(no subject)

1. Helped make rainbow cupcakes at the kids' preschool today. This involves mixing up a white cake batter, dividing it into containers and adding food dye, then scooping the colors into cupcake papers, layer by layer. One of the reasons that I love this preschool is precisely because it's old-school enough to be unashamed about using cake mix and food coloring once in a while. I did not come home covered in colored batter, but it was a close thing. It was also super-fun. I am also also glad that they did this at school where I don't have to help clean up.

2. Re: the Sun-Times photographer layoffs - I mean this in a totally non-flippant way: I hadn't realized that there was anyone media owners considered more even disposable than writers until this story broke. Well, copy editors I guess. :P I am in solidarity with all of them. Reporters taking smart-phone shots? Bitches, please. If you've seen my Flickr stream, you might want to rethink that option.

3. Melville won. I haven't gotten to the chapter-long digressions about whaling particulars yet, but right now I am enjoying the hell out of this book. In part because the narrator is *such* a crankypants. I felt immediate sympathy. I am so looking forward to his bitching for a thousand pages.

plus a brief grief update

People keep checking in and asking how I am doing, which is lovely and thoughtful of you all. I'm doing OK. I spent a few days on a cloud of denial and now reality is slowly seeping in like groundwater, to mix a metaphor. I'm following closely the community effort to get Sparkly's things in order and to assist her husband Bones in whatever he needs as he recovers. Should anyone like to donate money to said effort, here's a link:

The Bones and Sparkly Legal and Memorial Fund

But mostly I wanted to say thank you to you folks collectively, in part since I haven't had the brain to do it individually.

(no subject)

We are the custodians of a box of silkworms for the weekend.