Submissions: 6
Today was a particularly gorgeous, getting- a-headstart-on-Spring kind of day, good for my usual Wednesday off for sleeping in, writing, breathing, napping and walking. With trees blossoming all around the house, and daffodils and jonquils blooming everywhere, the hood was a lovely place to hang out in today.
After writing, I headed off for my usual medicinal laps around the local botanical gardens. Along the way, I picked up this very cute, but collarless and tagless companion. He came out of nowhere, was an energetic and friendly little blighter who acted as if we'd know each other for a lifetime, and I began to get that familiar sinking feeling that yet another animal had latched onto me and become my responsibly. After he'd followed me for a while and showed no signs of ever nicking off again, I doubled back in an attempt to find his home, hoping to run across some distressed looking person searching for him. No such luck. Just when it looked like I was going to have to head for the RSPCA, his little ears suddenly perked up and, without a goodbye or a backwards glance, he zoomed off and just kept on running, definitely a dog with a mission, presumably obeying the distant call of his master's voice. At least that's what I read into his body language.
Neil Alden Armstrong was a Navy pilot (he flew 78 missions over Korea), test pilot, aerospace engineer, NASA astronaut, university professor, husband, father and grandfather, and, from all accounts, a truly nice guy. And he liked horses. He was also, of course, a legend - the first human to walk on the moon. The man and the dream are hard to separate, especially for those of us who sat enthralled in front of our TV sets on that memorable July day in 1969 (we knew it had to be a seriously important event because they let us skip class and sent us home from school) to watch a shadowy image transmitted from a place far beyond Earth. After that, anything seemed possible. The sky was not the limit and humankind was headed for greatness, and we couldn't have had a better figurehead to herald in that era than Neil Armstrong. He never let us down, even as those around him let the dream drift, and he never grubbied that special moment in history with his subsequent behaviour. For his whole life, he remained that rarest of things - a genuine hero that we could safely admire and be inspired by.
His first spaceflight was the Gemini 8 mission in 1966, when he performed the first manned docking of two spacecraft. His second and final spaceflight was as mission commander of the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 1969. What a pity we didn't get the chance to witness a third spaceflight and take up his offer in 2010 to be commander on a Mars mission. His life was full and amazing enough, but still, Neil Armstrong on Mars - can you picture it? And see how, with that one remark, he once again prodded our imaginations.
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And apropos Ray, I had a Martian Chronicles moment the other day on the train platform. I was holding my closed-but-not-yet-strapped-shut-umbrella in a certain way and, suddenly flashbacking, it seemed to look a lot like a certain weapon in a certain mini series, and I felt like aiming the tip at the people on the opposite platform and making spacey shooting noises. But that would have been undignified for a lady of my age (the under tens have all the fun).
And appropos modern capitalism and its tendency to mercilessly suck the vibrancy out of people for a buck, here's an interesting piece that I've been meaning to link to for the past week on how all political struggles today amount to a war over time. 
Anyway, at the moment, my light and easy read is the short story collection Partners in Crime (the cover on my copy is very boring compared with the very Jazz Age, 1929 first edition cover pictured here) one of the Tommy and Tuppence books by Agatha Christie. I read this series many decades ago, and absolutely adored it then, so I knew PiC would be just the ticket. Very light, very easy, very charming and amusing, full of words like 'foozle', expressions like 'old thing', and cases that involve discussions about haughty, titled folk and the likelihood of a hat pin being used as a possible murder weapon in a time when thoroughly modern girls with bobbed hair wear their cloche hats pulled tight down over their heads. Even thought there are corpses a plenty and much mayhem, it's all so good natured and friendly, cosy and reliable that one quickly forgets about the poor victims. Deep these books are not, but certain pertinent social observations are clever and snortingly funny. 
My very first Harry Harrison obsession was the Deathworld series (so yes, when the military crew cut guy in 'Avatar' started to spout about how dangerous the planet beyond the perimeter was, I had definite Deathworld flashbacks. Sparkling Pandora, of course, was a milksop of a world compared with Porgorstoraand.) I chewed my nails anxiously as I read of carnivorous plants and such, for Jason dinAlt was up against a real killer of a world, but fortunately his gambler's ingenuity knew no bounds.
My second great Harry Harrison love was the ever popular series that gave us James Bolivar diGriz, alias Slippery Jim, alias (sound the trumpets, please) The Stainless Steel Rat. Just saying it makes me grin. I have to confess though that once Slippery Jim married the homicidal maniac Angela, I became a bit concerned that Harry might tame Angie, stick an apron on her and have her discover the delights of baking space cookies. I needn't have worried. For me, one of the very very best things about this series is that Angela so competently combines being a wife, and later a mother, with banter and shootouts, and that The Rat has to constantly bring her down a notch or two. They were always my idea of the perfect couple. When the twins, James and Bolivar diGriz, were born, again I was a mite concerned, but as soon as Angela took to concealing weaponry in their pram, I knew that all was well. Thank you, Harry, for not domesticating Angela. And for not turning The Rat into an imperious Dad. The love was always there, but the diGriz family never went all Fifties on us, and oh, how I wished I could be a part of their rambunctious household. By the by, in this world, the SSR series helped me to convince my two brothers when they were way young that reading need not be a dreary school exercise and might actually have something going for it. Thanks to Harry, they both went on to read many other books in their own time just for fun.
For the past 24 hours, it seems that every time I check my emails there's another very nice close, but no cigar from an editor whittling down the number of submissions I have out out there in the wild. It's times like these that one's writerly optimism is tested. It's times like these that one's writerly confidence is measured. It's time like these that, hopefully, one's writerly stubbornness kicks in. I'll simply have to make a cup of soothing peppermint tea this evening, sit myself down at the computer and have a dedicated submission session, just me and the wide world and my stories. The trick, as I've said before, is to quickly get those little 'uns out and about again, so one can once more fantasise about them finding loving homes. There's nothing, as many songs will attest to, cheerier than a dream.
Scientists rule. We, however, namely editors and writers who pride ourselves in burning the midnight oil and downing buckets of a certain brown liquid to prompt ideas and make important deadlines, are a laggardly number five according to this 'Which Profession Drinks Most Coffee' survey on caffeine consumption trends in the workplace (USA). Given that pushing yourself beyond the limit with the help of legal stimulants is considered praiseworthy and admirable in this day and age, we, namely editors and writers, have with this survey just suffered a serious drop in the hardworking cred stakes.
And lo my mind did lift from my dreary office confines and petty problems and soar upwards through the ceiling and outwards to the worlds and stars beyond, and my soul expanded with joy, and I gave a little cheer. I must admit I was very worried about that whole skycrane procedure. Like everyone else, I'd watched that 7 Minutes of Terror video that's been doing the rounds. It all just looked so complicated. So risky. So full of possible catastrophes and silly mistakes. And the Rover was so big. So car-sized. So swingingly unpredictable. One bump in the wrong direction and...
Anyway, there were bookshelves. Many bookshelves. What can one do in such a situation but scan the titles? One in particular jumped out, partly because of its recently-read-and-not-yet-filed position resting on top of other books, partly because its so BIG, and partly because it's a book I absolutely adore. It was Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life. My eyes lit up. I excitedly pointed it out. Another pair of eyes lit up. Animated words tumbled forth from one of my hosts. I countered with a long, rambling litany of the amazing historical information and admirably oddball people contained within its covers. My host had his own favourite facts and characters. We talked over each other. We launched into a lively discussion on the declining tolerance of true eccentricity, digressed into the nature of genuine courage, waxed lyrical about the horrors of living in London before town planners incorporated a sewerage system, and would probably still be standing by that bookcase right now combing through the pages of Bill's book and exclaiming if not for the shortfalls of Real Life. 
Submissions: 9
Eric J. Guignard, in another of his updating emails, has just brought to my attention that there's a lengthy review for Dark Tales of Lost Civilizations here over at Biblio Babes. The reviewer has actually gone to the bother of writing something about each story and her reaction to it in her own inimitable style. Overall, she gives the book a 8/10 rating.
