Oh, I finished that story on Wednesday. I wrote 2200 words that morning, and wound up with a draft close to 10,000 words. I did a revision that night and cut it down to 9400. It's still too long, I think, and will be brutally revised further, but it's going to come out well, I suspect. I might call it "Dream Engine."

Otherwise, it wasn't a productive day. I didn't write either of my reviews, but I can do them this weekend. I spent the afternoon going to pet stores looking for fruit flies, to no avail -- only one place sold them, and they didn't have any that were alive! Our mantis disdains dead food. Fortunately, it's easy enough to catch little flies in and around our house, so he won't starve. We'll take a trip to the East Bay Vivarium this weekend to buy some flies. And I'll try to avoid the urge to buy lizards, turtles, and scorpions, though I shall be sorely tempted...

On Thursday evening Heather was out with a friend, so I spent the night reading the first 250 pages of a novel by someone in my writing group. It's a good book, and I wish it were finished, so I could read the rest. I hadn't read any of his work before, and I'm impressed. Yay, good books! I also got the galley of Murder of Angels by Caitlín R. Kiernan, and that will be my airplane reading for the trip to Wiscon, with a review coming in August, probably. Still no shortage of good books -- I'm into The Speed of Dark now, and will likely follow that with Irvine's One King, One Soldier.

Tonight Heather and I snuggled on the couch, ate spaghetti and garlic bread, and watched The Cooler, which was enjoyable, sort of like Intacto or The Girl on the Bridge (what with the gambling and the luck), though honestly not as good as either of those films. Still, I love William H. Macy, and that Baldwin was good -- he's much better in character roles than he is in leading roles.

Life is good. I'm enjoying it. Hope y'all are too.

Oh, and the genesis of our mantis's name? We named him after Jack Half-a-Prayer, the Man'Tis, from China Miéville's "Bas-Lag" books.