Brokedown car blues

Today is my day off. Sadly, I do not get to spend it writing or cleaning my scary house or taking the puppy to the park. Instead I must get the 2700 lb paperweight that was a Ford Fuckup Focus towed to the shop to get the ignition fixed. Hopefully.

At least the repair shop has wireless, and is down the street from a coffee shop.

Bookkeeping, lines composed while waiting for a tow-truck

4. Saffron and Brimstone - Elizabeth Hand

Guh. Can I write like Liz Hand when I grow up?

This collection is beautiful and melancholy and sometimes terrible, and it aches in the pit of my stomach. The afterword calls these stories "exorcisms, exercises, love letters, entertainments, elegies, maps", and that's exactly right.

The stand-outs for me are the eponymous "Cleopatra Brimstone" and "The Saffron Gatherers", and "Calypso in Berlin", which I've loved since I first read it in SciFiction. "Pavane for a Prince of the Air" is also one of the most gorgeously heartbreaking stories I've ever read.