Oh Lovely Morning

I am still soaked to the bone after running over to the neighbors’ in the middle of that downpour–thunder cracking so close overhead it sounded like I was about to be squashed by it. And who should get out of the house, right then, but Mrs. Wigglebottom, determined to go with me, wherever I was going in whatever weather, because it was better than being alone.

I find that touching. But you know, when the weather’s lovely and I’m out in the garden, she’s perfectly happy to wander back into the house.

So, I don’t think my company is actually all that awesome.

So, I had to wrangle two wet dogs in the house and leave one wet dog on the neighbors’ back porch and get everyone settled and then get Mrs. W. back home and dry and then… not twenty minutes later… it stopped raining. So I had to go back over and let the dogs out, lest Leo, who hates me, poop on the floor.

But since it was raining and all I have to do today is dishes and suffer from this immoveable headache (thank gods it’s not very strong, just unbudging), I spent the morning working on the scary part of my Halloween story.

And I think it is scary! And derivative. Lord, it’s derivative. Terrible things happen to little girls. Old women are chased across their lawns by rotten zombies. Bikers go to prison. But I’m having a complete hoot about it. Lord, I am having fun.

I don’t know if it will be all y’all’s thing, but when they make a Woolite commercial loosely based on it, I fully expect Rob Zombie will enjoy directing it.

PALIMPSEST by Catherynne Valente

I’m glad I read Deathless first, because I thought it was so amazing and yet, people, if I had read it after Palmipsest I would have been sorely disappointed. Palimpsest must be the kind of book that, if you write it, you’re afraid you’re never going to write anything as good as ever again.

It’s simply breathtaking.

I don’t really know how to tell you what it’s about. It’s kind of like a grown-up, sexed-up, non-Christian Narnia. There’s incest and weird tattoos. Rich kids have to be licked into normal existence by poor kids. There’s a train and a fortune-telling frog. And mechanical bees. And a city that exists in some other place, which you can only get to by fucking.

I am still kind of reeling from it. Ha obviously, if I’m imagining naked men in my flowerbed.

Get Them to the Church on Time!

Man, I’m getting a little misty looking at all of the pictures celebrating gay marriage in New York. What a beautiful thing, for people who love each other to have marriage open to them.

I’ve been trying to guess which southern states will be the first to fall (unless we get some kind of federal mandate). My money’s on Virginia, followed by North Carolina (who will complain the whole way, I’m sure).

But imagine if we’d passed “Don’t Say Gay.” Middle school social studies teachers would be forbidden from discussing the biggest civil rights event of the summer. Even if you think it’s reasonable to lie to kids about the range of human sexuality, do you really think it’s okay to lie to kids about what’s going on in their own country?

But anyway, who wants to focus on farts when there are weddings to plan?

Edited to add: But while we’re focusing on farts, I hope Democrats take note that Republicans helped pass this. When you have a majority and you squander it and then you come back and ask for votes because the other people will be so much worse? They’re not always going to be so much worse.