After listening to various commentaries on the idea of our government stimulating the arts along with other industries, I keep thinking one thought, and that is: maybe it's time for this country to feed its artists and see what happens.

I'm also interested to find out if anybody has brought up the National Governor's Association briefs about the ( Read more... )

I've never read Joan Aiken before.  Since apparently everybody in the universe except me has read The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, nearly all of them back when they were a good 20 years younger than I am now, I feel just the tiniest bit silly.  But her opening lines didn't appeal to me when I was a kid, so I put the books back on the library shelves ( Read more... )

You may laugh, but she is my big discovery this winter -- yes, the woman whose books are still published with those embarrassing pink and purple Harlequin romance covers.  She's such a wonderful storyteller, so totally charming, so clever.  Her prose is neither wildly original nor at all memorable, but her characters are, and so are some of their ( Read more... )

My brother, before he became a brilliant senior QA tester at Electronic Arts, used to work as a Mac repairman in our hometown.  Other repairmen credited him with magical powers: he could diagnose a printer by placing his hand on it while it was running, and laptops that otherwise refused to power up would turn on when he walked over to them, so ( Read more... )

I'm out here at the Permaculture Posse's farm, watching the big flakes fall and keepin' up with my community via the Internet. Having, at last, some restful times, since I've been working so hard; graduated business class Tuesday, finished my last order Wednesday. Sitting, drinking tea, petting the dogs, messing around in the snow, and enjoying the ( Read more... )

Very nice to read this story over. Today only, here it is.

Hello my dears! I'm almost done with my holiday order rush--it ran so late this year! My most recent order was...today. But soon I hope to blog it on up. Anyway, Cecilia Tan, the goddess of Circlet Press, is posting a story a day during this month as a gift to her readers, and mine goes up tomorrow. Check it out at Circlet Press on the 18th of ( Read more... )

This is not a riff off of Sarah P's post about numbers the other day, though it should be.  But I'm experiencing another kind of numerical wonder: cash flow statements.

Oh yay, you say. But I've been going to this business class to learn how I can do a better job at my job so that I never have to do anything but paint and write for a living, if the ( Read more... )

I just spoke, and found that I didn't need to speak for them as has no voices, because others have done so well. So I gave the councilmembers and transit officers the perspective of a small business woman, asking their pardon if they had already addressed the issues I saw with the proposal, namely, who did their pricing analysis, and who did they ( Read more... )

I write you from a publ ic hearing on the Madison Metro Transit's proposal to increase bus fares. I meant what I said--now we've got our president-elect, it's up to us to roll up our sleeves and help fix our country. So here I am ( Read more... )