So last night Jackie and I went to hear Christine Lincoln and Robert Mooney read fiction at the university. They were both wonderful readers. Christine Lincoln, though, read without the microphone in a deep, sonorous voice--her fiction has a quality to it like that of folktales, blues, jazz, and the South, but blues especially. She simply floored me. After the reading, we went to the afterparty at my mentor's house. I talked with both of them, but Christine and I had ourselves a good old time recalling debacles from our lives, shaking our heads and going, "Mmm-hmm," and feeling a little like kindred spirits by the end of the night, huggin like we were old friends. Robert Mooney is actually an old schoolmate of Jeff Ford's (any of you reading this who are scifi readers will of course recognise that name, but for those who don't, Jeffrey Ford is an ace writer in the speculative fiction genre). We talked a bit about fantasy literature, and how even realism is fantasy literature when it comes down to it, due to the nature of fiction. His novel inserts a wild fictional event into our historical reality which, for me, is fantasy as much as a hobbit leaving home to set out and save the world. Go read both of these writers.

After the reading party, we went to the B&O, the old railroad house that's been converted into a restaurant/bar, where Jim, another grad student in the program with us, was playing a set with his band, The Rainbow Tribe. They play these really long Reggae-like songs. Every time you go to hear the Rainbow Tribe play, you see so many of the same faces each time. They've been a fixture in northeastern Ohio, especially Youngstown, for over a decade now. We danced a little there, then headed off to a hip hop club, then after that, went to an all night diner and talked until seven in the morning. We hadn't even realized how long we'd been there till the sky outside our window began to lighten.

Of course, spent most of the day in bed, catching up on sleep. Then went Christmas shopping for my nephew and nieces, who are getting many good books from me in another month or so. The rest of the family will probably shower them with so much junk--toys and things that will become the detritus of passing years, forgotten or thrown out with spring cleaning--that I feel the need to give presents of books to the kids. Someone has to be on the lookout for their imaginations.

I should just finish my damned Master's thesis. I really only have three pages left to write, and I stubbornly refuse to write them, like a little kid--You can't make me. I think I'm burned out at the end of the semester in general. Off to bed, so I can wake in the morning at a reasonable hour and do what I have to do--finish the introductory essay to my thesis of stories.

Have a good Sunday everyone.