I am doing unexpectedly well here in hospital. Per this post from calendula_witch I do believe I'm up to visitors today and tomorrow. Also, looks like I may be here til Sunday despite earlier hopes.

My fridge hasn't been working 100% for quite some time. Sometime last night if finally decided to give up. Of course, at that time, it was stuffed to the gills with Thanksgiving leftovers.

::sigh::

As it was still cool, and everything was cool to the touch, I moved all the food to a neighbor's fridge, and will be very careful before I eat any of it.

I called the dealer that sold me the fridge, got their recommendation for a repair shop (one that's actually factory trained for dealing with my brand of fridge.) Of course, the repair shop is closed until Monday.

I just--ack. Didn't need this.

I keep thinking that in February I'm going to go into debt and tear out everything in my kitchen and redo it. Again. I want a fridge that consistently works and an oven that has an even temperature.

Besides, I need to fix all these things before I sublease my place anyway. . .

I had other ramblings but I'm going to just go with this for now.

Back from Orange County, NY. Had a great Thanksgiving with my mom's family. My cousin J. did a great Thanksgiving feast with turkey with the traditional family stuffy recipe, a sweet potato, apple and cranberry casserole, fresh homemade cranberry sauce, little mini pumpkin muffins made from pumpkins she grew, and since my other cousin J. and his son are vegans, they brought a tofurkey and J's wife N. made a really good rice and lentil dish. I tried the tofurkey. Won't be doing that again. It was like eating a tough somewhat stale rye bread.

Had a great time playing with my cousin's two standard poodles, Katie and Mason, and labradoodle, Riley. Riley is a big clumsy goofball. Katie and Mason are much more dignified. There were also 4 barn cats: Mr. Grey, Max, Fat Maggie (who has not yet started bulking up for the winter) and Lexie. Lexie was the friendliest. We also got to interact with the two horses, Val and Del, and the two ponies, Eclipse and Chip (who is a recent acquisition and needs to go on a diet). Both Val and Chip came over to the fence to wuffle at me and let me pet them, and Val tried to eat my sweater vest.

At one point while we were waiting for the turkey to finish coking, a huge flock on crows started landing in the trees and all over my cousin's front lawn (there had to be at least 3 dozen on the lawn) and cawing and making a lot of noise. So after asking permission, other cousin J. shouted "release the hounds" and let the dogs out. That quickly took care of the problem.

My cousin's son B. has had yet another growth spurt and his voice has changed. I think he's about 5' 8" now, and he's starting to get quite broadshouldered now. Given that he's only 13, I'm guessing that he's not through growing.

The drive back to the hotel was a bit creepy because none of the roads were lighted and it was really foggy.

This morning everyone took advantage of the really good breakfast buffet at the Courtyard Marriott in Middletown and then my uncle and aunt drove my mom and me home. There was no traffic and it only took about an hour and forty minutes.

Argentus 09 has been posted on efanzines. You can download the issue from there of the Argentus page.



This issue includes contributions from Alma Alexander, James Bacon, Gregory Benford, Sheryl Birkhead, Michael A. Burstein, Richard Chwedyk, Julie E, Czerneda, Sondra de Jong, Kurt Erichsen, Brad W. Foster, Chris Garcia, Ann Green, Steve Green, John Helfers, Janis Ian, Howard Andrew Jones, Deb Kosiba, Nancy Kress, Jay Lake, Fred Lerner, David D. Levine, Sue Mason, Jack McDevitt, Robert Rede, Mike Resnick, Ralph Roberts, William Rotsler, Larry Sanderson, Steven H Silver, Robert Silverberg, Tom Smith, MO Starkey, Michael D. Thomas, Harry Turtledove, Taral Wayne, Brianna SpaceKat Wu, Joel Zakem.

Articles include:

Six Silent Clowns (Silver)
The Virus-Scarred Man (Benford)
Welcome Home (Ian)
TAFF Notes: Prelude (Green)
A Culture of Maps, Trains, and Sex, a Review of Catherynne M. Valente's Palimpsest Tour (Thomas)
Cheng Ho Discovers America! (Wayne)
Welcome to Universe-R (Jones)
The Bonds of Discipline (Lerner)
NASA, My Dream Job (Roberts)
A Day in East London (Bacon)
Down and Out on the Way to Sai Gon, or Breaking Bad (Sanderson)
They Disappeared (Alexander, Burstein, Chwedyk, Czerneda, Kress, Lake, Levine, McDevitt, Resnick, Silverberg, Turtledove)

Mock Section: Classic Sitcoms Reimagined as Science Fiction Series (de Jong, Garcia, Helfers, Rede, Smith, Thomas, Zakem)

Black Friday today. If you have to buy gifts for the upcoming holidays, don't hassle with overcrowded stores and malls, bad parking, the crush of the crowd, that peculiar dizzyness that comes from wandering aimlessly with too little money and too much aggravation. Remain in the comfort of your own home and give the always welcome gift of books. More pointedly, give the gift of my books. Here, let me make a few suggestions:


The Shadow Year (winner of this year's Shirley Jackson Award and co-winner of this year's World Fantasy Award for Best novel) from Perennial/Harper Collins

"Properly creepy, but from time to time deliciously funny and heart-breakingly poignant, too. For those of you-and you know who you are-who think the indispensable element for good genre fiction is good writing, this is not to be missed."
-Kirkus Review, Starred

"Surreal, unsettling, and more than a little weird. Ford has a rare gift for evoking mood with just a few well-chosen words and for creating living, breathing characters with only a few lines of dialogue."
-Booklist

"The Shadow Year captures the totality of a lived period, its actualities and its dreams, its mundane essentials and its odd subjective imperatives; it is a work of episodic beauty and mercurial significance."
-Nick Gevers, Locus


The Drowned Life (winner of this year's World Fantasy Award for Best Collection) from Perennial/Harper Collins

From School Library Journal

Sometimes we read something and immediately think of a friend who would really like it. This collection of short stories from the author of The Shadow Year contains some of the most unusual and provocative settings and plots this reviewer has ever encountered, which will make it perfect for book talking to patrons. The first story features a man who, filled with the pressures of daily life, finds himself at the bottom of the sea in a place called Drowned Town, on the run from sharks called Financial Ruin. In "The Night Whiskey," local citizens win a chance to drink a magical berry liquor that enables them to experience the dream of a lifetime, only this year the results are quite shocking. In "The Scribble Mind," an art student stumbles onto an elaborate conspiracy where a select few can remember something that gives them exclusive membership into a special society. Sometimes shocking, sometimes mesmerizing, sometimes humorous, this collection will please fans of Raymond Carver and Flannery O'Connor. Recommended for libraries where short story collections are popular.—Kellie Gillespie, City of Mesa Lib., AZ
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly

Following close upon the release of The Shadow Year, Edgar-winner Ford's third collection leads readers down dark and subtle passageways onto some very strange turf. In the title story, people drown and end up in a submerged city whose inhabitants are scornful of anyone wanting to return to the surface; a man named Hatch is compelled to escape Drowned Town in order to uphold a promise to his son. Similar metaphors of submersion are applied to drastically different effect in The Manticore Spell, The Dismantled Invention of Fate and In the House of Four Seasons. In Night Whiskey, the book's strangest tale, two men must roust slumbering drunks from trees after an annual festival; in addition to sending celebrants literally up a tree, the special once-a-year bash also features visitations with dead relatives, and what begins as near-slapstick ends with disturbing revelations and a loss of innocence. Throughout these 16 stories, Ford covers much stylistic terrain, weaving between science fiction, realistic stories with fantastic elements and even some nearly straight-up (and successful) comedy. Readers of all stripes should be able to find something here to love. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


The Well-Built City Trilogy from Golden Gryphon Books

The Physiognomy

From Kirkus Reviews

Humorless, inflexible, drug-addicted physiognomist Cley is ordered by Drachton Below, Master of the Well-Built City, to investigate a theft in the remote mining town of Anamasobia. The miners of the town, while delving for blue spire--a coal-like mineral that eventually turns the miners into blue statues--have discovered in a cavern the living mummy of a strange being, the Traveler, holding a perfect white fruit (now missing) that Below believes will confer immortality. Cley pronounces the guilt or innocence of the townsfolk by studying their physiognomies, but he becomes distracted by the beautiful and knowledgeable Arla, whose father Cley suspects of having stolen the fruit. In a delusional frenzy brought about by withdrawal symptoms, Cley attempts to improve Arla's disposition by mutilating her face according to physiognomic principles--but then the Master impatiently sends in troops to slaughter the townsfolk and capture Arla, the Traveler, and the fruit; Cley is condemned to the sulphur mines. He is later pardoned, deliberately re-addicted, and brought back to the Well- Built City, where Drachton Below, having eaten the white fruit, is suffering headaches so dreadful that they're causing explosions and threatening the destruction of his empire. Can the reformed Cley defeat the mad Master and save Arla and the Traveler? Seriously, logically, stunningly surreal: a compact, richly textured, enthralling fantasy debut--even if the publishers prefer to bill it as an ``unconventional literary novel.'' -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Memoranda

Amazon.com Review

The awe-inspiring historical concept of the memory palace is put to grand use in Jeffrey Ford's fascinating novel Memoranda, the sequel to his World Fantasy Award-winning New York Times Notable Book, The Physiognomy. Cley was once the greatest practitioner of the Physiognomy, a dangerous pseudoscience invented by the twisted tyrant Drachton Below. Since the fall of Below's Well-Built City, Cley has dedicated himself to healing. But when his new people fall into a deadly sleep from which he cannot wake them, he ventures to the ruins of the Well-Built City for the cure. He discovers Below is still alive--but the antidote is lost and Below is asleep, victim to the disease he created. Cley must strike a pact with Below's demon to enter Below's mind in search of the antidote's formula. But even if he survives the demon, Cley may not survive the very real dangers of Below's vast, intricate, and treacherous memory palace--or the disintegration of the dying madman's mind. --Cynthia Ward --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

The Beyond
Amazon.com Review

In Jeffrey Ford's World Fantasy Award-winning, New York Times Notable Book, The Physiognomy, the Physiognomist Cley destroys the Well-Built City and almost destroys the woman he loves. In the sequel, Memoranda, the ex-Physiognomist experiences one of the strangest adventures in all of fantasy fiction when he is forced to literally enter and explore the mad mind of his dying master, the murderous tyrant Drachton Below. Now Cley returns, along with Below's demon son, in The Beyond. The trilogy's concluding volume is slow to start and episodic, but also imaginative, unusual, and intelligent. Cley wanders both literally and figuratively in the wilderness as he follows the woman he hideously harmed into the Beyond, a mysterious, bizarre, and frightening frontier between worlds. The demon Misrix uses the Physiognomist's powerful drug, sheer beauty, to watch his friend's journey, even as he pursues his own equally dangerous quest, the search for his humanity. --Cynthia Ward --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Happy Birthday, TBQ!

To those of you who celebrate, I hope you have a wonderful day! My pumpkin pie is already in the oven. Once it's finished, I'll get on the exercise bike for a while, and at least pretend that it will make a difference in regards to the feast I'll consume later today.

( Thoughts on giving thanks )

I am grateful for my family, genetically related, marriage related, chosen, and feline. May you all have a wonderful day!

The net gets very quiet on turkey day.

This entry was originally posted at http://ashcomp.dreamwidth.org/21468.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Wow it's been a long time since I did one of these.

I just finished typing up chapter ten. Shorter than I wanted it to be, that's because a lot of what I originally put in chapter ten ended up in chapter seven. That's okay. I can see how to expand this chapter if I later want to.



Tomorrow -- chapter eleven!

I really have been trying to post every day this month.

Sunday I was offline most of the day, reading and knitting. Honestly, I hadn't planned on posting, regardless of my "post every day" stance.

Monday, I lost the key to my car while I was in Redmond. My friend had to come get me (after I'd spent an hour searching for it in the rain) drive me back to Seattle, then back to Redmond. So there really wasn't an opportunity to post.

Tuesday I probably had the time to post. But I wanted to reply to all the replies to my last post, and I ran out of time.

So it's Wednesday, four days since my last post. I have content that I could post every day (Thoughts! Ramblings! I have 'em.) For me, it's about making posting a priority. Most days I cannot post while I'm doing the day job -- I'm just too dang busy (shouldn't be posting this but I'm taking a break, it's the holidays, and most of the people I work with aren't around.) When I finish with the day job, I want to get away from the computer. When I come back to the computer in the evening, I want to work on the novel. I could post after that, but I'm tired and don't want to use my energy that way.

However. I do think that posting and trying to communicate is important, particularly as this trilogy draws to a close, as I start to rebuild my writing career. I know if I try to post once a week I'll never post. So my goal is going to remain posting once a day, with already granted forgiveness when I don't.

This amused me. Cheered my day. Hide the Decline from Minnesotans for Global Warming

calendula_witch and shelly_rae are about to take me to hospital. Admission at 6 am, surgery at 7:30, not sure when the actual prep time begins. Ah, epidurals. For what it's worth, I did sleep okay last night.

I could write a lot about fear, panic, irrationality, love, friendship, medicine, cancer, parents, children, caring, sharing. But not now. Now I go to face the knife.

As previously stated, this blog will be going dark for a while. For surgical and post-op updates, watch calendula_witch's blog, or my Twitter feed at @jay_lake, both of which will be updated by calendula_witch. I expect shelly_rae will be updating her Twitter feed as well, @ShellyRaeClift. This blog will be dark for days once I go in.

Anyway, I guess this is good-bye. Or more to the point, see you later.

Your Wednesday moment of zen.



the_child celebrates her cousin's birthday. © 2009 M. Lake. All rights reserved.

A reader reacts to my 2005 novel Rocket Science [ Powell's | Amazon ] — I think they liked it.

Cheryl Morgan reviews Madness of Flowers [ Powell's | Amazon ] — Note the comments section, she's playing an utterly lovely game with a short passage from my book.

plunderpuss finishes my medical forms — Hahahah.

joshenglish and Mrs. joshenglish drop by with a lovely parting gift — Hilarious.

SMBC on the topic of lung surgery — An odd resonance in today's comic reading, given where I'm headed this morning.

Nothing to Sneeze At: Doctors' Neckties Seen as Flu Risk — Heh. I knew I was on to something with this whole Hawaiian shirt thing.

APOD with the ice fountains of Enceladus — Wow wow wow.

Hacked E-Mail Is New Fodder for Climate Dispute — Well, this is not good.

Everybody flipflops on the filibuster of judicial nominees — Ah, principled consistency in politics.

?otD: Will you miss me when I'm gone?

---

11/25/2009
Body movement: n/a (surgery prep)
Hours slept: 6.25
This morning's weigh-in: 236.2
Currently reading: Finch by Jeff VanderMeer

Painting By David Bowes (see previous post)