I was so horrified about the Braves’ game that I completely forgot to tell you about taking Katherine to Madame Tussaud’s wax museum. One of her school chums told her that if she did anything in NYC, she had to go there. I was, to say the least, skeptical but I am nothing if not a devoted aunt.

They’ve got wax figures standing around in the lobby. The funny thing was that as we waited in line, we started wondering if anyone standing still was wax. Like the security guy who was really bored. When he blinked it was a surprising.

The exhibit starts in “opening night” which is set in this big diaorama of a rooftop party hosted by Tony Bennett. Some of the waxworks were uncannily good, and I found myself not wanting to get into their line of sight. Others seemed to bear little resemblance to their namesake. The most interesting part about this room was getting sense of height and size. Harrison Ford is a tall man. Joan Rivers is tiny. That sort of thing.

From there we went into the history room, which, I must say, was surprisingly edifying. See, they’ve got a wax self portrait of Madame Tussaud there that she did in 1842. Yeah. And it is very, very convincing. Across the room is a wax figure that she did in 1801 of Napoleon. It was really chilling.

The rest of the exhibit, didn’t really take me the way those two did. I think that both are recast from her molds — though the exhibit doesn’t say that — but it is still astonishing. I’ve since looked up Madame’s history and am now fascinated by her.

I uploaded to the new Wordpress 2.5 last night and was aggravated to discover that my beloved crossposter was incompatible with the new version. Fortunately, my googlefu is strong and I found a hacked version of the plugin that works around the incompatibility issue. For those of you who also crosspost from Wordpress, you can pick up the new version of the LiveJournal Crossposter plugin, here.

Now, it should be obvious that I’m not really a sports scene sort of person. That said, if there’s a sport I enjoy, it’s baseball and the Braves are the only team that I’ve ever seriously followed. So I was not dreading going to see the game with Katherine. I called around, found a place that would have the game on and we headed down.

We all, including Katherine, agreed that Blondies was a ruthlessly unpleasant experience.

Food? My vegetarian chili was fine. The caesar salad was so watery as to be almost inedible. I mean, yes, wash the lettuce, but then at least drain it. Rob’s fries and garden burger also seemed fine. Katherine’s buffalo wings? She couldn’t even finish them because they were “slimy” and “gross.” This is a girl who loooooves buffalo wings. The fat and skin to meat content was apparently on the wrong end of the spectrum.

Atmosphere? Frigid. We had to wear our coats the whole time.

Music? Deafening. I mean, Rob put in ear plugs. I actually had my fingers in my ears at one point because it was nightclub loud. Not a nightclub. Sportsbar. I finally asked one of the waitresses if they could turn the music down a little.

She said, “It’s really hard to turn music down in a bar. Where are you from?”

“I live in New York.”

“Oh. Well, it’s really hard to turn music down.”

Right… funny thing. From my time waiting tables if a customer asks you to turn the music down, you turn it down. Now, she did briefly turn it down. For one song. Then she turned it back up, louder, so she could dance in the back to it. I kid you not.

When the Braves tied the Nationals at the top of the ninth, I was not happy. I should have been rooting for the Braves but all I could think was that now we were going to be stuck there for another inning and that I would have to kill someone.

The Nationals won, without going to extra innings. Katherine was sad, but we were all grateful to get out of that joint.

Oh, and the ladies bathroom? Gross. Truck stop level grossness.

Katherine has arrived safely. Her flight got in twenty minutes early, so she had already claimed her bag by the time I got there. Flights arriving early! Since when does that happen?

We’re heading out in a quest for a bagel and Diet Dr. Pepper in a bottle.

I think I wrote almost all of this story on the subway. 2500 words of clockwork.

It’s in a password protected post, but it’s the usual password. Don’t know what that is? Drop me a line and I’ll tell ya.

And here’s the teaser.

The clockwork chickadee was not as pretty as the nightingale. But she did not mind. She pecked the floor when she was wound, looking for invisible bugs. And when she was not wound, she cocked her head and glared at the sparrow, whom she loathed with every tooth on every gear in her pressed-tin body.

The sparrow could fly.

He took no pains to conceal his contempt for those who could not. When his mechanism spun him around and around overhead, he twittered — not even a proper song — to call attention to his flight. Chickadee kept her head down when she could so as not to give him the satisfaction of her notice. It was clear to her that any bird could fly if only they were attached to a string like him. The flight, of which he was so proud, was not even an integral part of his clockwork. A wind-up engine hanging from the chandelier spun him in circles while he merely flapped his wings. Chickadee could do as much. And so she thought until she hatched an idea to show that Sparrow was not so very special.

My niece is coming to visit us this week and my brother has informed me that she will be a sad girl if she can’t watch the Braves game on Sunday. Rob and I don’t have a television. I don’t suppose that, among my NY based readers, one of you already plans on watching the game and wouldn’t be averse to having a seventeen year old girl and me watch with you? We’ll bring snacks!

Last night, to celebrate, I worked. I needed to turn in my recording for PodCastle and had been given an extension because of my cold last week. The dragon lady was not appropriate for this story. Even so, my voice was a little fragile and we had to stop a lot.

Actually, that’s not completely true. The reason we had to stop a lot is because we weren’t recording in a studio. We were in an office building, with Rob’s sound equipment set up as an impromptu studio. The sound-proofing was inadequate, so periodic sirens would force a halt. At that, it was quieter than our apartment. As Rob says, any sound you can hear while recording will be picked up by the microphone and seem louder than in real life.

Which meant that we had to turn off the overhead lights, because the florescent light ballast hummed. It meant that, since the room was very “live” that every lip smack, swallow, or shuffle of paper turned up on the recording. It meant that I had to stand completely still, because the floor creaked and that turned up.

But, we got the recording. Clearly, I have to come up with a different recording space before my next assignment is due.

Jennifer Jackson of Donald Maass Literary Agency has just offered me representation. Naturally, I said, “yes.”

And then I ran around in circles, weeping and giggling.

See, I don’t blog about everything but back in January, I made the very hard decision to leave to leave my agent. The details aren’t important, but it wasn’t easy to decide to jump back into the dating pool. It really did feel like I was breaking up with a boyfriend to be single again.

While I was moping, Ken Scholes told me that I should send my manuscript to his agent, which I had already wanted to do. She’s done wonderful things for him and I liked everything I heard about her. It was nice, though, to get Ken’s blessing before sending in that manuscript.

And today, oh man, today the acceptance email came in. I have to tell you that I looked at the subject line and thought, “this is going to be a rejection.” And then it wasn’t and I burst into tears. Yes, I can be very girly.

Really, when people tell you that an agent/author relationship is closer to a marriage than anything else, I think they know what they are talking about. After courting Jennifer Jackson, I do feel like I’ve just been proposed to.

I’m looking forward to what the future holds. It feels very, very bright right now.

One of the actors at opening night of Rainbow Kiss gave everyone a bookmark with this quote. I thought it appropriate for anyone in the arts, not just performers.

There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time. This expression is unique.

And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.

You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you.

Keep the channel open…No artist is pleased…

There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is on a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.

–Martha Graham (to Agnes DeMille), Martha: The Life and Work of Martha Graham

My Campbell clock started January 30, 2006 when Strange Horizons published my story, Portrait of Ari. That story is still on the web, but much of my other short fiction is hard to find. I’ve pulled five stories out of my sales that reflect a range of the kinds of fiction I write.

If you are a voting member of WorldCon and would like to read more, visit the bibliography on my website. See a story that isn’t available? Drop me a line and I’ll send it to you.

You can download the .zip directory of stories. This collection includes
For Solo Cello, op. 12 — Originally published in Cosmos
Bound Man — Originally published in Twenty Epics
Death Comes But Twice — Originally published in Talebones
This Little Pig — originally published in Cicada
Cerbo en Vitra ujo — originally published in Apex Digest [Warning: explicit sex and violence]

I’ll know that I’ve arrived if the Wikipedia entry on me doesn’t get deleted for not being notable enough. I long to go in and add birthdate (February 8, 1969) and birthplace (Raleigh, N.C.) but the etiquette of wikiland say that I can’t add information about myself. Still, I’m not going to complain much or loudly since I have an entry. Yes, that’s how much of a geek that I am — a wikipedia entry pleases me.

Found via PuppetVision

This is Shimmer’s first review at The Fix and so far I’m pleased. It’s nice to have another short fiction review venue, especially one that doesn’t pull punches.

Save for the first story, which was written based on the cover illustration, the art and the stories they inspired are printed together. Unfortunately, this means the art is printed in black and white on plain paper stock, often resized to accommodate text on the same page and apparently printed with a standard printer. Given the detailed linework that features in so many of the pieces, this isn’t the best approach. Images are blurred and details are lost, and while this is likely the result of budget constraints, when the art is the purpose of the publication, it can’t help but have a negative impact. Only the illustration on the cover, “Penny’s Grave” by John Picacio, is printed on heavier paper stock, sized so that the details are fully visible.

Ow. I have two reactions to that, one is that we used our regular printer, which I believe is offset. And two, that the reviewer is right. Some of the images are not as crisp as I would like. This has been a problem in previous issues, but one that I thought only bothered me or at least, no one else seems to notice it. And that, is the value of a good negative review when they say something that can make you acknowledge a flaw.

Now, there are also things in there that just make me giggle. Like the reviewer wishing that Chrissy Ellsworth artwork had been printed in color. It’s funny because the original image is black and white. Only one was created in color and that’s Carie Ann Baade’s beautiful artwork in Kuzhali Manickavel’s story. Nor did I resize anything to accommodate the text. The half page images were horizontals, so they don’t fill a full page when their width is the same as a vertical. But, the point is taken that it would be nice for our next art issue to have bigger pictures and to really talk to our printer about the importance of clean images.

Fortunately, the reviewer loves our fiction. Here’s the last line of the review.

Despite the formatting problems with the featured art, this is a solid example of good fantastical short fiction, and an issue of Shimmer well worth acquiring.

This is a banner weekend.

I’ve just been cast as Peter in Peter and the Wolf. It’s a workshop production put on in joint collaboration with Terry OReilly, a long time member of Mabou Mines, and a Chinese puppet company– Guangxi Puppet Art Troupe with live music performed by Matrix Music.

Performances are April 18, 19 and 20 at the Abrams Art Center. I’ll post details and of course rehearsal updates as we go.