20 April 2001
Last year: You may all now heave a collective sigh of relief...
I took a look at the garden yesterday, and saw a bunch of little green sprouts. At first I thought it was an incursion of grass and weeds, but then I realized that the sprouts were all planted along the lines of where I'd sown the carrot seeds! Carrots! I'm excited! (Even if, due to the heavy, rocky nature of the soil, they're not likely to grow to be more than a couple of inches long.)
The tomato plants, on the other hand, are looking distinctly pathetic. I think I'm going to be grateful that I have a surplus of seedlings. Maybe this weekend I'll plant a couple more of them. I wonder if it would do me any good to mix potting soil into the clay?
Matt went to a baseball game yesterday, which left me to my own devices for most of the evening. I wasn't upset by this; I enjoy a quiet evening every now and then. I'd hoped to be able to get together with Kris, but she'd had to work late, so it never happened. So I wound up spending most of the evening reading.
Anyone who knows me even a little bit will tell you that I don't consider this to be exactly torture. "Throw me in that briar patch, Brer Fox!"
It's a good site, with a lot of good stories - so far, I've only had to skip one story, and that had more to do with my personal disinterest in the author's subject (I really don't like "how history would have changed if..." stories) than because it was poorly written.
But I am fascinated by how many of the stories turn out to be horrific, or at least cautionary in nature. Once upon a time, Science was the Great Hope for a Better Future. That hasn't exactly reversed - we're not reverting to the Dark Ages, by any stretch of imagination. But we're becoming wiser. We're beginning to accept that we have our dark elements, and that no innovation of Science is going to remove them.
Or, even further along the path, we begin to understand that if we removed our dark elements entirely, we would become less human. I've always been fascinated by evolution of any sort: physical, cultural, emotional, or societal. Change and growth can be painful, but I wouldn't miss their results for anything. That's what draws me to science fiction (as distinct from fantasy). I'm a sucker for any writer who's willing to believe that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Speaking of changing and staying the same, I've got a lot of work to do. I spent most of yesterday re-drawing flow charts for my project, and now I need to start building screens to go with those charts. Y'all have a great weekend.
Word of the Day:
maitre d' - majordomo; headwaiter
Currently Reading:
- lots of little things
Current Projects:
- Kris' afghan
- garden