Good Morning, Earth

Today, the weather forecast promises me lovely upper-forties temperatures. And while I'm not actually sure those exist anymore, after this long winter, I am looking forward to it. I may bundle up small toddler and head out for a nice walk. But in the meanwhile, it's not that warm yet, so I may as well blog.

Let's see. In no particular order:

- Yesterday, as an experiment, I made a single cup of Earl Grey tea and then put a little bit of heavy whipping cream into it. I'd never done that before, but wanted to make the experiment. I have a small handful of teas that I can't just drink casually. They're too strong and bitter for me. I always hope to soften them into something drinkable, but I don't care for sugar, and milk hasn't done much for me. I was curious about cream, and decided to try it in a tea whose taste I knew and already liked (So I'd know if it worked or not.)

To my surprise, it worked wonderfully. It was delicious. So I'll be very curious to try, say, a cup of Pur-Erh tea (all by itself, it's too strong for me) and see how that comes out.

Right now, though, I think it's time for me to make a pot of tea to see me through the morning. And I think it'll be Lapsang Souchong.

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I've been twittering a record of what books I'm reading. When I start, when I finish, and what I read next. I'm enjoying it. If I understood Twitter a little better, I'd figure out how to had a #hashtag to the book Twitters, so that extremely bored internet denizens could just read the record of what I'm reading. As it stands, I'll try to just mention it here on the blog and give these posts labels.

I have just recently finished "Planet Janet" by Dyan Sheldon. It was enjoyable. The journal of a self-centered British girl going through a self-proclaimed "Dark Phase" and becoming intellectual and stuff. She's completely self-absorbed (she's sixteen, naturally) and does not notice life happening around her, throughout the book. It was a good read, but I kept wanting to reach into the book and shake her. Or at least have someone yell at her really sharply. No one did, but it ended well enough.

I am still working my way through "Roma" by Steven Saylor. I like his Rome stuff, I have a number of his books about Gordianus the Finder, and I enjoy them. I like this one too, but it's rather long. Not a bad thing, but having reached about the halfway point, I think I'm going to set it aside, read another book, and then come back and finish it. I don't know what other book yet.

It's not really a problem, but one observation I have with Saylor's book is that for quite a lot of the book, he forgets about any sort of story and just offers up historylessons. And they're good history lessons, well-told, and he always brings the story back around, so I don't mind. But it does effectively mean that you never lose yourself in the book and get swept away. Still, the book hasn't made me want to put it down yet, so that's fine by me.

I'm not sure what to read next. I've got a history book by Nathaniel Philbrick called "Sea of Glory" that I want to read. Then again, I am also really interested in re-reading Gene Wolfe's "Book of the Long Sun" series. So I may do that instead.

A related note: There is a wonderful Gene Wolfe book club, and I've been staring at it for days trying to decide if I have the time and carry-through to join up and participate. It's such a fantastic idea.

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Of particular excitement, I have a serial to write! I'm pretty excited. I resurrected God in the Machine late last year, in November...and it never went anywhere. Just for the simple fact that the episodes are extremely long and very complex. the episode that came next hit a single snag, and I couldn't find the time or concentration to work through it. (One day, I will. I know what happens next for quite a long ways. It's down, but not out.)

So while that does nothing, I sit around grumpy, wanting to do a serial and not getting to. The past few days, I've put together a solid idea, fulla plots, and begun building a simple little site for it. I don't want to talk about it too much, not until I've got something written. That's how to find out whether or not all your ideas have legs after all. But know that it exists, and it makes me happy.

It'll be hard work. It's set during World War II, and the nature of it is going to require a lot of research, in some places (in some other places, nothing at all except pie-in-the-sky dreaming and a lifetime of reading). But I'm working on it. I hope to write the first episode, or most of it, this afternoon. And I hope to stop browsing the fascinating World War II web-sites long enough to do it. Who knew there was a World War II timeline web-site? On the internet, of course there is.

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By the way, the occasional random picture or small nearly incoherent message that appears on this blog? That's not me blogging drunkenly. That's me blogging or sending photos from my cell phone. You probably already figured that out, but I wanted to make sure.

Right. Off to make tea, breakfast, and get to writing.

P.S. This template really is hideous, isn't it? I need to put something else up and make the blog prettier, don't I? I shall do that today too. No, honest!

P.P.S. There. New template. A bit narrow for my tastes, but I quite like it. It'll do for now. Problem solved.