Though my neighbors tell me that nutrias cause trouble and aren’t worth having around our lakes, I’ve still enjoyed seeing them from time to time while taking my dogs for walks along the water. I’m told that there used to be quite a large population of the critters here, but I’ve only seen three since […]
November 1st will mark the beginning of the 5th annual National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), founded in 1999 by Chris Baty and friends as a simple framework for writing a novel in a month. That’s 50,000 words in 30 days. No small undertaking. NaNoWriMo has grown by leaps and bounds each year and now features […]
I had been debating with myself on whether to even discuss this topic on a pseudo-public forum, but then a friend of mine overheard me and shared her own gynecological hilarity, so I decided to plunge ahead. (Kate is welcome to post her experience as a comment, if she dares….) Plus, I’m a Scorpio; I’ll […]
The Current Electoral Vote Predictor 2004 page (http://www.electoral-vote.com/) this morning features a run-down on the current Supreme Court justices, who appointed them, how long they’ve been on the bench, and how old they are. While there are a few errors in this information (e.g., Ginsberg was appointed by Clinton, not by Carter), it’s still quite […]
Every author has a unique and personal process of bringing new characters and a new story to the blank page. As I now immerse myself in the created world of my current book project, I find a familiar phenomenon manifesting. When I was writing ‘rhythm,’ I got so deeply under the skin of the two […]
This evening, I received a call from a local MoveOn.org organizer, while I was thawing out a piece of meat I’d forgotten about in the freezer and attempting to gauge the freezer-burn damage. He was looking for volunteers to go door-to-door in my community, urging people to vote — more specifically, urging supporters of the […]
I received my ballot in the mail over the weekend. While I am used to going to the polls each year on election day, Oregon — my new state of residence — operates on ballots instead. You know, the mail-in kind. They tell me that using the ballot system has dramatically increased voter participation, and […]
