The first signs of the changing season are upon us: our bathroom has turned overnight into a genuine ice-box (designed to freeze anyone who dares to take a shower!) and Maya has begun to shed her fur. Sigh. We really thought, since she's a short-haired dog, that shedding wouldn't be an issue with her. Hahahahahaha. Her hair may be short, but it is mighty! The other day I was wearing a long black skirt. Maya lay on top of my lap for 20 minutes, and by the end, my skirt looked white from all that white fur! (Here's another mystery of animal nature: whywhywhy do they always shed the white fur on the black outfits, and the black fur on the white outfits? couldn't they just be kind and color-coordinate?) Luckily, she's accepting our new brushing routine with her usual good nature. Her eyes get a bit bigger and more piteous than usual when I take out the brush, but she sits still for it in "good dog" pose and licks my hand when it passes her face. She's a very good girl.



And yesterday we got very good news, to console us for the change in temperature/fur density: Patrick sold another story to Pseudopod! It's "The Western Front", his World War I dark fantasy story, which was originally published in The Third Alternative and was long-listed for the British Science Fiction Association award that year. (You can also read it online.)

Best of all, Patrick introduced me to a band and a song I can't believe I never discovered before: Adam & the Ants, and more particularly: "Stand and Deliver"!




This is so definitely the theme song for Kat by Moonlight! (And ohhh, I love the video itself.) I love it with a huge and ecstatic love. If Kat ever gets a book trailer, I'm determined that some way must, must, must be found to use "Stand and Deliver" as the background music! It's so perfect for the spirit of the book.

And their song/video "Prince Charming" is fabulous, too - so much fun, and so purely joyful. I can't believe it took me 20 years to discover these videos! Well, okay, I sort of can - I barely heard any pop music until I got to college in the mid-90s, and by then, all my "cool" friends talked about "80s music" in the tone you'd use to describe poisonous - and somewhat embarrassing - snakes, so I never thought to go looking for any of it. But now I absolutely have to. What other 80s groups were fun? (Here are the 80s groups that were SO huge even I couldn't miss them: Boy George, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Duran Duran. And that's it. I spent the 80s listening to classical music, folk music, and old musicals - all of which I love and wouldn't ever want to do without, btw. But the point is: I'm pretty much a blank slate when it comes to pop music from that time period, so don't hesitate to suggest something just because you imagine I would already have heard of it. Trust me, I didn't!)