ontology | but my soul's little bird can still sing

I ordered a great mess of things from Amazon on Thursday, because I have Christmas money (still!) knocking about and I am typically very lazy about spending until I suddenly go and blow it all out on something. I spent a bit for earrings after Christmas, and some on Heidi's birthday present, and a cameo bracelet, and the rest has been sitting comfortably in my wallet and I finally said 'enough with that, I haven't bought music in yonks', so I did, and some books I've been wanting (v. v. cheap!!), and now I've got the delicious anticipation of parcels in the post to mix in with the delightful newness of Spring. If I had posted what I meant to when I meant to (which I didn't because I was absent most of yesterday and busy before that) I would've said something about how splendid it is to wonder which package will come first, but one already did: this morning a bubble-wrapped CD was waiting for me on the breakfast table when I tumbled out of bed and downstairs (very early, for me on a Saturday morning: nineish!): Sarah Slean's Night Bugs, which I have listened to three or four times already and am madly enamoured of. An album that starts out with a caberet-esque tune which speaks of how 'I think of Eliot when I smell the street' and brims with thematic allusions to 'Preludes' (!!!) can't be anything but good, yes? Sarah Slean is so lovely, and otherwordly; and best, she makes you feel the otherworlds, which makes for splendid writing music. Her songs have a rich sense of culture and history and a little bit of fantasy.

I really ought to be writing something--I found some

tuesday_skyline sketches in a notebook that I'd completely forgotten the writing of (one is, of course, the unending post-death-of-Neil things, which I'm sure are getting very tiresome), and I'm working out a better timeline. Originally I had Ian meeting Tuesday at the New Bedford Summerfest, which is in mid-July, and Neil is murdered the following February, but that's much too soon; there isn't enough time for strong friendships, a little bit of falling-in-love, lots of coffee shops and outdoor cafes, and superhero exploits. Knowing Neil for only six months before he died wouldn't seem right. So I've got it now that Neil dies the February of the next year, and things seem to be in shape again. (Now, if I could only get ahold of Ian's superpower--oh, and a plot! Then we'd be good, yes? By the by, did I mention that Tuesday turned out blonde? I certainly hadn't guessed it. She and Neil do look alike, then, except I don't think that Neil's got freckles. Or dyes his hair blue, you know.)

And oh, it's so lovely outdoors now; Spring is actually here, and it's wet and green and misty and there's a rich scent of growing things and rain and hope. I've been reading and gazing out at the rain from my window much of the day.