mycoplasma rock

Or sleep, more like. I took a swig of Christopher's Dizziness Alert cough syrup last night and started PERFECT CIRCLE, the new Sean Stewart book from our favorite favorites at Small Beer Press. I love Sean's work and seriously suggest you go pick up all Sean's books -- RESURRECTION MAN, MOCKINGBIRD, GALVESTON being good places start -- if you haven't read them. Anyway, I'd intended only to start the book, finally made myself stop reading around one a.m. and chapter four. It's funny, not in a forced, "Look at me I'm clever" way, but in the way that really smart people are funny, and it's scary, not in a "Oh, I'm soooo scary, aren't I?" way, but in a way that makes you actually feel scared for the main character. And how much do we love Will "Dead" Kennedy? Lots.

How can you stop reading a book with great little bits like this?

Generally speaking, I divide people--living and dead--into five groups:

1) Buddhas
2) Tell-Tale Hearts
3) Cobains
4) (Jack the) Rippers
5) Zombies

And I have to stop there, before I type in the whole bit explaining the uses of this scale. I'll have more to say about PERFECT CIRCLE when I've finished it (um, probably tomorrow at this rate). But wow, it's nice to have a Sean Stewart book to press on people again.

We slept till noon today, unheard of for Christopher, and it didn't even feel like sleeping in. I revised for a bit then we popped out to the library to pick up some books and have lunch because we didn't feel like cooking. That was hours ago and I'm hungry again now. And still awfully tired. I'm hoping the antibiotics are engorging these little mycoplastmic bastards right now, so we'll both feel better tomorrow. And I'm wishing that there was a movie theater in the parking lot of the post office next door where we could go see the new Harry Potter movie. Christopher's prejudice against bad southern accents in movies is preventing our watching BIG FISH, but maybe I can talk him into NORTHFORK. We quietly gave up and sent THE QUIET AMERICAN back to Netflix today, after two months of not watching it. (Was it longer? Hard to say.)

This malaise bites. I have miles of words to tweak before I sleep and it's not helping!

earworm: "The Sound of Settling," Death Cab for Cutie

check out: Stephany Aulenback's eminently sensible response to the New York Times article about the student who mathematically analyzed fiction selections by New Yorker editor

namechck: You.