This is not actually a question I often ask myself, but it does my heart good to know that there are people in the world who are, right this moment, thinking about this.

I suppose it also says something about the change in my perceptions over the last year that I _have_ thought about this question. Not well, mind you; I don't have the tools to think about it well. But (while reading Greg Egan, of course) I have indeed considered it.

Today is not turning out to be a productive day. I have things to do, but they require help from other people, and those other people are extremely busy doing emergency sorts of things. Thus I am sitting here, feeling like I ought to be doing work, but without any work to do. I probably ought to be learning Perl, but that doesn't sound interesting, so instead I'm skimming webpages.

Science Fiction Weekly is an online magazine (which may also have a print version -- I have no idea) which seems to review a few pieces of sf from various media every week. I've been flipping through the back issues reading the (very few) reviews of books I've actually heard of. So far my opinion of the reviewers is low; most of the reviews are surface skims that recap the plot/setting and appear to mention flaws only in passing.

For example: the review of Holy Fire recaps the setup cleanly, mentions a few things about the background, and suggests that the main flaw of the book is that Sterling's characters are more a collection of personality traits than real people. All well and good, and perhaps true. But there's no mention of the things I noticed -- the lack of a real plot, the wry humour, the ideas about post-humanism and where society might be going. And I know I'm not the only one who noticed these elements; every Usenet post on the book involved a brief mention that there's no real plot, although most people (myself included) really enjoyed the book anyway.

I wonder if I could write coherent book reviews? I don't think my usual style would work for it. Book reviews need to be 'lean'. (There's a word the magazine uses frequently -- lean. Apparently all the books I read have 'lean' writing styles... or maybe it's just a common word to make them look educated.)

Music: Car music seems to be Grace in Gravity by The Story, and Touch by Sarah McLachlan, with heavy doses of NPR and KFOG. Czr & I carpooled today (it being the correct Wednesday thing to do, as we work by each other & then go to gaming together, and if we carpool we can leave work at 1730 and still buy comics prior to 1830 gaming), so there was no specific music. I listened to Shaming of the Sun last night, though, since I'll be seeing the Indigo Girls in concert in just a few weeks.

Books: I finished Reclamation, and am now casting about for something else to read. I have tons more Years Best collections -- mostly edited by Lin Carter, but a few of the later Saha ones -- and I have been buying the Datlow/Windling collections as I find them and can afford it. I'm also reading through a book of Yuan (add in some accent marks) Plays, which are like Chinese 14thc Gilbert & Sullivan, or at least translated that way.

Do I divide up my page too much? I like sectioning things off, but I'm not sure how well it works.

Earl commented that my journal entries vanish whenever he's in town. He's right. I'm thinking of trying to do some from Netcom, but when he's around I don't want to spend extra time at the computer -- I want to spend it with him. Although if he's lying in bed reading I might as well do journal entries.

That's one of the (many) best things about Earl. We can sit and read together and we're still together.