I have been lax in updating you all on various projects of mine that are slowly wending their way to publication. Last year I spent some time working with Walter Jon Williams editing his new collection, The Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories.  I’ve loved Walter’s work for a long time, and was fortunate enough to get to publish several of his stories in anthologies I’ve worked.  The brief for this book was simply to collect Walter’s best recent work, and the book does that. Of course, that means you have some of the best short fiction written in the field in the past five years or so.  And all with a spiffy introduction by Charlie Stross.  It ships April, and if you order it right now you can get a 50% discount I believe.

The last week or three has been a little frustrating.  As I’ve mentioned here, I’ve been struck by some kind of vertigo-related inner-ear condition that has been a constant pest for three weeks and, on a couple of occasions, has pretty much completely knocked me out.  Last Wednesday, and again this, I was struck by intense vertigo, cold sweats, soaring levels of tinnitus, and convulsive vomiting. Not so nice. I’ve seen doctors on both occasions, and we’re slowly working out possibilities on what might be the cause. Viral infections seem out, as does fluid on the ear etc.  We’ve considered Meniere’s Disease, which isn’t out of the picture, but seems long odds. The latest candidate is some kind of benign positional vertigo (or something that sounded like that when the doctor told me yesterday).  Whatever it is, it pretty much wipes me out for the day, and I suffer a kind of hangover the following day where I’m worn out and a bit dubious health-wise. I do feel on the mend, though. My right ear feels as good as it has at any point in the past three weeks, but I’m not through whatever this is yet.  If it doesn’t clear up in the next week though I’m off to an ENT doctor quick-smart.

Why am I telling you this? Partly because I’d like to apologise for any delays in correspondence anyone dealing with me may be experiencing, partly because this is my blog and I’m allowed to whine if I want to (I checked, it’s in the blogging terms and conditions). I do know there are people out there with a lot of serious medical problems, and I’m not equating my position to theirs: I’m just not really very well right now.

And then the rains came.  About twenty minutes after the previous post the enormous thunderstorm that had lashed other parts of Perth struck my area. It was like the sky opened and just dropped a small ocean of water in our neighbourhood. The sky was black and lowering, lightning flashed, and the streets ran like rivers.

I was cooking dinner, and waiting for Marianne and Sophie to get home safely, which they did, when I thought I’d better call my mother. It was planned she’d babysit for the evening because we were going out.  Well. Things weren’t going as well for her.  The rain had dropped where she was too, was pouring down her driveway and into her garage, and was threatening to flood her entire house. I could tell from the edge of panic in her voice that she simply wasn’t coping with what was happening, so I jumped in the car and drove over (after trying to contact my sister, who lives on the same street).

By the time I arrived a neighbour had popped over to see if mum was ok, had found the street gutters blocked and cleared them, had found the garage gutters blocked and cleared them, and the water was subsiding.  The house was safe, but the garage (which was full of stuff) was water damaged.  It had also shaken mum pretty badly.  Mum’s always been the pragmatic, practical one who could triage a situation and get things fixed quickly.  She’s now older, and I think needs more help because things like this tend to flummox her.  We ended up spending a bit of time cleaning up and draining the water away, before I headed home.  We’d decided after a quick confab that the girls would visit Nan’s, my sister and her partner would come over, and we’d go to see Lyle Lovett.

The girls were excited by this. We dropped them round at about 6.30pm to find everything stabilised, and headed to the Concert Hall.  Traffic was at a terrible standstill on the way out of the city, but our journey there and back was uneventful.  Support act Kasey Chambers was fine, if a bit raucous, while Lovett and his Large Band were spectacularly good. It’d been a while since we’d listened to his stuff, so we mostly didn’t know the two and a half hours of music they played, but it was mordant, melancholy, sometimes funny, and sometimes rowdy: A fine evening and a concert well worth the trouble of attending.

We picked up the girls at around 11.30pm and had them in bed, sleepy, not long after. I then opted to sleep in and grab a cab to get to work. The longest commute I’ve yet had, and the most expensive cab ride. Traffic lights were out, trees destroyed and goodness knows what property damage.

I’m now flying solo at work and everyone’s keeping an eye on the weather.  Whew!

Is this the new busy? Taxes are sitting waiting to be done and I just got emailed the proofs of Legends. Meanwhile (yes, Cheryl, I can’t write!), rain storms seem to be lashing some other part of the city (I’m getting reports from friends). In the meantime, it’s still warm enough we’re running air conditioning to cool the house while I’m cooking a roast chicken dinner.  We need to eat early because Marianne and I are off to see Lyle Lovett and his Large Band at the Perth Concert Hall in a few hours. I confess, I bought the tickets back at Christmas as a present for Marianne because I thought it would be fun.  For various reasons, I find myself not in the mood and wanting to stay home. I think this is mostly due to the virus that is affecting my right ear, which also seems to just make me feel a bit tired and unwell. I am endeavouring to buck up, though, and hope we’ll have fun.

Oh, and Marianne put up some zoo trip photos which are nice.

Back at the day job desk after a  mixed weekend.  Friday seems a lifetime ago.  I got home from the office expecting a quiet hour or two before the arrival of the Horde, but plans had changed (they were headed for a friend’s house for a play date) and they were in the door just as I was sitting down to relax.  Given the gathering storm, I opted to head over to JB HiFi and do a little unnecessary shopping. I came away with the new Angus and Julia Stone cd and an old Bill Withers one.

I then sat down to read for a bit, looking for something to follow the novel-that-can’t-be-named. I’m in the mood for some SF and haven’t been able to settle on anything since. In the end I found myself re-reading an old favorite, C.J. Cherryh’s Downbelow Station.  It has the tough-edged space opera feel that I’m in the mood for, annd seemed to hit the spot. I may abandon it if pressures to read other things grow, but for now it’s just the right thing. 

The evening was whiled away with Cherryh, the new cds, and some cricket from India.  Saturday, though, was different. Last weekend I’d promised Sophie that if we skipped going to the park then we could go to the zoo this weekend.  Well, promises are made to be kept.  We opted not to tell Jessica, who is afraid of animals, our destination, and that proved a wise choice.  She wasn’t thrilled when we got there, but in the end had a good time she wouldn’t otherwise have let herself have. The weather was perfect, and we wandered idly around seeing ghost bats, lions, lemurs, kangaroos, and penguins(!).  Sophie rode the Carousel, we had lunch, and walked a lot. It was fine day.

We got home late, collapsed for a while, then grabbed pizza before Family Movie Night. The film was typically execrable, but didn’t change what had been a good day.  Sunday was Tax Day.  In amongst meals, I basically spent six hours sorting papers so that I’m now ready to start the 2008/2009 taxes.  We’re going out tonight to see Lyle Lovett, so I’ll probably do them in dribs and drabs over Wednesday and Thursday evening. Yay.  The main thing, though, is that April Holidays Approacheth, so I want taxes done and everything else up to date by then. 

And just to repeat: come April 2 I’m on holidays for a month.  For the first time ever this means I’m not just on holidays from the day job, I’m on holidays from EVERYTHING. I shan’t be editing, reviewing or anything.  Emails shall go unanswered (unchecked!), and the days shall be spent relaxing and not worrying about such things.  I’ll check in again on around April 20, but between the beginning of the month and then I shall be absent.  We’re spending a week away on a family holiday (while my mum’s at our house), then time back in Perth with the kids, and then I even get a week or so when the kids are back at school and  I’m just whiling away time.  It should be glorious.

The only thing, apart from taxes, that is harshing my mellow right now is my right ear. It’s been blocked for nearly three weeks. I saw a doctor last Wednesday, after I spent some time throwing up, but things haven’t improved much.  I have tinnitus and can’t hear well. It feels blocked, though there’s no wax there. It’s almost certainly an inner ear infection. Gack.  I want to get it cleared up as soon as I can, so if it doesn’t improve tomorrow, then back to the doctors.