So a little over six months ago (which means now I qualify for paid sick time!) I switched from working in an academic library to working in a public library. I was happy with the switch for lots of reasons--I am apparently kind of a weirdo librarian in that more reference work makes me really, really happy--but one thing that this changed is that ( Read more... )

Monday I went, for the first time, to a meeting of the SF book club at Boswell Book Company, my friendly local independent bookseller. In addition to the book for discussion (Galileo's Dream, by Kim Stanley Robinson), I'd recently read Among Others, so the idea of joining a book club was particularly appealing this week ( Read more... )

I just sent off the story based on a fairy tale to Writers of the Future, which means a) it's actually kind of DONE, after being in various kinds of progress since 2007, and b) I have TWO stories in the submission process! Almost like a real writer ( Read more... )

A friend of mine mentioned that it would be neat to celebrate Edward Jenner's birthday (perhaps aka "If You're Not Dead of Smallpox, Thank a Vaccinator" Day) as a holiday, a la Carl Sagan Day. But Edward Jenner's birthday isn't until May (May 17, if you want to put it on your calendar now) so I went looking for other Science! anniversaries to ( Read more... )

1. I am starting to be a person the guys who run the archery range casually chat with about my progress with shooting, which is weird but also kind of neat. Especially since I suspect I am actually getting better, because practice is like that.

2. Growing Power, the urban farming non-profit I volunteer at, has been approved for aid for a ( Read more... )

1. My accuracy gets a lot better when I sight down the shaft of the arrow instead of just watching where the tip is pointing. At least, I think it does. My arms were wobbly today by the time I started doing it consistently, so the results were not super-spectacular ( Read more... )

Writing things ( Read more... )

( Archery neepery. )

( Farming )

1. Correction: upon review it turns out Spallanzani was a priest, so there wasn't a Signora Spallanzani in the picture, and quite possibly he did have to sew his own taffeta overalls for mating frogs ( Read more... )