2019-11-05 08:20
Once again, got so wrapped up in my video game and working that I never wrote anything. Even being ahead of schedule for work, I still end up working too much.
The new collection of John Crowley stories And Go Like This arrived yesterday from Small Beer Press. I stumbled upon its existence a few months ago when looking up some other book they published. At the time it was a pre-order, so I kind of forget it would be coming out in the beginning of November. I jumped into the first story last night, one I had already read in an issue of Conjunctions many years ago. Very excited to read the rest (all or at least most of which I've not read before). I remember first finding Crowley's Little, Big on the shelves of the public library I worked in high school. A fantasy paperback, but for some reason one of those shelved with the regular fiction rather than the much less organized sci-fi/fantasy books. I no longer remember what attracted me to it, but I ended up reading it and loving it. And then reading more of his novels, and then waiting endlessly for the various sequels to Aegypt (now called The Solitudes since the four book tetralogy now has the former name). I've read the whole series through only once I think, but the earlier books I've read multiple times, and there are still scenes from them stuck in my head, like parts of a film, which doesn't happen with a ton of books I read.
We're getting a rain garden installed behind the house this week. The borough environmental committee got a grant to do work with stormwater management and part of it is installing rain gardens. Since we live on a hill above a park with a creek which has flooded in the past, it seemed like a good idea for us to help out. Yesterday the guys dug a swale (a new word for me) from where our busiest rain gutter can direct water down to where the garden is going. It's the sandy area that used to house an above ground swimming pool that we dismantled shortly after buying the house. That area of the yard it totally overgrown now like a jungle. The rain garden will be a good start to getting things a little more managed back there.