Birds, birds, birds: We now have four bird feeders. Two window cafes, one hummingbird feeder, and a shiny new one with suet. We haven’t seen a hummingbird yet, but the level of syrup started diminishing last week. We have named them BBC1, BBC2, ITV and CBC. (Because, you know, it’s all Cat TV.) BBC1 has until now offered the most active program offerings, in the form of very feisty goldfinches. But CBC is a strong starter…
Doing this makes me want to become the Johnny Appleseed of apartment feeders, and roam the city talking people into installing seed, syrup and suet stations all over the darned place.
Yoga: Kelly and I are making it to yoga regularly, at a studio that is blessedly close to our place. This is our new favorite thing about the neighborhood: only having to walk two blocks for the thrice-weekly stretch. We’ve been here long enough that, much as we love The Drive, I needed a new favorite thing. So yay!
Teaching: My Writing the Fantastic class at the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program has been wrapping up its workshop phase: fifteen writers, doing fifteen critiques each on a wide (and interesting!) range of short stories and novel fragments. They’re moving into considering revision now. My next class will be Novel Writing II, beginning in mid-April.
One of the things I’ve started doing as of this quarter is keeping a pinboard (of course!) of links to the writing essays I’m sending to the group. This means that the list of optional readings will be growing ever longer over time. Pinterest being quite picture-driven, I’ve noticed–not a big surprise–that writing essays and articles about publishing tend to be rather low on snappy graphics.