When I disappear…

I was going to start this post with something completely different, but then the latest issue of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet arrived on my e-reader, and the opening paragraph of Alyc Helms‘ The Blood Carousel is too good to not share it:

They say any child brave enough to ride the carousel can win her parents back from death, but every child must bring her own mount to pay the ticketman. Unicorns would please him best, but to catch one you need innocence, and innocence cannot find the carousel.

Glorious, glorious story full of foxes and magic and not-quite-childhood bullies who live next door. I could think of a good half-dozen friends, who would probably love it, and it makes me glad I finally got around to resubscribing after losing track of when my subscription lapsed a few years back. Worth seeking out if you’re a fan of folklore-influenced fantasy.

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So…yes. When I disappear, mysteriously and on short notice, send people to my house and look under the avalanche of unread books. There’s pretty good odds that’s what has done me in.

When I moved in to my apartment fourteen months ago, I knew there wasn’t enough room for the books. I’ve spent the last year aggressively culling, sending books to good homes, and its still barely made a dent. There remains an awful lot of books left in teetering piles, and boxes shoved under beds and stacked in quiet corners.

Some books, quite honestly, are in danger of toppling through windows one day. Come summer, when i open windows, I’m going to find copies of The Changeling and Moorcock’s Wizardry  and Wild Romance embedded in the hood of a neighbours car after they made a desperate escape attempt.

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Day six. No hot water. Waiting for parts to come in, which will take twenty-four hours, which were ordered thirty-six hours ago. Properly grumpy now, since tomorrow is write-club day and I’ve been rearranging things at work, on the off-chance they actually called and I could have hot water again.

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Today I learned that Bubble Soccer is a Thing – players take to the field wearing giant inflatable bubbles, kick at a tiny football, and generally bounce off each other like they’re playing an absurd computer game. It’s hard to argue with people who have figured out that soccer would be better if the players bounced when they fell.

Facebook also brought along a link to an oddly poetic article about What Snails Think About When Having Sex, via my friend Chris Lynch. It’s hard to deny the power of its opening:

It starts with a light, soft touch, one tentacle gently reaching out, hesitant, hopeful, hanging lightly in the air. There’s a pause. Skin touches skin. One softly strokes the other and slides closer, and then, carefully, they wrap themselves together, stroking, probing, entwining. They glisten as they move, and because they are snails, everything happens very slowly.

Which is kinda glorious, really.