we've cracked the code

It's humid out. I'm a little sleepy, drinking coffee in my living room while I type. And in a few hours my partner-in-crime and I will get on a plane and leave NYC to visit our families. Hurray for a vacation! It's going to be a busy one, though. I hope I get some down time. And I should keep this short, since I need to finish packing. A couple more books to discuss:
20) Ravens in the Library, an anthology created to raise money for Sooj Tucker when she had some medical problems. It was uneven, as anthologies often are, but a keeper for me for a couple specific stories. Terri Windling's and Ari Berk's, specifically. They are two of my favorite writers. Everything they write is magic.
21) Nell Gwynne's Scarlet Spy by Kage Baker. I adore this book. The writing voice is terrific, it knows when to take itself seriously and when not to, and the characters are a lot of fun. This is related to the Company series, for those of you who are familiar with Baker's work, and I can't wait to dig in to those books.
22) Carpathia by Cecilia Woloch. I love this woman's poetry. Love.
Clearly I've not been reading enough; it's pretty disgraceful that tomorrow is September and I've only read twenty-two books. I'll have to work on that.
Anyway. My hope for vacation is to have some good down time and to get some editing done. Wish me luck, everybody, and I'll see you all on the other side!

tell mama all about it

Last night was not very conducive to sleep. Went to bed around twelve. Had a crazy intense dream. Woke up from that, and was so disoriented it took me a moment to recognize our bedroom, when my partner-in-crime came in to go to bed. I was awake for a while as he settled in for the night. The an hour or two later my darling little Zoe cat decided to go moth hunting. On the bed. Which was adorable, but kept me up for a bit. Then she wanted attention. Then we went to sleep. Then she woke me up later to let me know she was exiting the bed. I went back to sleep. Then the alarm went off to get up for work this morning. *YAWN* Needless to say, not a bad night, but a sleepy day after.
Without further ado, here is the dream:
I was in some sort of giant camp, a semipermanent thing, there were tents crammed together wall-to-wall, and lamps and rugs and such all over the place, and my partner-in-crime was there with me. I followed a path (I think someone was leading me, perhaps?) around and through tents and over other people's rugs, ducking under and around hanging lamps (the light felt very yellow for most of this), and then we came to a particular tent and that's where we stopped. There was an old woman who insisted I open a trunk (I think it was at the foot of a bed?) and put on a particular pair of boots from in there. I keep wanting to call them mukluks. They were definitely leather, with fur around the top and other decorative strips of fur around the ankles. My partner-in-crime copied me with the most similar pair of boots he could find. And then things . . . shifted. We were still in the tent, but it was fey folk and people all mixed together. And we sat down at this gorgeous rectangular (oak? pine?) dining table. I was at the left hand of this fascinating tree-looking man, he had appeared before us when things shifted and corralled all of us into sitting down at the table. (Think Pan's Labyrinth satyr, ish. But more treelike.) Anyway. I did something disrespectful, but it's hazy. Maybe I drank out of his glass? I said something impertinent? I know there was a glass in front of me as well, it was clear, with I think copper accents, and had a green liquid in it. Everyone had a glass like that. Anyway, I did something, he called me arrogant, and called two other fey over (they were tall like him, but hunched over and creepy and less treelike). They picked me up and carried me around the table while pinching me and tearing my clothing in punishment.
And that's when I woke up. I think that'll show up in a novel or short story at some point. Blessed be!

in these rags of wind

That's how I feel right now. Ragged. Summer usually does this to me. It just gets so busy, so full, and flies by. I can't wait for autumn. For cool nights at home, for sweaters, for a quiet couple of months in the company of good books and cups of tea. I also can't wait to see my family in September; it'll be a most welcome change of pace.
Three books to talk about:
17) Bone Crossed by Patricia Briggs. This series is one of my absolute favorite things happening in urban fantasy right now. Mercy Thompson is a well-fleshed-out character. The secondary characters are also well-done. The werewolf pack politics are believable, and the complicated relationships between the different kinds of fey as well as between fey and humans are spot on. This is book four. At the beginning, Mercy is still recovering from the trauma she suffered in book three, and I found her reactions to things and her panic attacks to be on the money. I can't wait to read the rest of this series, when I get my hands on it.
18) Not Flesh Nor Feathers by Cherie Priest. An older title by a long-standing favorite author of mine. This is one of the Eden Moore books, and I have to be honest: While I did enjoy it quite a bit (Southern Gothic ghost story!), it's been so long since I read the other two Eden Moore books that I'd forgotten some of the pertinent information from them. Nonetheless, this is a keeper for me, and recommended to all of you. (I just need to work on reading series titles closer together!)
19) Baby Proof by Emily Giffin. This book made me really angry. It's about a woman named Claudia, who doesn't want children. She's happily married to Ben . . . until he decides that he DOES want children. They divorce. Claudia spends time being depressed. Meanwhile, every other woman in the book treats her like she's an alien for not wanting babies. And every other woman either has kids, is trying to have kids, or is going to have kids. Claudia keeps wondering how she and Ben didn't work out if he's her soul mate. At one point, someone says to her, "He wasn't your soul mate. If he WERE, you'd do ANYTHING to keep him. Even have his baby." And that is Claudia's lightbulb moment. Her "Being with Ben is more important than my desire to not have babies" moment. And as a woman in her thirties who doesn't want children, this infuriated me. This female character decided that having her man was more important than her own wants and needs, more important than her own decisions about her body and career and etc. What. The. Hell? Every woman makes whatever decisions they make, and that's cool, but the overwhelming message I got from this book is "Ladies, you should want babies, and if you don't, there is something wrong with you. If you don't, you will lose your partner and be sad and lonely and pathetic for the rest of your life. So start making babies!"I'm angry enough at this book that I won't read any more of Emily Giffin's work, and I'm no longer recommending her to friends.
Have any of you ever read a book that made you angry? Do tell.
And on that note, I have to get back to work, it's piling up. Happy Monday, everyone!