how it is at 3:44

right this moment I'm sitting outside and it is lovely. LOVELY! A chickadee just took a swim in the bird bath (which has water in it thanks to the downpours of yesterday). It's sunny, 80 degrees and a little bit humid. I'm allegedly out here to work on some book writeups I've been meaning to do, but for someone who is supposed to be doing that, I've read 3 Mad Men recaps. (I was so worried Sally wan't going to get those tickets! Disproportionately worried, considering everything else that was going on in that episode.)

(ooh! there was just now something that sounded like a gunshot, but I'm pretty sure it was a car backfiring. The busybody barber next door just came scurrying out of the duplex on the corner. Since I noticed this, does it mean I'm the busybody? Maybe.)

I've got today off and have been taking it easy. I'm getting over a cold and feel like I'm living underwater - I'm not moving too fast and things take a little extra time to reach me. Anyway - I've got another 3 weeks on my temporary position at work, and I'm thinking about what kinds of things I want to do when it's over.

(busbybody barber is now rounding the corner and picking up horse chestnuts on the sidewalk. I will not make eye contact because then it will take me 15 minutes to disengage from a conversation I'm not interested in, and then I'll have to go inside to keep him from telling me how the neighbor has her appendix in a jar or something. wah wah.)

I took a couple pictures with the photo booth thing on my laptop so you can see how nice it is! (I'm behind on flickr, so if I took them with my regular camera it would be november before I could illustrate how nice it was on this september afternoon.)
The first one is backwards and on glow setting, the second one is just normal but flipped so it's oriented the way I see it.

back to what I want to do:

• first I'd like to note that my sister told me the easy way to make bullet points (option 8 on a mac). Woo!

• make necklaces - I went back to the bead store for the first time in many years and found that they have a big selection of chain at reasonable prices, which I need for my Brilliant Necklace Ideas. I also bought a beautiful slab of sliced and polished red agate and a chunky sparkly stone bead. (this "also bought" part is why I stayed away from the bead store for so long.) But I decided it would be ridiculous to order chain on the internet when a wonderful bead store is so close by.

• get walking again - due to various minor injury, illnesses, and my old friend laziness, I fell out of the habit of my daily walk. I miss it! Fortunately, fall and winter (as long as it's not super-rainy) are some of my favorite times to walk, so I hope I can get back in the swing of it. I need to freshen my ipod for new resolution inspiration. Maybe podcasts? Audiobooks? New music? l've never had great luck with audiobooks, but many of my colleagues love them so I might give it another shot. I think a lot depends on right match between reader and material.

•sewing, as always - I've got to (GOT TO) finish the unfinished quilt I gave as a christmas present last year. It's nearly done, but not actually done. Once I'm out of the realm of obligation sewing, I'm not sure what I'll do. A quilt for fun, maybe? dresses?


PUNDIT BREAK: I went inside and watched Hardball. Eugene Robinson's (The Washington Post) and Seth Rogen's (writer, actor, star of many stoner comedies) voices sound almost exactly alike, which I always find distracting yet delightful. (they even laugh the same!) They should do a political reporter buddy comedy together. I should note that Rogen was not on Hardball.

• writing - oh, man! I almost left this off because I don't even know what to say. I've got a lot of things in a state of suspended animation. I don't like how slowly everything is going, but there's no one to blame but me.

I went to go take this yellow flower picture and passed no less than 4 giant hard bodied spiders in their giant webs. I walked into one web and the only reason I'm not jumping around and doing the 'IS IT ON ME?' hysterical dance is because I saw the spider crawl up into a tree. (BIG ENOUGH TO SEE CRAWLING UP A TREE!) One of the other spiders was busy wrapping up a bee to eat later. Nature, man.