Wednesday, March 30, 2005
After a lot of consideration, I've decided that, beginning with this entry, I'm taking a cue from Poppy and removing the comments option from this journal. I don't want anyone to think that I'm not interested in what they have to say. It's mostly a matter of time, or, more precisely, the lack thereof. When I was considering ending the journal, I had so many people tell me that they wanted it to keep going, and this is one way that I can keep it from taking too much of my time. When I allow comments, I watch for them, read them, and, in many cases, feel obligated to reply. I mean, if you take the time to write it, I ought to take the time to reply to it. It would be rude to do otherwise. Also, this is a journal, not a public forum, though the last couple of days it's felt a little more like the latter than the former. It is in my nature that I will often comment on controversial and prickly subjects, but in doing so, I do not mean to invite opposing views and argument. Not here. Because then, again, I feel obligated to respond, to try and explain myself, and that eats up a lot of time. In the future, if you want to reply, please direct your comments to the Species of One LJ community or to the phorum attached to my website. Or, for that matter, e-mail me (lowredmail@mac.com) or post comments to your own LJ or Blog or whatever. I won't necessarily be able to reply, but I may, from time to time, especially in the phorum. I'm sorry to do this, to have to do this. I have often been pleased to have the comments here, but I have to write four chapters of Daughter of Hounds in two months. That's two weeks per chapter, plus all the other dren that's piled up. Perhaps, when the novel is done, late in the summer, I'll restore the comments feature.
I've been so wrapped up in so many things, mostly trying to puzzle out this frelling novel, trying to find the plot of Daughter of Hounds, that I haven't been keeping up with the results of the ESA's Mars Express spacecraft. And they are amazing results. I hope NASA's feeling a little shame, after Titan and now these new Martian discoveries. Anyway, here are a couple of the more wonderful photographs:
Water ice at the Martian north pole, along with fluvial, aeolian, and volcanic features.
Martian pack ice on the Elysium Planitia.
You can find news on these discoveries and many more photographs at the ESA's Mars Express homepage, which I hope you will visit.
So far, the "organic" vegetarian thing is working out very well. I'm missing meat, sure. Part of me will always be an inveterate carnivore, but I just couldn't continue to deny the deeply disturbing and often horrible facts regarding where all that meat was coming from, the moral issues that I have with how the animals we raise and harvest are treated, the implications that this treatment has for my health, the harm being done to the environment so that I might eat meat, the fact that I do have very good alternatives to an ominvorous diet which might actually make me healthier. I understand that my giving up meat won't change much of anything beyond myself. The animals will still be mistreated, and they will still die. But I'd reached the point where, no matter how good meat might taste, I was beginning to experience revulsion and actual nausea almost every time I ate it. So, that is why I've stopped eating meat. I hope that I have the willpower to keep it up. Spooky's doing a great deal of research on the healthy way to be vegatarian. Jennifer's been wanting to go vegetarian for years. It seems to suit the three of us.
I spent a good part of yesterday at the Emory library, making notes for Chapter Four, looking into the history of Woonsocket, and just enjoying the spring weather and being out of the house. I also finished The Mistaken Extinction, which I recommend to anyone interested in the origin of birds, their relationship to non-avian dinosaurs, and the current mass extinction humans are inflicting upon bird populations worldwide. I also picked up William Hope Hodgson's short-fiction collection, Deep Waters (Arkham House, 1967), Paul Semonin's American Monster: How the Nation's First Prehistoric Creature Became a Symbol of National Identity (New York University Press, 2000), and Richard A. Lupoff's Edgar Rice Burroughs: Master of Adventure (Canaveral Press, 1965). It wasn't a bad day, though I still have some rather large and unanswered questions about Chapter Four which are holding things up. I need to e-mail my new editor at Penguin, who I've not yet spoken with (my doing) and set up a call. I need to call Marvel. Mostly, I need to frelling write.
12:52 PM
Comments:
Post a Comment
