Sunday, January 23, 2005
Yesterday was an anomoly, or, at least, it was an arbitrarily subdivided period of time containing an anomoly. As I said, I didn't wake until noon, which left me entirely off schedule. It was 3:25 p.m. before I got back to work on Chapter Two. And somehow, in a mere two hours, indeed, in slightly less than two hours, I wrote 1,849 words. Halfway through, I developed a truly terrible headache that's still with me. I'm not sure which I prefer to believe — that I somehow wrote five or six hours worth of story in only two hours or that I experienced a localized squiggle in the space-time continuum. Either way, I made significant progress yesterday. And got this headache. I should be able to finish Chapter Two today. Then I have to set it aside, as I've said, rest a little, do some things around the house, and write the prologue to To Charles Fort, With Love, and then I can get started on Chapter Three.
I know that it's not nearly so cold here as in most parts north and northwest, and at least we have no goddamn frelling snow, but I have had more than enough of winter and wish it to leave now, please. I'm sick of the way winter makes everything seem tired and thin and squalid. I want green trees and summer thunderstorms and days when the mercury rises above 90F. A family of woolly mammoths has taken up residence in one corner of my office. There's not nearly that much space in here, but it is that frelling cold. In February, Spooky and I shall be spending some time in Florida. It's a small consolation.
It would raise my spirits just an inch or so if you'd please have a look at our current eBay auctions. I think a few people may be confused by the items which we've put up with the fairly new "fixed price" feature. Basically, these items aren't being auctioned. They are simply being sold. In many cases, such as with The Dry Salvages and Low Red Moon ARCs, we were selling so many copies with "buy it now" that switching over to "fixed price" just made more sense.
Today's news pollution, "The Bureau of Land Management has concluded that oil and gas exploration in the northeastern corner of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska can be conducted with "minimal impact" on the area's wildlife." According to Henri Bisson, director of the BLM in Alaska, "The country needs access to its oil and gas resources..." That's a lie, of course. The country needs to learn to live without gas-hog SUVs. It needs to back away from its love affair with plastics and learn to live with less. It needs to insist that our government seriously explore alternative fuel options. It needs someone out there who can explain, clearly, so that everyone can understand, that we are presently in the midst of the greatest mass-extinction event this planet has seen in 65 million years, one which we have brought about, and even the assholes who don't give a shit about biodiversity and the preservation of wilderness are going to be feeling the hurt pretty soon. According to the CNN article, "Bisson said the development plan would identify seven lease tracts, of 46,000 to 59,000 acres each, north of Teshekpuk Lake, including 217,000 acres of key habitat for waterfowl. Exploratory leases also will be made available for 157,000 acres east and south of the lake, the area used by caribou." Screw the caribou. Who needs 'em. Screw future generations. Let them take care of themselves. Moma needs a new Hummer. Corporate executives need to try and fill those bottomless pockets.
Okay, well that made me feel ill.
So, I may as well close with this quote from Die Tageszeitung (Germany): Things are now clearer than ever: We have the right to feel a chill down the spine. To describe Bush as a madman with a mission at the head of a state bristling with weapons does not really get us any further... and, although insulting, it is no longer even particularly original. And yet this US administration sends a chill down the spine of anyone unwilling to become accustomed to listening to this madness.
Ahmet.
1:47 PM
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