This is going to have to be a short entry, because I've got one of those killer headaches that's making me squint at the computer screen. (And of course, if I were really sensible, I wouldn't be looking at a screen at all...oh well!)

Just in case anybody hasn't already seen this on his LJ, Patrick has awesome publishing news - he just made his first-ever sale to Interzone (and for a wonderful story too!), and he's sold a re-print of his story "Uncle Vernon's Lie", which was first published in Realms of Fantasy last year, and which was originally written as a birthday present for me, so I'm doubly happy about its reprint. :)

I have a brand-new addiction, and it is called "Piled higher and Deeper": PhD Comics, an online comic strip about grad school. I just discovered it two days ago, and I love it. I have the feeling that it might make no sense out of context, but for anyone who is or ever was a grad student, it is hilarious. Some of my favorites are: Grad School Etiquette and the miniseries Grad School version of "Grease". I spent far too much time yesterday reading through the archives, which left me with an odd and nostalgic longing for Ramen noodles....Patrick picked up the English equivalent for me today, but there was an odd moment of culture shock, because they looked like Ramen noodles and yet - this being England - they were Indian curry-flavored. It just feels wrong...

And finally, here's the new desktop picture on my laptop:


It's a picture I took of the biggest of the Roman baths in Bath two years ago. We made a day-trip to Bath because I wanted to do research on Regency clothing for Congress of Shadows, so we spent a lot of time in the Jane Austen museum (so wonderful!) and at the Museum of Historical Costume (ohhhh, bliss), and then, only because we had an hour left to wait before our train ride home and had nothing better to do, we made a quick side-trip to the Roman baths, just for fun and not for any story research at all - and of course they completely blew me away. At the time, I kept thinking there should be a story in there somewhere...and now it's finally coming out in Kat by Starlight, which is set mostly in Bath, and centered around those wonderful, cool, strange Roman baths. Of course, for Kat's purposes, I did all the wrong research in Bath the first time around! I skipped the Pump Room, I skipped the Assembly Rooms, and we only hurried through those all-important baths...but I love having this photo as my desktop now, and I'm trying very hard to figure out a viable financial plan for a return research trip. Maybe that'll be this year's long-shot attempt at the SLF travel grant...