Brains, funerals and Spaceport

In that order. I think. Anyway, I know I've been absent but that pesky thing called Life kept getting in the way. I know, who'd have guessed?

First, brains. I did an IQ test on Saturday and am fully expecting a letter from British Mensa along the lines of, "Wow! We've never had results like this. It's completely astonishing. It's never happened before. How can it be that someone with your IQ is actually walking and talking? When we got your test we thought it had been filled out by brain-damaged ant."

Now the real reason I've been absent all week, which is the depressing habit I've picked up of losing grandparents. To quote Lady Bracknell, it looks like carelessness. Well, either way, there aren't any more to lose. This time the mental anguish isn't from anticipating a punch-up at the funeral (it was all disappointingly civil when my maternal grandmother died, last month), but from trying to stop my dad turning it into something from one of the more melodramatic kinds of soap operas. He keeps searching for readings and music that will be, and I'm using his word, 'tear-jerking'. Or is that two words?

Eventually I snapped and told him that if he plays Barbra Streisand singing The Way We Were, I'll give up and wait outside. Actually, I didn't, but I did tell him it was incredibly tacky. Judging from the florid verses on the sympathy cards lining the windowsill, it would probably be appreciated by the congregation, but that doesn't mean we have to stoop to anyone else's level and denigrate the dignity of the occasion. It's just that deliberately choosing 'tear-jerking' music seems to me like going around and pinching people to make them cry. If they're sad, they'll cry. It's a funeral. Unless the deceased was a horrible, horrible person, and my nannan wasn't, then people will cry. If you make people cry on purpose, then how can you believe their sorrow was genuine?

Besides, if he plays The Way We Were, the only person sobbing will be me, at such a hackneyed choice of music.

All right, rant over. Today I finished my latest Changeling story, horribly late, but see above re: Life. It's for the new Spaceport line, which is very exciting and which I can't remember if I've mentioned before. It's really the bastard love-child of many fathers, or mothers, really, and our collective love affair with Firefly and various other shiny, sexy sci-fi shows (um, others were mentioned but I haven't seen them so I can't, er, remember). Mine is called Incognito and features a bounty hunter on the raggedy edge and a fallen socialite with blue tattoos. And a couple of very clever space cats.

And more will follow, because the cover is in progress and it's going to look gorgeous...