I’m feeling particularly scatterbrained lately. I’ve got the attention span of a three-year-old both at home and at work. I should be studying GRE vocabulary right now but I can’t bring myself to do it. I had a seven-week plan all charted about but after about ten days I figured that was way too much, so now I’ve cut it down to a four-week plan. Of course, week one of the four week plan is what I’ve already done in those ten days. So instead of being behind in the seven-week plan, I’m ahead in the four-week plan. Works out well.

I tried playing soccer with Athena tonight but I found out the hard way that our fortunes reverse with the change of seasons. Under the hot summer sun, Athena eventually wilts and I’m pretty ready to go home myself by the end of the exercise (I basically try and play keep away from her, but it’s hard to do by myself. She’s blindingly fast and strong and I get tired much quicker.) Anyway, it’s cold now — in the mid-40’s or so — and it doesn’t take a lot of sucking that cold air for the lungs to start burning. Athena’s in seventh heaven though with the sun being low. She barks at me in frustration because I can’t keep up. She barks barks barks and then nudges the ball like, “C’mon. Kick it. You’re pathetic.”

I came home and immediately didn’t feel well, probably because I’m coming off a bad cold and anaerobic exercise tends to knock me out anyway. So I laid out on the couch and grabbed the remote. I saw “Aliens vs. Predator” was on HBO HD and decided what the hell.

Oh. My. God. I expected it to be crappy and what do you know? It was! “Alien” is terrific because you’re terrified about what the alien might be. “Aliens” is one of the best action sci-fi movies of all-time. The rest are forgettable. “Predator” has been ruined for me by Showtime, who showed it twice a night, every night for the entire year in 1988 and I watched it every time. So I suspect it probably holds up over time, but I don’t need to see it anytime soon.

The problem with “A vs. P” is that it’s staggeringly unoriginal. The slime the aliens give off stops being creepy and gross after the millionth time someone sticks his/her hand in it. And it was cool to see what the Predator saw through his helmet, but it was only cool once and that was in 1988. I can’t count how many times someone gets pinned against a wall and the little alien snapping mouth comes out and bites mere inches away from the person’s face. Scary! But not the fourth, fifth, sixth, and thirteenth time. The ending (I’m not even going to bother with a spoiler warning here) is identical to “Aliens.” The big mamma alien comes a’ huntin’ and the plucky female protagonist comes out on top, only instead of ejecting the big alien into the cold, dark depths of space, this time we see the alien sent hurtling into the cold, dark, depths of the Antarctic Ocean.

Could this movie have been cool? Maybe, but I doubt it. It’s too over the top and it’s bound to not have a good story. Seriously, there’s nothing here you couldn’t get by just watching “Alien,” “Aliens” and “Predator” a few times each. In fact, that’s a much better idea.

The 101ers, Joe Strummer’s band before the Clash, is pretty good. Rough around the edges but good. Definitely worth paying attention to, and there are some downright catchy tunes.

I’ve got the writing jones, bad. I need to work harder to make time for writing, at work if possible. I had a productive weekend but I need to keep that up. Eight stories currently out, low hopes for most of them and only two at Big SF Markets.

Still haven’t got a reply on the story I sent to F&SF. 88 days today. I expected an answer after 12 days. Then I expected an answer after 60 days. This one’s been a rollercoaster for me. I try really, really hard not to get my hopes up about any story. I thought this one might have an outside chance and after it got past F&SF’s usual first-round reject (about two weeks) I thought, “All right!” Then I found out that Gordon was buried and was getting back much slower than usual and thought, “Damn it.” But his long responses were only sixty days. Now I’m almost a month over that but not at all confident. I’m wondering whether there wasn’t a problem with the SASE. Seriously. That’ll kill me but the waiting is dRIvinG mE CRazY.

And I hate querying. Hate it hate it hate it hate it. Even when they say “it’s okay to query after xxx time” I still hate it. It feels amateurish to me. Editors have enough to do without answering queries, but on the other hand I hate wondering what’s taking so #@$%* long. I have had exactly one submission lost by an Unnamed Publication, and I found that out by querying.

I still hate it.

/
And as long as I’m hating, allow me to curse the fates: Lenox Avenue. R.I.P. 2004-2005. Only eight issues out but the fact that this zine closed is somewhat disheartening. They published good stuff, a lot better than some places. I only submitted there once and got a very positive rejection after waiting an unusually long time. I’d like to think they really liked it, but even had they bought it then it would have never seen the light of day.

Still, it reminds of the part in “Lord of the Rings” where Gandalf and Frodo are chatting it up back in Bilbo’s pad (the movie puts it elsewhere.) Gandalf says, “Many zines that live deserve death. And some zines that die deserve life. Can you give it to them?” Or something like that.

And the answer to his question is ‘no,’ in case you’re wondering.

Current Mood - Tired |
Currently Listening To - Joe Strummer - “Global A Go-Go”