon.

Also, you do, as another comment pointed out, look very luminous. Clearly absorbing sunlight is agreeing with you.

Hah. Thank you!