Yes, I know I’m due to a far more substantial post than I have been writing.

This post, however, ain’t it.

via Iron Monkey, I found Sprol, which has a bit on WV’s Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining.

And from Erin, The Trouble With EM ’n EN (and Other Shady Characters) (which I still haven’t finished reading, but found as fascinating as Erin did.)

Go read Jeffrey Whitmore’s Bedtime Story.

Go on! It’s only 53 words, so it won’t take you long.

Sorry. Busy, busy, busy.

Well, that and I had a headache last night, which I feared would turn into a migraine. So still nothing of interest. Except two silly quizzes.

And the discussion about the Science Fiction Writer quiz is still going on over at Making Light.
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Moontide and Magic Rise: World Without End (1994) and Sea Without a Shore (1996) Sean Russell

Every time I read Sean Russell, I am always surprised at how good his books are. I pick them up knowing they are going to be good, but the pessimistic part of me always says, “they can’t be that good. Don’t get your hopes up!” only to be proven wrong.

Read More about Moontide and Magic Rise

Not me!

My broom bloomed! My broom bloomed!

We went back to weed the phlox, and out of nowhere the broom was blooming. Now if only it would grow a bit taller.

Also: Today’s thunderstorms were sponsored by me, as we washed and waxed the car this afternoon.

…I liked the picture of the Lily of the Valley so much, I redid my front page.

I think that I have managed to gather a selection of plants so that something will be in bloom from early spring to late summer. At least I hope.

Here’s what’s blooming now: Lily of the Valley and Coumbine.

I’m always surprised at how delicate lily of the valley look–they remind me more of porcelain than plant. Of course the fact that they but regardless, I’m quite pleased that they are so beautiful.

Also (no pictures) one of my lilacs is blooming, as is my Money plant Lunaria annua, which already has seed pods developing. (This plant takes two years to seed, and didn’t do so great last year, so I wasn’t sure it was even going to survive, no less bloom.) Hopefully I’ll get some good pictures of the developing seed pods.

Rotten Relations edited by Denise Little

I was really disappointed in this collection. I had, as the song goes, high hopes, but was, in the end, let down.

Read More about Rotten Relations

I guess Andy has had an influence on me after all.
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The book I’m reading right now describes one of the characters as beautiful, and by beautiful the author seems to mean that extraordinary that causes you to keep looking at the person, just because someone that beautiful can’t be real.

Beauty is a strange thing. For me beauty has always been a combination of the external and the internal: In my opinion, the most beautiful person in the world is my grandmother. That is one of my basic truths: Grandmom is the most beautiful person I know.

But I had a bit of a shock as I went through old family pictures–pictures from when my father was a child, and even from when Grandmom was a child. In those pictures I look at her not as I know her now, but as she was years and years ago–as a stranger to me. What I found shocking is that the woman in those photographs isn’t the beauty that I see when I look at Grandmom. I’m not saying she’s ugly–just that in looking at a stranger I do not see the woman I know, and so all that I know of her is stripped away, and I am left with only the image.

I had a friend in college who many I knew thought was gorgeous. But I never saw it. What I mean by that is that he was certainly pleasing looking, but when I looked at him I saw not just his physical looks, but also the childish habits that drove me crazy. I loved him as a friend, but I never found him attractive–despite what other women felt.

Sometimes I think I’m alone in feeling this. I look at models and actors and can’t understand why they are considered so beautiful. (With some exceptions of course.)

Is everyone as obsessed with superficial style and image as they seem? It’s not like the phrase “What does he/she see in him/her?” is an uncommon one.

I knew another woman in college–a friend of a friend–who did some modeling in her spare time. The strange thing was that if you saw her going to classes, you would never believe that she was a model. She wore sweatpants and pulled her hair back, and barely put on makeup and looked like every other female college student. But when we went out she pulled out all the stops, doing her hair and make-up, and transforming into another woman entirely. I was fascinated by the whole thing, and to be honest, still am. She was the same person, regardless of how she dressed or did her hair, yet the reactions to her in her different states were almost shockingly different.

It’s something I’ve always kept in the back of my mind, when considering beauty. How make-up and clothes and hair can completely change the way others view us.

And I try to keep it in mind for myself, as well.

Summer Cheesecake from Lori Longbotham’s Luscious Lemon Desserts: YUM!

Let me say again: Yum! This may be the best lemon dessert ever.

Yum!

Here’s a shocker. I’m not a Republican.

ADDENDUM the First: Check out what Teresa at Making Light has to say:

I already knew two reasons not to take it seriously: (1.) Greg Benford is one of its easiest-to-get results, but when Greg Benford took it, it told him he was Arthur C. Clarke;

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After weeks of flummoxing scientists, Germany’s great exploding toads mystery has been solved. They were gruesomely murdered by crows with a taste for foie gras.

The explaination is actually more bizarre than anything I could have come up with.

Remind me never to anger a crow.

How lovely! I got to spend yesterday gardening and spreading aged horse poop under my plants! (While spreading the manure, we childishly attempted to use the word “poop” as many times as possible. Ha!)

It’s also warmed up enough that I could move my indoor plants outside, so the porch is starting to look nice again.

And I went to the WVU Greenhouse Plant Sale. I mostly managed to restrain myself, but I did get four California poppies (I’m not sure that any of the poppy seeds I planted did anything) and another lemon thyme to replace the one that didn’t last the winter (I don’t cook much with thyme, but it’s a pretty plant, and smells lovely when you brush the leaves) and I got another tuberous begonia, since last years hasn’t come back yet, and I’m not sure if it will.

Mostly it was good to be playing in the dirt and seeing how well my plants are doing: My roses are thriving and bushy, my irises are blooming, my bleeding hearts are still blooming, columbine is already in bloom, and some of my day lillies are getting ready to bloom.

It’s just lovely to be able to walk around the house and see everything growing and getting ready to bloom.