Setsuled's Journal

I just now finally read Caitlin R. Kiernan's most recent Sirenia Digest--number two. It came in the e-mail weeks ago, I think. I think it's almost time for Sirenia Digest three, in fact. Where does my time go?

But the #2 pair of tales was a very lovely time in my chair this evening. First was a vignette called "Orpheus at Mount Pangaeum", which was like the minds of three creatures laid out in a laboratory, utterly dwarfing the room's clean orderly nature with their awesome strangeness and beauty. It's with a vignette like that that it becomes very clear how much Caitlin loves monsters. And why not? It's like Michelangelo walked into a room filled with alien and demoniac cadavers and was told to make a sculpture--and the results expressed things simple marble could not. Claws, teeth, and blood seem to sprout from the vignette to suit the unspoken emotional rhythms writer and reader are keyed to.

The second story, "Pony", is more human, perhaps. But in a good way. It's a pair of lovers and a strange friction they feel due to one of Kiernan's favourite concepts--people attempting to cope with an apparently supernatural experience. It's also got some very pleasing sex.

It's nice to cap the evening with good art. I'd been playing Baldur's Gate for a while beforehand, which feels more and more like a joyless addiction. What's worse, it's a joyless nostalgic addiction--I get a certain thrill from using Fireball and Stinking Cloud again, just like I did in the Golden Box D&D games I played when I was younger. But it leaves me feeling really empty, and I miss just watching movies in the evening.

The latest Boschen and Nesuko chapter ate up so much of my time last week, that I only managed to watch Revenge of the Sith--and that in parcels, over several nights. Part of the reason I had so little time was because I had to get ahead in order to be free on Friday night to baby-sit my cousins. For which, it turned out, I was in fact not needed.

And gods, was Thursday ever a particularly nasty clog in the works. I got three hours of sleep that morning, then of course had to be out at 11am. I went to Fry's and bought a copy of Lawrence of Arabia and Elvis Costello's Armed Forces. Can you believe I didn't have that album, Costello fan that I am? It occurred to me to get it finally when I saw this entry in Spooky's journal. I took it as a sign--despite the fact that I have no real faith, I am paradoxically rather superstitious. Call me Ichabod Crane.

Well, anyway--I still don't have that album. I got to my car, eagerly tore off the cellophane . . . and found part of the jewel case was missing, and along with it the bonus CD. Fry's notoriously dodgy merchandise strikes me at last. There's a reason their returns section always has a huge line.

I almost went right back in, but glanced at the clock and saw that it was already 1:45pm and I wanted to visit Marty at around 2pm. Which I did, and it was a nice visit.

So I got back home at around 3:30 or so. I fed the cats and went back to sleep--waking up at 9pm. The good news was that I finished both of the last two Boschen and Nesuko pages--and the bad news was that I couldn't get to sleep until noon. And I had to get up at 4pm.

Ever since then, I've been dogged by a phantasmal shroud of sleepiness I can't shake for the life of me. But I did enjoy watching Lawrence of Arabia on the 42 inch screen. I sit real close, too--and I sit through the Overture. That's how it's meant to be, folks. Take it that way and I guarantee you'll feel better in the morning.