27 July 2001

So, the obvious question is: did you have a happy birthday, M'ris? And yes. Yes I did. Most definitely. I hope Mary Anne did, too, because she was part of my happy birthday.

Talked to my grandparents in the morning. Then we went to the ballgame, and it was a good ballgame. Bad baseball, as I'm sure I've told some of you, is like Ravel's "Bolero" at the Ice Capades. When I was little, a bunch of families from my neighborhood always went to the Ice Capades, so my folks and I went a couple of years. And one year they did "Bolero." Augh. They had two different colors of costumes, and sort of repetitive slow movements, and it went on and on forever, and sometimes one set of costumes dominated and sometimes the other, and my daddy and I made fun of it, and we got hot chocolate in the middle when we were too bored with the whole affair. Does this sound like your average bad baseball game? Of course. Except that my daddy is, sadly, not always around to make fun of stuff with me. (The saving grace is that we did it enough when I was a kid that I can provide some stock Daddy Lines in my head. And sometimes when I'm particularly clever in my own head, my Daddy-in-my-head laughs with me. Because, as I've noted before, my dad and I are the funniest people in the universe sometimes.)

(When I was in junior high, I thought the essential difference between my dad and my mom was that my mom would wait until we got to the car before she made the snide/witty comments she'd been thinking.)

Anyway. So. This was good baseball. Many homeruns. An inside-the-park homerun, even. And for the first time since Tim Laudner, I have a favorite baseball player. Tom Prince. (Yeah, I know, I have a thing for backup catchers, evidently.) He hit two homeruns on my birthday (one for me and one for Mary Anne, I'm thinking) and had some really nice plays, and I was raised to Respect A Catcher. (As for Tim Laudner, he went to high school with my godfather Joe, and was in all other ways unexceptional.) So that's all nice. And the company was good, and I laughed a lot, and the weather was not too cold, and it was a good day.

Then I talked to my godfather Dave and my parents while we waited for Mark to get home. Then we went out for Chinese food. Yum. What I really like about our Chinese place is that they're not afraid to use things that are not traditionally considered Chinese food, but use them in thoroughly Chinese food ways. So that we could get Pine Nut Chicken that was really good, not just Kung Pao and other standard fare. (Although I like Kung Pao, let nobody say that I don't.)

And then I opened presents. Well, some presents. Some are waiting for Saturday, and some have not yet arrived. But I got a digital camera, some pretty undies, a video, a dress, and oh, so many books. So many books. Yay, books! The digital camera will be contributing to these pages, I'm sure. As soon as we get all the software installed and so on. And take a picture of something that isn't me in my sleepshirt, reading the camera manual. Anyway, later I talked to my godfather Joe and had ice cream. Etc. It was a good birthday. And it's not over yet.

I have creeping Asimovitis. This is a very scary thing for me, and I'm hoping some antibiotic creams or time away from the computer can cure it. Thing is, I keep looking at the book topics on which I can't find books. And I keep thinking somebody ought to write books on those topics. And I keep thinking if you want something done right.... Well. But I have enough stuff to write with my fiction list. I really want to prioritize. If I'm going to write nonfiction, it had better 1) pay the rent right away or 2) be a brilliant little gem of a book, better than any novel I could be writing a the time. Not just better than the novel I am writing. Better than the novel I believe I could be writing.

That's the standard I'd like to keep, anyway, but I'm not sure I'll be able to. So many books crying out to be written....

And read. So many books, in fact, that I think I need to be done with this for now, so that I can shower, make cakes, and write, and read. I've been reading David's copy of Galileo's Daughter, and now I have the Indigo Girls in my head all the time. I suppose I'll get over it, though.