I should be sleeping. Let’s put it that way. In the meantime, here are a few things.

Newsarama has the full creator list for the Tori book. There is also a glorious Carla page from our story. Yes, that is “Here. In My Head” (as the Undented peeps have concluded). I’m totally amused at how they put one of the naughty pages up there. (I’m referring to the hand-down-the-pants, not the makin’ out. Click to see what I’m talking about - I wouldn’t put it as not-worksafe, so don’t worry.)

The IAF jewelry auction is on!! All money goes to Interfictions 2, I believe. Here’s my contribution, which is based on K. Tempest Bradford’s story “Black Feather”:

Yes, all knotting (read: a lot of it) was done by hand. Some of those beads are vintage glass. Athankyewverymuch!!

And the copy gigs just keep on coming. I gotta figure out how to write copy faster. I’m typing as fast as I can!

I had this big post on arena rock all scribbled out here on an index card (Levenger, of course). Spontaneously came to me earlier this evening, after Bee sent me some “Dust In The Wind” on YouTube. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t so spontaneous, then. Whatever.

But you know what? I’m not gonna post it. Like the arena rock era itself, the moment has passed. However, Shannon’s classic TMCM Journey / Steve Perry sequence is immortal, in my memory as well as my heart, so I’ll leave you with that.

It’s been a blurry two weeks. So blurry that I’m reaching out for arena rock. But it’s a good kind of blurry. Lots of writing, both paid and to-be-sold-later and to-be-given-to-patient-artists things. Slow going, but making progress.

Watched GARDEN STATE. Twice. Was charmed. Working my way through Christmas gifts. That’s knitted Christmas gifts, don’t you know. And speaking of which, let me introduce you to the BEST YARN STORE EVER:

Brooklyn General Store

Because I don’t have enough hobbies in my life (actually, for much more Deep and Meaningful for Art and Craft and Witchery reasons, but I won’t carry on about all that at 2:30 am), I’ve decided to give in and spin. As in, spinning. As in, make my own yarn.

Yes. I know. Don’t start with me.

You’re probably not going to believe this, but Leland has been gently pushing the big wheel thing on me for a couple of years now. Like comics, I’ve resisted due to time and, now, disposable income restraints. But, like comics, my resistance slowly wore down, then snapped. The fact that one of the coven girls is a spinning freak master didn’t help.

So off I went to get a drop spindle. Small steps, all that.

“You have to go to Williamsburg,” the Coven Spinning Freak said. “Williamsburg is the only place that carries drop spindles.”

“Oh, geez,” I said. “At least I can hit up Trader Joe’s on the way home.”

But it was not to be. I don’t know how I found Brooklyn General online, but I thought, “Hrm. Red Hook. Yarn. I love Red Hook, I love yarn.” And I waylaid myself to what has turned out to be the biggest, baddest craft joint this side of my beloved Great White North. (And there are a lot of badass craft joints up there, lemme tell ya.) I mean, short of P& S Fabrics on Lower Broadway, may she rest in peace.

Fabric. Notions. Buttons. Ribbon. Patterns. Of course, yarn. Notebooks, for crying out loud. Brittany double-pointed sock needles (which are the best needles in the world for reducing hats because they’re shorter and thereby less sticky-outy-pain-in-the-ass). And — the most precious resource of all for crafters here in the city — space, and lots of it.

Oh yeah. And they had drop spindles and roving, thus saving me a trip to Williamsburg. So I called up the Coven Spinning Freak and I squee’ed. I wish I could show Midori this place because she would absolutely keel over.

Coven Spinning Freak taught me how to use my spindle the next day. My yarn was pretty sad, but I’m told it was exceptionally non-misshapen for a first outing. I was fairly patient with it all around until we got to the Andean Plying thing, whereby I wanted to cry. (OK, so not really. But I don’t have the brain cells for these kinds of shenanigans right now!)

Speaking of all things witchy, I was delighted to discover that Judy, founder of my tradition, has a substantial Wikipedia entry. That’s good fun. If you look real close, you can spot a picture of Judy and I on my bookshelves.

The yarn store could be really bad for my productivity, what with being a short subway ride and my favorite Brooklyn nabe and right next to an excellent pizza joint and the Best Yarn Store Ever and all.

Speaking of which, I’m not getting anything done on my script at this point, so I think I might as well go watch a few more arena rock clips and hit the hay.

And it was a good playtime. All is good. Decided to go for broke and flipped through my folder of gifty certificates before I left. Found an old American Express gift check I’d never used, mostly likely a birthday present from the former day job. I tend to put gifty certificates in my gifty certificates folder and forget about them.

Anyway, picked up two craft books from my wishlist, The Knitter’s Book of Yarn and Last-Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts. I’m tellin’ ya, I have become fussier and fussier about my craft books, due to the over-saturation factor. I didn’t expect either of these to be all that great. Both are a cut above.

Now it’s back to work. 4 pages down so far today and I’m about to switch to writing that I actually get paid for. First, a few links:

I’m loving watching The Bohemian Gothic Tarot take shape over at Karen’s journal. Ooo, this is going to be a good one. Then again, they’re all good ones from Karen and Alex.

Endicott has a whole new publishing model for the Journal of Mythic Arts! Woot, et double woot! Read all about it.

By way of Gwenda: My So-Called Life is back on DVD! I’ve never been a drop-everything fan of this show, so I missed it when it was released the first time. But I’m starting to come around.

Also, no World Fantasy for us after all. Boo.

No, it’s not mine. I wish it was, though.

Most folks thought my Flickr tutorial was easy to follow, but there are some tricky bits. This video makes it all clear.

Best part: they also made a Word template you can fill in for your own projects! Particularly apropos, as I still get mail from confused peeps asking me how I made the template for the SCHEHERAZADE zine pictured in my tutorial. (Confession: I can’t remember. Ergo, the template will help me, too.)

Thanks to Mary of Don’t Look for emailing me the good news.

Truly, I could smooch WorkPalNick for letting me know about this:

(Yes, this picture is way too big but at the moment I’m too lazy to fix it!)

Free open houses are Wednesdays at 4. Whaddaya know, it’s Wednesday! It’s just crazy, these coincidences.

Finished pass 1 of the mad dash FRANKENSTEIN thing I’ve been working on. Handed off to the artist (who is awesome; I would say who he is but I haven’t asked). He really dug it except for a few shots that were “too Berni.” He is, of course, absolutely right. The stuff just got burned into my eyeballs, is all. Next up: settling in for the dialogue. Early 19th century, something I never do. To get in the spirit, I ordered that really bad Kenneth Branagh remake from a dozen years back. I remember going to see this in the theater with my crazy roommate. I haven’t seen it since then, yet I still see images of Branagh flouncing around the laboratory; shirt off, chest heaving and muscles rippling. Burned into my eyeballs.

(As a side note, thank goodness my crazy roommate phase didn’t last very long. Only two years and I was out on my own.)

I received a ping yesterday from an editor about a very cool recurring gig. Not comics, in case you’re wondering, but just as cool. Looks like it’s a go. Want to yell from the rooftops. Darn, I wish I didn’t have to be so oblique.