Sunday, November 09, 2003
Last night, about 7:25 or so, the clouds smothering Atlanta unexpedtedly parted and we watched the eclipse from Jenny's bedroom windows. We had it in view from about 50% to totatlity, and then the clouds returned. We passed my old field binoculars back and forth. It was the best view I've ever had of a total lunar eclipse and it was beautiful. Watching the earth's vast shadow sweeping across the peaks and plains, the craters and mountains, all those shades of stone-dust grey obscured as the earth rolled inexorably across the face of the sun. Watching the shadow swallow the Mare Imbrium, Sinus Medii, Mare Serenitatis, Mare Tranquilitatis, and finally those smaller eastern seas — Mare Crisium, Mare Nectaris, and Mare Fecunditatis. A brilliant gold-white rim before the shadow was finally done and the lunar globe glowed a red-orange-gold. And then the clouds returned, and we were denied a vision of the reemergence. But I didn't feel cheated. I'd seen the coming of the shadow. That it would leave again was a given.
This morning, Sophie, who never kills anymore, had left a cedar waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum) on the back porch. So maybe that Low Red Moon got to her, as well.
Yesterday, all I wanted to do is cook. I made a delicious Thai soup for lunch — coconut milk and chicken stock, asparagus, kale, sesame, baby portabellas, red chilis, lemongrass, lime, green onions, and ginger, served sizzling hot over jasmine rice. Then I made a huge pot of chili for supper — green bell peppers, white onion, chili powder, a chicken sausage with lime, tequila, jalapenos, and black beans, tomatoes, both pinto and kidney beans, cumin, paprika, four dashes of Tobasco green sauce, a quarter cup Jose Cuervo Clasico, and lots of garlic. I have grown to love cooking.
Spooky and I proofed the remainder of Chapter One and the beginning of Chapter Two of Murder of Angels, and I felt myself begin to pull free of the mire of Procrastination. Today, we have to finish Two and do Three, which is a lot of words. I'm liking the novel more now that there's a little distance between us.
After the eclipse, Spooky and I had absinthe and listened to LunarCycles until about midnight. She was feeling very ill (I still feel fine). Later, she fell asleep on the couch and, insomniac that I am, I watched movies until almost 4 a.m. It seemed to be New Jersey mob night on IFC. First Adrien Brody in Eric Bross' Ten Benny, then James Mangold's star-studded Cop Land — Stallone, DiNiro, Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta, Janeane Garofalo, Michael Rapaport — all in one film. I'd seen neither film, and neither was terribly good. But they were both engaging and it gave me something to do until I could find sleep.
The thank yous are backed up again. Let's see — thanks to Matt Spencer, Moira, David M. Lemoine, Hayley Sears, and Terrell Garrett, for their thoughtful and welcome words on Low Red Moon and for "getting it." Thanks to Setsuled (Leh'agvoi) for his work on Nebari.Net. A general thanks to Saba Razvi for an e-mail that I sorely needed. I know I'm forgetting people. I'm sorry.
A self-serving suggestion. So many of you are saying such wonderful, insightful, dead-on things about Low Red Moon. Why don't you also post your comments on Amazon? It'd be a small assist.
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