In Common with Humans

I’ve finally gotten to the end of an absurdly hectic stretch of days, and I thought I’d post an update. It’s getting ridiculous: I’m self-employed, and I’m so busy that I have to beg out of one obligation to make another! I’ve been off my normal routine, such as I even have one, since the last weekend in April. I barely managed to squeak in my Beltane observance at all!

under cut to spare bandwidth

…well, never mind. *wry grin*

My friend Bev, who lives in Nova Scotia, occasionally is sent to this area on a business trip by the company she works for. During her trips, we manage to finagle an evening after she finishes work to get together. We usually have dinner someplace, and end up at a Barnes & Noble critiquing the entire New Age section shelf-by-shelf until the store closes and we’re escorted out. In the past, Bev’s business trips were widely spaced, and we’d go several years between them. But Bev has been traveling a great deal on business the past few months. We shared a hotel room for Boskone in February, and last week Bev e-mailed me that she’d be in Danvers for a couple of days this week. We decided to get together on Tuesday and go into neighboring Salem. Bev hadn’t visited Salem for a very long time, and I last went in 2000 with annef. Even though it was off-season and we wouldn’t get into the city until after 6:00 p.m., we hoped that some things would be open to see.

Salem travelogue under cut because it’s longish

Happy Beltane, Calan Mai Hapus!

It’s the first of May and I’m freezing cold. The temperature out is about 61 degrees, but it went below freezing last night and my house is the same temperature it is all winter, 56 degrees. You may rest assured that no matter how hot it gets this summer (and for at least two summers now, it has never gotten hot for more than a day or two), you will not hear me complain about the heat! I’ll be making excuses not to go anywhere that is air-conditioned!

The dandelions have bloomed in the back yard. It’s the weirdest thing, but the dandelions out back all pop open precisely on May 1st–no matter what the weather has been like. Maybe they’re keyed to the length of the day, but they never fail: May 1st, not a day later or earlier, they all appear. I didn’t get around to digging those out yet, *heh*.

I’ve been sleeping very badly, and having disturbing dreams that I recall in vivid and extensive detail, which has been unusual for me to do for the past decade or so (recall dreams at length, that is). I finally took two Tylenol and two Benadryl this morning because my poison ivy was so uncomfortable. Now I’m stoned into a near-coma from the Benadryl–enough that I know I shouldn’t drive. Fortunately, I have no need to go anywhere, but unfortunately, I desperately need to get Sunday’s church service done, and I’m supposed to participate in the IPNE Member Call-in this afternoon.

Next post: Springtime in Salem!

It’s Beltane Eve, Walpurgisnacht, the twin holiday of Samhain. It’s just as well I have no plans to be dancing around a bonfire tonight, because it’s already 30 degrees out and there’s a possibility of frost. I won’t be able to get up at dawn and wash my face in the dew, it will be frozen!

Signs of spring at my house:

• Giles is covered with mats (he’s the only one of the four who gets lots of them).
• the house is covered with dust balls and tracked in dirt because I haven’t gotten around to vacuuming–I’ve been spending too much time out in the yard.
• I am covered with poison ivy. *heavy sigh* The nature spirits make me pay for all the cutting and digging and weeding I do! This isn’t as severe a case as I’ve had in the past–it’s mostly just hives. But itchy, gods…and when it doesn’t itch, it hurts. So I’m uncomfortable and not sleeping well, and I’m exhausted and a bit woozy because my immune system is all out of whack from the reaction. It hasn’t peaked out yet, it’s still coming out in new places. I’m not sure exactly where I ran into it, but I obviously wasn’t careful enough.

I’ve been keeping track of the yard work, and I added it all up yesterday. In three weeks, I’ve put in 28 hours out in the yard! I had a couple of days off because we’ve been deluged with rain for two straight days. Now it’s just cold.

I’ve spent chunks of time on two days this week upgrading the hardware on this computer. geek stuff behind cut

My current desktop:

…but in a good way.

Owls! There are owls out there! I walked out to the compost pile and heard them calling out across the street. I haven’t heard an owl at night for years. At least two of them…I know I’ve heard that call but I can’t put my finger on the specific owl that it is. I think they’re barred owls.

Gods, I’ve got the tingles all over! That was just so cool!!!! I hope they’re nesting! I hope they stay!

It’s another really beautiful spring day…but dry. It’s incredibly dry out. I walked down to get the newspaper and the ground crunched under my feet. We’ve only had 1.25 inches of rain in April. That’s been conducive to my yard work–everything has been much slower to start growing, leafing out, etc, so I’m able to stay well ahead of things even on my modest allotment of time, and I’ve only been rained out one day since I started. But I need to lay down grass seed, and I’m wishing it would rain just so I could get a break from going out every single frellin’ day. I work out every day as it is, and doing yard word every day, too, is getting to be a grind! Because it’s hard work! Lots of digging, bending, pulling up not just weeds but saplings. On Wednesday, I dug out the roots of five saplings! My mattock is getting some serious use. But wow, what a transformation I’m making. And I am going to be seeding tomorrow, since it’s finally supposed to rain Monday and Tuesday.

I got a rejection letter of my own! I submitted a “flash fiction” to Necrotic Tissue and they turned it down! Oh, well…*wry smile* I don’t think I’m quite what Necrotic Tissue is looking for, really–they said my fic “wasn’t dark enough” (everyone is dead at the end of it, I guess they don’t die horribly enough!). I don’t think I can be dark enough for Necrotic Tissue, it’s just not my thing. I’m looking at some other markets that are a bit more varied in their content. Sending this off was a bit of an impulse. What caught my fancy was the writing challenge: the fic has to be 100 words, precisely. Not “100 or less,” not 99, but 100 words to the dot. I love that kind of challenge.

They did say, “This was the most unique format I’ve seen in the submissions.” That’s my forte–go for the unique! And they said to keep on submitting, so maybe my muse will hack something up that’s more in their range and I’ll try again.

Hey, if anyone on my f-list wants to give it a shot, see their website, they pay $25. They accept submissions in April, July, October and January, so you have four more days to send something in. I just heard about them from the New England Horror Writers group. I went to a NEHW meetup on Tuesday and had a great time!

On the ego-boosting side: I went out to the library to pick up some audiobooks to use as models for producing my own. I wanted to listen to a few examples before I start recording. The library also has DVDs, and they had “Pan’s Labyrinth,” so I’m finally going to get to see it! You may recall that I donated copies of Mortal Touch to the Pepperell and Townsend libraries last fall. It took them a while to get the copies catalogued and into the collection, but when they finally did, I would check occasionally, and I’d noticed that the Pepperell copy was often checked out. Well, today when I went to the counter with the audiobooks, the library assistant said to me, “You know, your book is circulating very well.”

Yay! I like to hear that! Because you know what that means: it means I’m getting good word-of-mouth. And libraries love books that circulate–especially books they didn’t have to pay for.

I just got off the phone with Dell Computer, ordering a replacement keyboard and a memory module for this computer. It’s a long story…*sigh* But it’s all the cats’ fault!

I spotted this item in the NYT: No Shoes, No Shirt, No Worries. I miss clothes-optional recreation…alhough I don’t think I could afford these!

Happy Birthday, musiquephan!

…I finished writing the review of Yarbro’s Lost Prince for Blogcritics.

Next I need to do interview questions, because there is supposed to be an interview op along with this book. However, now I need to head out and do today’s stint of yard work. I’m almost done clearing around the house. You’re not going to be able to recognize the place by full summer. 🙂 I even found a repair shop for the lawn mower (it remains to be seen whether it can be repaired, I hope so!) right up in New Hampshire.

Wow, the ‘Net is dead. And not just the ‘Net–I ran a couple of errands and even the post office and grocery store were deserted. Where is everyone?

Now I’m getting psyched.

Guillermo del Toro to direct ‘The Hobbit’ and sequel