I'm Already Moving

It took me about two weeks and two posts to decide I needed my own domain, with my own stuff on my own server.

The problem is, I am a control freak. Hosting on an oustide server doesn't give me enough room to fuss. Setting up a dev environment to play with blogger templates turned out to be more of a hassle than just getting a domain and installing some blogging software.

I am now happily ensconced at UmbrellaAssassin.com.

My deepest apologies to those reading this (both of you!) Please update your feed links and come in to my parlour.

Saturday Morning in the Cloister

This is what a perfect Saturday morning looks like. And it sounds like the classical station here.

After suffering through "London Fields" by Martin Amis (who, as one critic said, "writes better than any 10 other Booker nominees"), it's a relief to sink into something that's just a good story, and doesn't make me need a hot shower every time I put it down.

The problem is that Martin Amis can write. I love his prose. I hated all his characters. He seemed to have a healthy disdain for them as well. We probably spent more time with Keith Talent, his lager-swilling and chain-smoking and women-smacking and sad obsession with darts than any other character. This for seemingly no purpose but to examine all the dirty little corners of his existence so we could hate him as much as Amis does.

But the writing was good, so I couldn't put the damned thing down.

Moving on to Neal Stephenson's "Anathem" is the right palate cleanser. A quiet, sunshine-infused morning with a good yarn, coffee and a cat. And not  a dirty west-London pub in sight.

Day 2, Post-Christmas

The movies are watched, the Battlestar Galactica marathon concluded, a cornicopia of good food eaten, and (best of all) time spent with L. in front of the HD fireplace. Now, slowly, the real world starts to seep back in, but I am holding on, holding on to those feelings, like to a warm blanket.

Christmas hasn't been the usual getting together with family and friends for me for a long time. Those things are wonderful, and important. I think I'm not constituonally capable of putting so much on one day. Instead, I pull the blankets up, put on some good (or bad) science fiction and cook. It's become a reset button for me. One day I can have to myself and know if the phone rings, it will be something good.

I had all that this year, and I even got to share my kind of Christmas with my best friend. I don't know what your Christmas was, but I hope it was wonderful, and everything you wanted. Mine was kind of perfect.