I love West Wing.

When they're on, they're really really on. And tonight they're on. Way on.

They're obliquely talking about art, art's job, poetry, intellectual elitism.

And less obliquely, they're talking about the Internet, overstepping your bounds, clever political ploys, and more.

A lot of people may not like what they have to say, though. They basically called message board users insane. I wonder how the West Wing fan sites will react. This will be fun.

Graffiti of the day (Sunday)
Seen spray painted in florescent green on the undergirder of a bridge
"the expanding universe continues"

I saw this on a walk I took down by the river. It brought me to the conclusion that it's really a good thing I didn't grow up in a big city. Location probably saved me from a life of crime. See, graffiti like that actually inspires me. I think it's great that someone has the guts to go out and make a statement - especially a smart non sequitor like that - in an unobtrusive place where only really observant people will notice it. When I was younger the nonconformist in me had more free time to satisfy the urges to go out and disrupt. There aren't a lot of opportunities for that out in the middle of nowhere where I grew up.

I see potential all over this city. But of course, being young and stupid, I would have gone too far at some point, fallen in with the wrong crowd who did it to be malicious, and I would have gotten caught. I don't think I would have reacted well to that experience (the getting caught part) it probably would have thrown me into some serious rebellion against "the system."

Good thing I didn't come to the big city until I was grown up enough to realize that the real improbability is that "the system" functions at all. It does a good enough job of disrupting itself.

Garden: One of the adoring masses who read my blog was nice enough to email me and suggest that I try putting some mums into the garden. I appreciate the suggestion. For some reason I never think of mums until I notice them in the fall in my neighbors' garden when it's really too late to start them in my own. Maybe this year I'll remember to give them a try.

Books: Soon I will inflict my short story upon yet another sci-fi magazine. It's all part of my evil plot to cultivate readers.

Yeah, I didn't post for two days. On Thursday I was on the phone for three hours with my sister. Friday I was too tired when I got home. I made reservations for a vacation a little later this year. That's something to look forward to, and that's almost as good as having a vacation right now.

As for today - well, I had all kinds of grand schemes about what I was going to get done. Most of the important ones got taken care of, but I planned to spend half an hour out in the garden this afternoon. It was warm - or at least not bitterly cold, and really the garden has been neglected all winter. We're starting to have a few flowers (I think they're crocusses, but I don't even know how to spell it, so don't count on it). So I cleaned up some of the dead leaves etc. that somehow multiplied, even though I got them all last fall. And I tied up the rose bush and the ..... uh, climbing tree-like thing on the trellis. Yeah. Those are both things that came with the house. I don't think I would have the guts to plant them myself. (Or the success. Two out of three bushes I planted last year are dead.) I was pretty frustrated with them both last year, but this year I made friends with them again, and I think if my ties all remain intact we can remain friends throughout this summer.

There's a sort of hedge-like thing (made up of trees that I think are usually not put in hedges) that I trimmed too. I don't know if this is the right time of year for that sort of thing, but I figure if it kills them then we can start over with plants we know more about.

So anyway, my half hour in the garden turned into three hours, and only darkness drove me indoors. I thought about doing some more painting, but decided a trip to the grocery store and doing laundry was more important. So maybe I'll get to the painting another day this week.

Today was one of those days where I am just happy about the little things. The fact that I can walk. Hot water right out of the tap. Having a job to go to and a home to come back to. Lack of pain. Food in the cupboard and fridge. Stars in the sky. A car that runs. Parents and siblings still alive and caring about me. This much is much.

The following is my direct response to Mary who is much cooler than she thinks she is. She links to a list of books she wants to read/ is reading, and I made a comment to her about the first book of the Belgariad, by David Eddings, which I found on that list.

Basically, I don't recommend it.

In fact, that series is on my list of "If this crap can get published, so can I."

Not necessarily because I think I'm better than David Eddings. In fact, I think he's got a nice, addictive writing style. He also has one or two original ideas. These are both great things. My problem is in what he does with them.

You see, apparently Mary's friend and fellow blogger BarcodeKing recommended that she read the first book and not read further if she didn't like it. But Mary - please beware!

The first book is really not half bad. But - it never happens again. Especially not in the Belgariad series. Some of his other series might start out OK. I don't know, I only tried one other series and found it just as lame as the Belgariad.

See, I was seriously angry when I finished that series. The first book lulled me into a false sense of creativity and excitement. I picked up the next book in the series and found it did nothing to really improve, in fact, it sagged a bit from the first one. The next one sagged even more, and so on. I don't remember how many books are in that series. Seems like 5 but it could have been 3 and seemed like 5. Any way, the whole series just dwindles away to nothing. It's just a whimpering pile of goo by the end.

I confess I still laugh at the ending to the series, but not because it was intentionally funny. Because it was just so bad.

And everyone who is shocked at my scathing review, please remember - this author is quite successful. Many, many other people like him quite a lot. He's making a nice living off of Fantasy books, and I envy him that. I'll be upfront on that point. If I had written those books, I'd be proud of them too. But in my heart, I'd know I could do better. David Eddings, I know you can do better. Don't keep on churning out the same old crap. Sit down and take a while to develop something that is up to your full potential.

For those of you keeping track, I can once again read Sarah's blog from my home computer. She currently has a funny story about her friend in jury duty. Also, she mentioned that another friend of ours had their house burgled. I'm telling you, it's a Chicago thing. Everybody switches apartments once a year, and at random intervals everyone takes a turn donating to charity without warning. Oh, and if you read Sarah's blog, you'll see that they also dye the river green (because it's just not polluted enough) once a year.

I bought a grow-light to help my little seedlings when I get around to putting them into some potting soil that I'll get around to buying. As I was buying the grow-light, a friend of mine who happened to be along for the ride started teasing me about what I might be using a grow-light for in the neighborhood. After all, if I'm growing drugs in my basement (which I'm not. I'm starting tomatoes.) then I'd just have to go a few steps to sell the stuff. (Which, by the way, would really get the criminal element in the neighborhood mad at us.)

So anyway, here's the punchline. My mother and I were comparing gardening adventures (I'm at sea-level. She's over 4,500 ft. elevation) and before I brought it up, she said that she had recently purchased a grow-light so that the seeds she started would stop looking so wan and depressed. So I told her what my friend had thought I would be using my new grow-light for. She laughed and said that she had already started a flat of poppies.

So, my friends, no need to worry about me growing drugs. Apparently my mom's got that covered.

Spring is here. You can smell it in the air. Bulbs are coming up. One of the things on my todo list is to start some seeds so the little plants will be ready to go out when danger of the last frost is past. Weather.com tells me that's the first of May.

What would I do without the Internet? I'd actually have to find a real person who gardens around here. Shocking.

Went to see Lord of the Rings again. I'm pleased that it definitely stands up to repeat viewings. I can't remember how many times I've seen it now.... Three? Four? I must admit that I will next be viewing it on a DVD in the comfort of my own home. It's hard to sit so long in theater seats.

Also, it's cruel of them to make a three hour movie that features a great deal of splashing water throughout the third hour. I mean -- three hours, you've got to bring along a drink for that trek. But by the end you finished your drink a long time ago, and you have other biological needs.

Books: I staid up too late working on my short story last night. I did get to sleep before the birds started chirping, but only just. I only got about seven pages written. And I'm not real confident they're any good. At least it makes the thing longer. You get paid by the word for short stories, you know.

Today seemed to be a drug-themed day. Not the prescription kind, but the "recreational" kind. Everywhere I turned, someone was talking about it or writing about it. I randomly surfed to this story about a drug-addled trip to the Mellenium Dome in London. Later, a friend sent me a link to the latest site he got paid to put together - that's Safety1st.com. It's an organization that encourages parents to talk to their kids about drugs -- realizing that the kids may already have tried them. (The kids in those statistics have parents somewhere) And another friend sent me a web link to an article which I can't find right now, about a group of kids in a middle school in the southwest who got in trouble for intentionally fainting in class -- not for the attention, just for the "natural high." The girls in my middle school thought that was a lot of fun in about seventh grade. I have to admit, I never saw the appeal.

For those keeping track, I still can't read Sarah's blog from home. I'm guessing the page is too long. My computer gets a brainfreeze over it.

Books: My short story is going to be barely recognizeable when this rewrite is over.

Yay! I just realized Mary's blog links to me. I think that raises my blog cool quotient quite a bit. I feel so special.

But I must say, Mary, I went and looked at your Amazon wishlist because you had it linked on your site and I just have to warn you. You have the first book of David Eddings "The Belgariad" listed. Please, take my advice. Just don't do it. It's an awful series. Don't give that man any more positive reinforcement for having written it. Please.

And if you're already a David Eddings fan.... well, I don't really know what to say to you. I'm sorry.

I tried to read Sarah's blog tonight, but it kept crashing my browser. I was looking for inspiration for what to write about here (as she's the one that yells at me if I don't blog often enough) -- so what message should I gather from her site causing my web browser to completely shut down? Let's make a list of possibilities:

• Don't bother blogging. Don't even try.
• I've written something here that is so cool, you're not allowed to see it.
• I've written something here that would cause you to hurt me if you had the opportunity to glimpse it.
• I've out-geeked you. I can crash a browser without even trying. So there.
• I mock you, Mac user.
• This blog is closed for the evening. Please come back during normal business hours.
• Something happened to my computer when you tried to "fix" it. This is revenge.
• I met this guy named Lord Chaos who taught me this neat new trick... your computer will self-destruct in five seconds.
• I mock your puny attempts at blogging. Fear me.
• I have moved up an eschelon in blogging. I am too good for you now.
• Funny, you don't look like someone who would be interested in a fiendish plot.
• The FBI is tailing you, Wendy. I can't have them seeing this.
• I'm not trying to keep you out, Wendy, just my mother.
• Just consider this another rejection letter.
• This is the digital version of the 'cold shoulder.'
• Microsoft sucks.

Ok, to be fair, here's what I really think she was trying to say:

Ooops. How did I do that?

It's probably a problem in the javascript somewhere. Did you take another online personality quiz recently?

Well, so I've been working on this short story. It started out as a more literary piece centered around this cup of futuristic coffee and all the free association thoughts going on with a character carrying this cup. But it didn't really work that way. Mostly it just bored people, apparently.

So I've made a change here, punched this paragraph up there, put that thing into dialogue instead.... This final rewrite is going to completely and utterly remove any pretensions of being literary and make it into a plain old adventure story.

I guess I need to embrace my pulp roots.

Baby pictures!

These are pictures of my nephew and niece. One of them is a perfect shot of the older brother thinking, "they tell me I'm supposed to be happy about this but I'm just not sure."

The other one just shows that my sister and her husband have beautiful kids, and their new baby girl (named Mia) is going to grow up to be just as pretty as her mom. She's about three weeks early, so she hasn't put on the cute fluffy baby-fat yet, but she will.

Blogging from work. Bad manager. Bad.

So I came in 2.5 hours early today in order to be here for a weekly staff meeting that I have been asked to attend once a month. (They're trying hard to make me a corporate lackey, but I have a knack for screwing up.) Anyway, because I didn't engage my brain while attempting to follow Sarah's directions to the traffic-free zone, I got here about ten minutes late for the meeting.

I also found that my boss has forgotten she asked me to attend once a month. Bugger. I guess next time I consider coming to the meeting I'll discuss it with her first so I get all ... and I mean ALL ... the appropriate bonus points for dragging myself in four hours sooner than most of the people I work with (who are in another time zone).

Yes, I'm bitter.

Books: Working on that short story some more. I'm told that pages 3 - 6 (of 13) are boring. Of course, I was told this by a non-science-fiction reader, so I'm not sure it counts. I need another opinion. Maybe Sarah will get around to reading it one of these days.

I painted part of my kitchen today. It's been a while since I painted walls. The last time must have been what.... four years ago? Wow. Anyway, I forgot that the great majority of the hassel of painting is actually in the cleaning up.

Also I forgot how unnerving it is to do a room by sections. My kitchen has wainscotting which will be a different color than the upper part of the walls. Right now it's like that. Most of the wall is bright yellow. The wainscotting is pea green. The previous tenant had a higher quotent of funk than me.

So my plan is to use two different shades of the same blue/green color. So the wainscotting is darker, but the same color value. I just got the wainscotting on one section of wall done today. I was going to do the upper wall too, but I ran out of energy. So now I have this blue/green wainscotting and bright yellow walls. I stand there and look at it, and I see absolutely no green whatsoever. It's blue.

I can't tell if I didn't stir the paint well enough, or if my eye is being tricked by the intense, clashing yellow. I'm thinking I'll have to paint the upper part of the wall its intended color, then decide if I need to do another coat on the wainscotting.

Yay. Another project to work on while I'm avoiding dealing with the book mess.