In Which My Blog is a Year and Two Days Old.

I couldn't tell you exactly why I haven't been blogging lately. I can't blame it all on LibraryThing, though it has occupied many happy hours (and I still have plenty of books left to add). Distractions and diversions abound....

The roommate and I went in together on Season Two of The Office. This is an embarrassing thing for me to admit publicly: that I am hooked on a TV show, an American TV show that is not Mystery Science Theater. But it's true. (I still only watch it on DVD though -- must hang on to some semblance of pride.)

My kitchen range has always been a little iffy, but it recently became dramatically apparent that it was no longer safe to use. I've been scouring craigslist and making calls, but it has taken a while to find just the right replacement. In the meantime, my roommate moved a large upholstered chair into the space vacated by the stove. It is now officially The Best Seat in the House.

I finally got to hear my cousin play with her band. They were good and loud, dark and dancey, despite the limitations of the venue's sound system. She's a brilliant violinist, and it was good to see her in her element: poised on the stage, reeling out vast swaths of fevered sound, so passionate and so controlled.

It's almost NaNoWriMo time again! Yikes... and hooray! Chris Baty, the founder of this astonishingly successful event, came back to Powell's to get everyone all hyped up for November. He's not a very polished speaker, but he always seems to have the audience in the palm of his hand by the time he's finished with them. I bought his book this year; I figured I owe him that much at least. After all, if it weren't for him, I'd still just be intending to write a novel, instead of preparing to begin my third.

I had a four-day weekend earlier this month, which coincided nicely with the 20th anniversary celebration of Grey's Harbor Historical Seaport and the last four days its two ships were in Washington before heading south for the winter. Is there a better way to celebrate Columbus Day than by sailing? Maybe by paying a visit to the Queen of Spain, or embarking on a series of unsuccessful commercial ventures? Well, anyway, sailing it was. It was very wonderful and very strange to be back on the Chieftain again. Some childish part of me had believed, no matter what I told it, that returning to my ship would mean returning to the way things were this summer, and that part of me was sorely disappointed. But there were plenty of new and different things and people to delight me. And there were things I had forgotten about to be discovered anew: like the way the wideness of the sea and sky can iron out rumpled spirits, and shrink you down to your proper size in the order of things.

I'll bet you can guess what my next novel is about.