Our email program just stopped working a few weeks ago for no apparent reason and we've been wrestling with it ever since trying to get it to work again. First me, then Anders, then me, then Anders, with no luck. Trying every possible combination, removing all accounts and re-entering the info. Turning options on and off. ARGH! I hate this sort of thing. Suddenly, something worked and now we can get emails again, and we DON'T KNOW HOW WE FIXED IT. If it stops again, we won't know what we did that made it come back to life. *grumblestupidcomputersgrumble*

I finished Ursula, Under about half an hour ago, and just sat in satisfaction at the way the story wrapped up. Authors who blow me away with their first novels (Haven Kimmel, Donna Tartt, Audrey Niffenegger, and now, Ingrid Hill) are amazing. I think to myself, how can they be so good their first time? Doesn't writing novels take practice and practice and practice? Okay, maybe I just didn't get to READ their practices, like some authors whose progress and development can be quite easily traced from their first books to their latest. Some people just seem to have that amazing ability to spring from the box at a full gallop and win the race with an apparently, if not effortless, then talented-beyond-all-belief, gift. *savors*

Something I Can No Longer Do, Apparently: Drink caffeine after 8:30 p.m. and expect to be able to go to sleep around 11:30. As evidenced by tossing and turning and much restless leg twitching until 2 a.m. last night. Made worse by the fact that Anders took today off so I was the only one dragging my sorry over-tired ass out of bed this morning. *boo hoo*

That giddy newlywed Samiam has tagged me for a childhood food memories meme. I've been thinking about it since I got her email exhorting me to comply with her nefarious meme ways. 5 fond childhood food memories: eating entire packs of Opal Fruits in the junior high cafeteria in Holland; Dutch frikadelles and pommes frites with mayonnaise (a food I crave to this day); grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup; making and eating big bowls of chocolate chip cookie dough with my sister with my mother's warnings about salmonella ringing disregarded in our ears; and my dad's chervil soup with fresh-baked pilgrim bread. *drool*

brief_therapy has the mad sewing skillz, yo. She made me a shirt in the softest lightest sweater fabric, in a rich and glowing forest green. I wore it today and I felt SO comfortable and so happy and so ME in it. Thank you, thank you! *blows kisses*

Anticipation: Good good good friends Kathey and Russell are only 3 days away! *squeee!*

You know how sometimes you know exactly what you want to write about, and a well-thought-out essay comes flowing like honey, oozing into all the right spots and shining in the sun? Or how sometimes you know exactly what you want to write about, and the funny and interesting thing that happened to you that day zings out with a bounce and lands happily in front of you? Or you know how sometimes you DON'T know what you want to write about, but you start writing anyway, and serendipity sparks your small pile of kindling and then roars to a warm blaze? Do you know that feeling? Or is it more like this: how sometimes no matter how hard you try, there is no coherent thread, no rhyme or reason, just a simple journal entry like a raggedy patchwork, colorful but odd, the wrong size for your bed, but that's all you've got, so you wrap it around yourself and think, okay then, I'm done for now. *exits*

An Idea I Can Get Behind: Wunderkammer: Room of Wonder

Really Great Writing Out There Right Now: Sunday Mosaic #2

More Really Great Writing Out There Right Now: Sweden, We've Got a Problem