Last night I was asleep before three in the morning and I stayed that way until nearly noon. I read a little of my new book on Claudius and turned off the air conditioner and dreamed things I can't remember, although I remember waking from them. When I got up, derspatchel had assembled a small collection of ginger-and-lemon-based drinks and snacks on the kitchen counter for staving off my sore throat, along with a Gravity Falls-esque note from Dr. Medicine. I think I may actually have slept more last night than all the previous nights of the week put together.

Yesterday evening, I attended Boston's National Moment of Silence with sairaali, rushthatspeaks, gaudior, and several hundred other people. I've seen estimates of a thousand. I hope the organizers are very proud of themselves, because they did a beautiful job. None of the speakers were white. All were passionate, many angry, most well-received by the crowd—some hard to hear despite the microphone, some who made themselves heard without a microphone at all—and the woman who started getting heckled for calling out sexism among black men, including men she'd had to get through to get a turn at the mic, had the audience on her side when she said she was going to talk as long as she was going to talk and did. A woman who had lost her son to police shooting in Boston two years ago: "You don't have to go to Ferguson. Ferguson is here!" A woman calling on white allies to keep every day in ordinary life the promises they were making here on the Common, because allyship isn't just showing up to special events. Two young men with a sign: "Do I Fit the Description?" A woman who asked each person in the crowd to high-five the person next to them (which I think loses a little of its impact when you know the person next to you, but we tried) and a woman sick and tired of hearing that racism wasn't the problem, didn't you know we all live in a post-racial society now? Officially the vigil ended a little after eight o'clock, though people didn't stop speaking when the mic was turned off. (And we left just in time, because apparently while we were waiting for the subway some white guy was explaining that the problem wasn't racism, it was fluoride in the water. I really hope someone just made him go away.) I don't know when the event broke up, but I've seen photos from well after dark. My corduroy jacket is still hanging from the ceiling planter in the living room to air out from the cigarette smoke which is a hazard of open-air assembly. The moment of silence itself was observed with both hands held in the air.

(Further accounting of my week temporarily derailed by the discovery that the cats got to the top of my shelf of contributor's copies and broke something very precious to me: Chanteys for the Fisherangels, the tiny, handbound, irreplaceable book of poetry decorated with feathers and shells. I found it face-down under the basket chair where one or more of them had batted and played with it. Many of the shells are shattered, little gritty sand-bits across the floor. Some of the feathers are missing. One is just chewed. There is no mending or replacing it; first of all, that binding was the one I loved, and secondly, it was part of a limited edition in the first place. I moved it from Lexington in cotton batting to make sure it was safe. I thought it was out of their reach. The likely miscreant is purring on my windowsill. I am sad.)

Most of Wednesday afternoon was occupied with a dentist's appointment and being rained on. Note to self: never again read M. John Harrison's In Viriconium (1982) for the first time while feeling exhausted, strung out, vaguely feverish, and subject to medical procedures; it's thematically appropriate after the fact, but unnecessary at the time. I stayed off Viriconium Nights (1985) for the rest of the day just in case. In the evening Rob and I discovered Cafe Sushi by walking in off the street and our immediate assessment was oh, wow. We cannot afford to eat there every week. We possibly cannot afford to eat there again until we both have better jobs. It was exactly the right thing to do. Their fish is meltingly delicious and their aesthetic is experimental without trending toward spherification. I would not have thought of serving a piece of tuna with wasabi oil and smoked salt, for example, but the results are almost impossibly savory—creamy, smoky, with interesting little salt-spicy bursts, an umami hit from from the yama-uni tofu, and a stripe of sweetness from the shiso—without ever threatening the flavor of the tuna. None of it is about camouflage. I felt very well served by the steelhead with fennel and ponzu; Rob was in love with the above-described tuna as well as the kind with truffle oil, black salt, and fresh wasabi; we were both really impressed by the seared avocado. Rob was lukewarm about the oshizushi, but I seem to have thought it was great. Someday when we are wealthy we will go back for their omakase. Instead we went home and I reviewed a book.

Tuesday we finally got a bed. I can report with great pleasure that it is a comfortable bed and my back has stopped screaming at me every morning. It makes me happy to lie down on. I look forward to spending more time in it.

I'm sure something happened on Monday, but honestly I am tired enough that I can't remember what it was besides work.

I did not realize a musical by Sting was opening on Broadway: The Last Ship. If it's the same sort of thing as The Soul Cages (1991), I'm there. Of the cast, I recognize only Jimmy Nail, but I remember him positively from Still Crazy (1998).

Lots of people I know should submit their work to The Year's Illustrious Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy. I like those criteria for inclusion.

I have to go do laundry.