Began ye day by listening to "The Hound," read by William Roberts for ye Naxos audiobook, THE CALL OF CTHULHU AND OTHER STORIES. Didn't care for his reading voice at first, but it begins to grow on me. Now I am going to listen to Will Hart's reading of some of ye Fungi from Yuggoth on his YouTube channel, and then write some few new sonnets of my own. Also reading SELECTED LETTERS V (Arkham House 1976) and LETTERS TO JAMES F. MORTON (Hippocampus Press 2011). Then I want to finally read Ann K. Schwader's sonnet sequence "Lavinia," in her new book TWISTED IN DREAM (Hippocampus Press, 2011).

The gifts of H. P. Lovecraft are numerous, and one such gift is that by becoming an obsess'd Lovecraft fanboy, he lead me to the poetry and weird fiction of Clark Ashton Smith. I doubt that I wou'd ever have pick'd up a volume of CAS had I not been seduced by Lovecraft. So, to further pay homage to Lovecraft's memory, I want to read again Smith's "The Coming of the White Worm," a tale that delighted Lovecraft.

What a treasure it has been, to become ad advocate of weird fiction, and a practitioner. Nothing has given me so much joy for so long a time. The richness of weird phantasy deepens as I age, and my Lovecraftian obsession grows keener with every new moon. I cannot stop reading him, he is an intoxicating drug that consumes more and more of my paltry soul. I shall never forget the day I stood before 10 Barnes Street, with ye pb edition of FUNGI FROM YUGGOTH AND OTHER POEMS in my hand and S. T. Joshi by my side. I stood there, amazed, gazing at the house wherein H. P. Lovecraft had written so many of his classic tales, including ye Fungi and my all-time favorite of his fictions, THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD. I went up to that house and placed my hand on the #10, and I felt his spirit in my imagination, more potently than ever before. It was the greatest single experience of my entire life. The next day we went to visit Lovecraft's grave, and I felt no magick there. His spirit was absent. Rather, I was clutched with the intense grief of knowing that HPL went to that grave feeling that he had fail'd as a writer. And I vow'd, on that day, that I wou'd intensify my paying homage to his artistic genius, writing book after book in his memory. He is not dead, this Eternal Muse. Selah.

"I'm a little girl."
--H. P. Lovecraft, Esq.

I'm going to read Smith's beautiful poem. Loud. And eat ice cream.