I'm suffering from Attack of the Nashville Gas Company Bozos, appearing in concert with the phone company and a host of others. The convent across the street sold off their extra land, and a development corporation bought it in order to turn the beautiful parkland into an enormous apartment complex. This week, they began the underground work in earnest, and it's not pretty. Our day begins with the unlovely clang of dump trucks dumping gravel, drills biting through the cement, hearty construction workers joking at the top of their lungs, and metal bangs from dumpsters being moved. It's going to be a very long spring, I can tell.
In other news, the cat with the broken tail is recovering nicely, and her fur is growing in all fuzzy and cute. Also, I decided to take the position at the big MOO because heck, how many chances will I have to wreak havo...I mean make a difference to 1350 people's chief form of entertainment?
A huge carton of books arrived from Tor Books this morning. Thanks to my position as a "tastemaker in the science fiction community" (not my own words), I receive a yearly shipment of newly published sf which I can count on to be incredibly good. I don't review for them, although I have worked for them in the past, but I always like to keep up with the good stuff they publish. In my opinion, Patrick Nielsen Hayden is a national treasure as an editor of sf. Buy his anthology, Starlight I, for the best new short stories. You can purchase it at fine bookstores everywhere, even online. [Note from the future: now you can purchase Starlight II and III as well. Each one is astonishingly good.]