Tilting the Void

"It's been vacant for some time," Mrs. Granger said as she unlocked the door. "I didn't really have time to give it a good airing out. I hope you don't mind."

"I don't think it's a problem," I said, glancing around at the spotless little living room. Mrs. Granger was that particular type of elderly lady one finds with disheartening irregularity these days--petite, tidy, scrupulously fastidious, with perfectly permed silver hair and a crisp beige pantsuit and pearls. I imagined that the only dust I would find would be along the tops of the door frames.

"You won't have anyone to bother you out here this time of year," she said. There was a closed-in air of old woodwork and stale furniture polish, but that was about it. The decor was sixties modern, worn but clean. I hadn't seen amber glass lamps like that since I was a kid and visiting my grandparents' house in Cleveland. "All the summer people have gone home, of course. It's too dark and rainy for them."

"I don't mind," I said. "I'm not interested in entertaining, and I like the rain." I could put my typewriter on the table in the bow window. The bedroom--there was only one--was small, but the windows were tall, letting in as much light as possible. The kitchen was painted yellow, the fixtures avocado green. I smiled at the shining chrome dinette set, the plastic space-ship shaped ceiling light. A hipster's ironic dream. "I'll take it."

"Well," Mrs. Granger sighed. "I suppose in all honesty, I should tell you that we've had some rather unusual complaints."

I laughed. "Don't tell me it's haunted."

"It is," she said in all seriousness.

Read more...

It's autumn again, and my inner fires are flaring. By the end of summer I seem to lose drive and imagination--or maybe it's just laziness, who knows, but with the change in the weather and the possibility of a new novel on the horizon, I find myself inspired once more.

Here's one of my favorite autumn poems, by Robert Frost:

Bereft

Where had I heard this wind before
Change like this to a deeper roar?
What would it take my standing there for,
Holding open a restive door,
Looking down hill to a frothy shore?
Summer was past and day was past.
Somber clouds in the west were massed.
Out in the porch's sagging floor,
leaves got up in a coil and hissed,
Blindly struck at my knee and missed.
Something sinister in the tone
Told me my secret must be known:
Word I was in the house alone
Somehow must have gotten abroad,
Word I was in my life alone,
Word I had no one left but God.

And always, Poe--this is the perfect Halloween poem, in my opinion. Any Poe, actually, is perfect for Halloween:

The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere -
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year:
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir -
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

That's only one stanza of Ulalume--I suggest finding it and reading it aloud. Poe should always be read aloud, alone, and in a drapery-darkened room with an gelid goblet of absinthe at hand, sugar cube aflame.

I have a lot to do before the end of the year. I'm supposed to work on a poster for my spinning guild's annual Spin-In in March; I need to get to work on a Christmas card, which I've done for the past two or three years now; and, of course, NaNoWriMo, which, since I'm not on a deadline with anything else, should be onerous, but not terribly so. I've already worked out a sort of plot note (which is legal, as long as you don't start writing the story) and ought to draft an outline before too long, which for me is uncharted waters. I usually work blind, straight out of my head, which maybe isn't so good sometimes.

I have enough to do that, except for the needing money and food and a dry place to sleep, I could get by just fine without a job to distract me.