Careful! Those Words Are Loaded!

Many things to talk about, and I may run out of time, but here goes:

First, I haven't written yet today, though I did get in my 1500 yesterday. I'm getting a little bogged down in the story at the moment actually. I still like it and I'm becoming dangerously attached to a certain one of my characters, but the darn thing just keeps getting longer! This is good, because it looks like my story is definitely fully novel-length (always an issue for me, the queen of the 80-page novella...), but it's also bad because I'm trying to write quickly, so I don't give up or get distracted, but as each chapter blossoms into four or five chapters, I get the sense that I will never finish. I will be writing this book forever. At least I like it.

A brief note about some changes to my profile: I added more interests to help (theoretically) people find this who might like it. I don't spend a whole lot of time online, except to write these entries basically, so it takes a while for me to find new blogs/journals and very, very rarely comment on other people's entries. I should do that more often, actually. I also added a link. I will discuss why I've chosen those links in the future, I swear, just as soon as...Well, you know. I have a dream. My dream is that someday I will live in a little house in the country. I will have a studio where I can paint and sculpt and not have to worry about moving stuff off the table when company comes over, or you know, we have to eat. And I will have lots more time to do all the things I like to do, like read books, and sleep. Yeah. ; )

( Little Rant on RDR/WB Trial )

In other news, I went to hear Mary Oliver read last night. I bought two of her books two weeks ago, but I didn't want to write anything until after I'd heard her speak, as authors sometimes give insight into their work that changes the whole way you look at and think about it. And I liked hearing Ms. Oliver read her poems. She unconsciously ADDED PUNCTUATION where it BELONGED in the poem, so it was much easier to understand what she meant when she read it than when I read it. I still don't much care for any of her poems (OK, to be fair, there are one or two I kind of liked, but not in the profoundly passionate way I love the works of certain other poets. Actually, I usually detest the modern poems I read in literary journals, etc. I like Keats and Robert Browning, and even Shakespeare. I am starting to think there's really no hope I'll ever get any of my poems published...).

Somehow, hearing the awed and thoughtful "Hmm"s of the audience as she ended each piece only made them seem triter and less important to me. Somehow, I didn't hear anything new in her words. I don't know if, forty years ago, her poetry was new and important, but not only were there no really profound thoughts for me, her own profound thoughts never really changed over that whole long career. Her recent poems express the exact same feelings her earlier ones do. I actually find it kind of sad to think a person could live such a long time and not learn anything she hadn't learned by the time she was 25. Sigh. Someone who went with me suggested that I couldn't appreciate the insights she got from the little nature of New England, because I've been jaded by the grandeur that surrounds me every day. It's hard to have a small thought in a place like this. ; ) I did find it interesting that she saw a dipper once in Colorado fifty years ago and decided then to be a poet. Something kind of like that happened to me. ; )

Indeed, I was inspired to write two poems last night. And, on the way home, I saw a black (!!) fox, and a great horned owl. The fox was a red fox, of course, (Vulpes vulpes), but it was black with white specks, not at all unlike the black form of the yellow-bellied marmot I've seen around here sometimes, or even the black form of the fox squirrel. But I didn't know they came in that color! It wasn't the "cross fox"; it was just black. And the owls were calling outside my window all evening as the horned moon set behind the mountains...It's hard not to write poetry around here, come to think of it!

And, I was very happy this morning because my two favorite bloggers had new entries...but I think I've really run out of time, and space (I've run out of space-time!! Never mind...), to write about them. And I wanted so much to mention toilets in Australia...Yes, well, I'll talk about all these things eventually, I'm sure. Let me just add that everyone should have an Italian cousin with whom they can discuss art and tax shelters, and wasn't I going to write about the art museum? And didn't I say I'd talk about my future, as dictated by very bad fast food? And it's snowing again...actually mixed rain and snow. Well, there's always tomorrow. ; ) And now the sun has come out again. And a bunch of Cassin's finches (the first I've seen this spring!) are bathing in a puddle in the driveway. And we finally got the bat box hung this morning...

-Susie

The Bear Necessities of Life Will Come to You!

Bear 399 is the most photographed grizzly bear in Grand Teton National Park. And, finally, today, after three long years, I still did not take her picture. Some people near me did, though. : ) This is a very interesting bear for two reasons: one, she does not mind people too much (not necessarily a good thing, mind you! And she has the ear tags to prove it.), and two, she has successfully brought up three big healthy-looking cubs mostly in sight of the road. The cubs are entering their third year now, though they still are noticeably smaller than their mother. We watched them rest and play and fish (and swim when they fell through the thin ice!), and even, incredibly, saw 399 nurse her nearly full-grown cubs! I was amazed to see that--even after two winters with their mom, the cubs still get some comfort, and probably less nourishment, from their mother's milk. Of course it is wonderful to watch a mother bear nurse cubs (even three enormous ones as these), as they are a bit like humans in the way they behave. The mother sits up or rolls onto her back and pulls the cubs toward her with her forepaws and snoozes and nuzzles their heads. Indeed, it is amazing to see such a massive, powerful animal touch her babies so gently with paws ending in four inch claws! She also paused to play with the cubs a few times, even doing several somersaults in the snow.

All in all, it was a wonderful wildlife day--two pairs of common loons, five red-breasted mergansers (fascinating to see the young males, still mostly in female-like plumage, but with perfectly round green spectacles and goatees, and very messy "hair"), a young male common goldeneye, a Northern goshawk (my first positive ID of an adult!), pelicans, swans, ducks of all kinds, my first Northern rough-winged swallows of the year, and my first barn swallow of hte year, Audubon's and Myrtle warblers (both technically yellow-rumped warblers, but only the former breeds here), dueling sapsuckers (hee hee--by the way, kind of dirty joke: if a female is a hen sapsucker, what do you call a male?), bald eagles on a nest and an osprey dive-bombing them, turkey condors (I'll explain that someday I'm sure..."vultures" for those of you who are familiar with them), including one on an elk carcass (amazingly, the first time I've seen a "vulture" on a carcass! Though, he/she couldn't get anything out of it--I may explain that another day too...), muskrats (I do love muskrats...), ground-squirrels (I have a huge soft spot in my heart for squirrels...), and, the strangest thing I'd ever seen in just about my whole life: eleven beavers sitting in a huddle on the ice, with green leaves and twigs around them, snoozing against and on top of each other in broad daylight, completely exposed. I'm sorry they were too far away to get a picture of, though it was absolutely amazing. In one fell swoop it was more beavers than I'd ever seen in my life, and just sitting there! Apparently the bears had broken into their lodge and some coyotes had killed one or two. I guess they felt safer in the frigid air than in their breached fortress! They looked all right, though, just a little chilly and sleepy. They will rebuild when the ice melts, I'm sure. (Yes, amazingly, it's May, almost the second week of May, and the river is flowing, of course, but the lakes and oxbows are still frozen (though not solid), and there is still a large amount of snow on the ground. It snowed in the mountains today, but rained down here for the first time this year!) A picture of the snow (taken near String Lake) next to a scowling person for scale. (That's my dad, actually. No idea why he looks so annoyed!)

But the really exciting thing that happened was Tom Mangelsen took a picture with my camera!

Um...yeah. Well, on this scale, you see he does have an eye for framing and balancing light and dark. Of course the horizon is not straight and those four blurry brown dots on the snow are the bears. I guess even great photographers sometimes take terrible pictures. OR maybe it's the camera... ; D

Anyway, one of the reasons I love living here is you do run into people like Tom (and have nice long chats with them sometimes too). (Tangent: You should see the picture my dad took of Henry Holdsworth at the Swan Roundup last year...Oh yes...The Swan Roundup, another Wyoming kind of thing. I'll write about that probably after this year's happens in June. Yeah...taking candid pictures of professional photographers with stunningly beautiful young females in their laps is another perk of living here!) ANYWAY...Tom took a bunch of pictures of us (including one with him, although of course that was taken by his "assistant slash girlfriend" (Tom's words), who's also named Susie.). I don't think they'll be available for purchase at Images of Nature. At least I hope not! Today was also laundry day for me and I hadn't taken a shower...Of course Tom himself was pretty dishevelled, as they've been following 399 around for a week now. Tom is a great conservationist as well as artist and I wanted to share a few things he said (though I'm afraid I'm getting pretty tired. It's 10 already!).

I really appreciated his comment about wildlife in general. He said, "you can't hate wolves and love moose and elk. You can't pick some animals and call them 'good' and label the rest 'bad.' You have to take Nature in its entirety," because of course, that's what it is. There is no good and bad. Things, Life, People even, only ARE. (I was thinking about that yesterday too...How even actions you think are good will hurt somebody. How nothing exists in a vacuum; how nothing can thrive without something else declining. But that's for another day.) Tom also shared his version of the story behind "High Noon On the Oxbow Bend" which was even more amazing than the story I'd heard at the gallery. It's his story to share, though he thought I should write a book about a similar story my folks witnessed. It's a thought... : ) Anyway, the point of the story, I guess, is that great photographs, like so many other things, involve staying around when everyone else has given up and an extraordinary amount of luck. And I find that inspiring. I also find it inspiring to know that I'm not alone in the world in caring about animals and Nature and wilderness. And a lot of those people live here.

--Susie

P.S. No, I didn't write today! At least I did a lot yesterday, and I'll get some done tomorrow. But you know...it was Wednesday. : )

A Miscellany

It's been a long time since I've posted! I got along just fine without blogging for years, and now I seem a little addicted...I have so much I want to talk about, but most of it will have to wait. I'll try not to let this get too long. First, some corrections: I've lived here for more than three years now; I'm entering my fourth year in this valley. I swear, I was always good at math! Since I left school, though, the years really seem to just run together. It's a little embarrassing. I still haven't gotten used to my new age. I'll blame that. ; D

So, this week's crossword (see this post for an explanation of why I do the Sunday New York Times Crossword on Wednesdays). Well, the whole thing was lost on me. I have always been a terrible speller (I'm sure it's because I don't read enough). I tried rewriting all the words several ways, and I couldn't even always tell what was the correct way to spell the word. I knew that "supercede" was wrong because I'd just used it in a blog post! So I guess doing this is useful after all, and I still often think the puzzle is exceedingly stupid. This one was very quick, though.

I spent the last four (was it only four?) days out of town and busy with houseguests and then slowly recovering. I've been trying to rearrange my schedule so I can get everything done I want to do each day in a timely manner. So far it has not been working, though this week should be much less busy than last week. I have not written today yet (though I absolutely will, darn it! It's very bad of me, I know...), and yesterday I was so tired and uninspired I only wrote 600 words, and those were not even directly related to my Current Project. I'm a bit superstitious about my work. I told our friends a little about the story, and they thought it sounded very intriguing and wanted to hear more...and I haven't written a word since I told them about it. Gaah! I will force myself back into writing this evening though (it's already after 3!), and next week should be more normal. (Ha! As if my life is ever normal!)

On a related note (what I've been up to), I got up at 4:45 a.m. on Saturday to go to the sage grouse lek. It had snowed several inches overnight making for a pleasant walk out into the sage (no roots to trip over--the snow was still unbelievably, unusually deep), but the temperature was around 9 degrees F and only about fifteen male grouse were out dancing. One female flew in late (nearly 7:00 a.m.), but didn't stay long. Then we say two females by the side of the road near the airport. It was a great wildlife day in all, with 25 moose, many deer, some elk and bison, as well as a snipe and a Northern shrike and many ducks, including what I thought might be a female red-breasted merganser. In the afternoon I napped for more than two hours (a very rare occurance for me--I've almost never been able to nap since I was three years old), then I had to rush to make some bread (a really delicious white yeast bread made with orange juice and zest and eaten with a mixture of butter and orange marmalade) before heading out to dinner. I had to finish the bread after dinner, actually (I let it go through its final rise in the refrigerator while we were out, which worked beautifully), then got up early again (7:00 a.m. this time) because:

The West entrance to Yellowstone National Park (at West Yellowstone, Montana) opened last week, I believe, but our convenient South entrance isn't scheduled to open until May 9 (assuming all the snow is gone!). So, we drove over Teton Pass into Idaho and up to West Yellowstone. On the way, we saw a pair of white-faced ibises (yea!), many snipes, yellow-headed blackbirds and more and arrived at the Park for lunch. We spent one night in Gardiner, MT and two half-days driving along the Northern tier road in the Madison, Gardner (not misspelled), Yellowstone, and Lamar River valleys. We saw only one grizzly bear on the first afternoon (eating an elk carcass). She had a radio collar and two ear tags, often a sign of past run-ins with human beings, unfortunately. We saw several coyotes, scattered elk, but depressingly few bison (don't get me started on that again. Sigh.), no wolves and no black bears. There was still a huge amount of snow in the Lamar Valley. Two years ago at this time, it was filled with animals, including a number of pronghorns. I was actually disappointed by the trip on the whole, animal-wise, though we saw some wonderful things, including the bear, which was the closest I've ever been to a grizzly in the Park.

Exciting birds included red-breasted mergansers in the Madison River. Actually, that's about it. We saw one distant immature golden eagle, some bald eagles singing and a willet at Blacktail Ponds, buffleheads (a sure sign of spring perhaps?), two species of goldeneyes (common and Barrow's), a pair of blue-winged teals, ospreys...The Uinta ground-squirrels are also awake at last and chirruping, and we saw a white-tailed deer on the banks of the Yellowstone River. I'd never seen one in the Park before, though they've been around for decades. Also numerous baby bison, which I'll talk about another day--two sad and long stories about that, actually.

Yesterday was altogether more satisfying bird-wise (and that's an understatement!). I've heard the kingfishers on our local backyard pond, but haven't seen them yet, the wood ducks are back, and on our pond have been four pelicans, a loon (!), a horned grebe (! And a first for me), a lone male canvasback, a pair or three individual red-breasted mergansers (I guess I didn't have to drive so far to see them after all...). Someone else has seen other grebes and cormorants, but I haven't yet. The loon was gorgeous. They are some of my very favorite birds and rarely seen out here, though I did worry that this one might be lonely all by herself. Maybe she (he?) has a mate waiting somewhere. I just love their tortoiseshell patterned black and white backs and their saber-like bills and their pearl necklaces. : )

Also, cinnamon teals are back on Flat Creek, and many green-winged teals and gadwalls. No blue-winged teals down here yet for me, but I did see a lone (no kidding!) solitary sandpiper in the mud by the side of the highway. They are common migrants or vagrants I believe. I've seen them a few times in the region only, and my birdbook is marked with two exclamation points next to the picture (I have a very elaborate series of symbols I use to mark species I've seen in my birdbook...Very cryptic...) ; ) and it was familiar enough to recognize almost immediately upon viewing it, without looking it up. (I checked the book later, of course, but they're pretty unmistakeable in the region)

Whew! And then, yesterday I listened to PotterCast, as I do every week and Melissa especially, but also John and Sue, brought up something that I've been thinking about a lot. It relates to my last post, and gets at something I've been trying to say. I know my posts are long and thoughtful and sometimes meloncholy, but I'm actually doing it on purpose. Part of my deciding to talk about the things I talk about has to do with my disgust for the current short attention spans of modern humans these days. My loathing of Newsweek (see the first link on this post) is directly related to this, and I never read popular magazines, if such they can be called. What can a thoughtful, intelligent, discerning adult read these days? Good luck trying to get a balanced and accurate account of the news today! I stopped watching the "news" on TV when I was a child, or perhaps young teen because I was already disgusted by it. And don't get me started on purveyors (That took a while to find! Dictionaries are only useful when you know the first four or five letters of a word for sure...) of so-called popular science. The culture of "infotainment" is pervasive and (I believe) destructive. I have seen first hand how influenced subconsciously I am by what I read, so reading things that are simply wrong, misinformed, or incomplete can indeed have a detrimental effect on one's understanding of a situation and the world in general.

So, that is why I write long, thoughtful posts on varied subjects. I have wide interests already, but everything is more interesting when it can be studied in depth. Not watching television and spending as much time as I can observing nature has lengthened my attention span considerably. I can sit and watch a flock of juncos for an hour, and in so doing, learn so much about the world I live in, and through that understanding, come to better understand myself. And shouldn't that be the goal? (I've also learned that linking between your posts can increase visitors to your blog, journal, or website. Can you tell?) : )

So much more to talk about: art, language, fortune cookies...but they will just all have to wait for another day. It's good to be home and blogging again!

-Susie

Sighs of Spring

It is currently snowing. A lot. We have about two inches now at 7:40 p.m. and it shows no sign of letting up any time soon. It is starting to stick to the road and has already thoroughly covered all the ground that was bare two days ago. Two years ago (three Aprils) at this time, we had heavy rains for about a month and incredible flowers by the end of May. Last year the daffodils were already finishing, the ground was completely bare and the mule deer fawn (picture) was still very fuzzy as he competed with rosy-finches for birdseed in some friends' yard. Who knows what this weather will bring. Three years ago (four Aprils) there were snow flurries on Memorial Day. As I enter my third full year living here, I feel like I really don't know this place at all, even though I know it very well. I was thinking this morning about connectedness with nature. Human beings have a tendency to take familiar things with them when they travel, including outmoded attitudes toward living. Resources that seemed inexhaustible in one place are treated as such in the next until they are, indeed, exhausted. Animals that have been feared and hated continue to be so, even in the very last place on Earth they still exist. I came here seeking wilderness, beauty and contentment in nature. Naively, probably, I thought this place could be a place where I could be perfectly happy. And I did find all those things I was looking for, and a little less than I'd hoped for. But I've also seen deeper prejudices and ignorance and pure idiocy than I expected. I don't want to get into this now, but I will just say that dogs and cats and humans may exist happily anywhere, while wolves and bison and grizzly bears literally have no place else to be and no room left to roam.

Only 1200 and some words today, but I did come up with some names for my characters that needed names and I think I've finally established what my story is about, that is to say its theme, its moral even. And I like it. And I cleaned out my desk finally, because an organized workspace is helpful to an organized mind. And just as fresh snow leaves room for fresh tracks (marten this morning), it also gives room to fresh thoughts. So, despite my nagging self-doubt and my sadness over the continuing loss of wild things and wild places, I am content this evening, in my work and in myself. Darn it! Snow makes me philosophical, too. And the snow is slowing down now and the sky is looking a little bluer...Hmm...maybe it's Spring after all...

The Birds of Spring

So, I'm finally going to talk about wildlife. Huzzah! But first, my word count so far today is 2,099. It was "housekeeping" kind of writing I'm afraid, though--I finally figured out where the novel is going and made an outline with detailed summaries of what each chapter will contain. I'm trying to convince myself that it counts as work, as it's an important part of the writing process. I may go back and fill in the rest of a chapter or two later. This should help the writing go faster, however, which must be a good thing, right?

Technically it is spring here. Last night it snowed and it's cold and wintry today, but the birds are coming back in ever larger numbers. During the winter, we have mostly black, white, and black and white birds on the hill here: ravens, magpies, Clark's nutcrackers, trumpeter swans, and both mountain and black-capped chickadees, as well as the occasional bald eagle or hairy--or, less often, downy--woodpecker. But yesterday a new color was added! Yes. We have brown birds now, too! : )

Two days ago, some guys were doing something on the house next door (still three tenths of a mile away). When I went for my walk I head them hammering something. I also heard the calls of a distressed woodpecker, answering their hammering with his territorial call. Yesterday I saw two male red-naped sapsuckers (one of which was likely the same aforementioned bird) fighting hotly over a prime nesting area. These are mostly black and white birds too, but compared to all the bare trees and snow I've seen for the last five months, they were a positive rainbow of beautiful tones--the bright red of their heads and throats and the soft creamy-yellow of their bellies. Their mates should be close behind them somewhere, arriving soon to tap into the bushes and trees around the yard and get ready to nest. The dark-eyed juncos are also starting to sing--a nondescript kind of trill.

When I finally had some time to myself yesterday, but was, as yet, unable to get on the computer and work on my Current Project, I sat in a chair and looked out the window, where I was immediately distracted by a flock of juncos pecking at the old dry grass seeds that the melting of the snow has revealed. I would describe myself as an avid birder, but, although I keep a "life list," I am not one of those birders who is obsessed with seeing only the newest species. I enjoy observing even the common and drab birds that I know best, so I can get to know them better. House sparrows, for example, have a highly complex social structure that even a casual observer can see something of, if she just takes a few minutes to watch.

Juncos spend a lot of their time on the ground, where they hop around foraging and scratching the dirt (like most buntings AKA emberizids AKA "sparrows" here in North America) with both feet at once. Being small and brownish-grey and long-tailed and having their white bellies hidden when they're on the ground, they look a lot like mice moving around. The dark-eyed junco has an almost endless array of plumage variation, so much so that it was once divided into four or five separate species. The variety that breeds here is called the pink-sided junco, though it is pretty close to the Oregon junco, which also passes through here in the spring and fall (and some of them winter here as well) to and from its breeding grounds in British Columbia, Idaho, Washington, and, of course, Oregon.

Juncos are friendly and fearless and quite common. Most varieties winter in the U.S. and they can be seen in every state and most of Canada for at least part of the year. This particular flock consisted of about thirty pink-sided. Theoretically, one can tell male and female juncos apart by plumage. Theoretically. Among pink-sideds, the males have slightly darker and greyer heads with a cleaner break between the grey nape and the brown back. And at close range (some hopped right under the window), I could indeed see that some were browner. Ahem. Yes, I couldn't swear that those were all female, though. Anyway, they fed for a very long time, occasionally and seeminly for no reason at all, viciously fighting with each other--lifting their wings as they faced off over a seed, or screeching and spatting with claws and beaks for a few seconds. Then they would go back to pecking as though nothing had happened. I think it would be wrong to see such behavior and conclude that birds have short memories or (heaven forbid!) that they are stupid. I think, in fact, having watched them before at less lean times of the year, that they are just really hungry. And it's not hard to see why with it the end of April and six to eight inches still on the ground in most places.

I wouldn't have stayed with the juncos as long as I did, I suppose, except there were two other birds with them. One was readily identifyable as a white-crowned sparrow, which is significantly larger than a junco and one of the most visible and distinctive sparrows we have. I was still surprised to see it, not only with a flock of juncos, but on our hill, as I usually associate white-crowned sparrows with water--I see them along ponds and streams in willows or cottonwoods. And there was another, very small brown bird there too. It was fifteen minutes before I was brave enough to run for my binoculars, convinced the whole flock would be gone by the time I returned. They were very hungry, however, and outside my window was some of the only snow-free ground in quite a distance, so they were all still there. The LBB turned out to be a Brewer's sparrow, which surprised me much more than the white-crowned, as I've only ever seen Brewer's sparrows in the sage brush and other open country (though I'm notoriously bad at identifying sparrows, preferring large charismatic birds like ostriches, etc.).

Oddly, the adult Brewer's sparrow is a distinctive and easily identifyable sparrow, not because of the markings it has, but because of the markings it doesn't have. It is a plain grey-brown bird, mostly unmarked except for faint stripes on their heads and back, which are universal to all buntings ("sparrows"--the naming thing is fascinating and deserves a post of its own later). This one had a clear white semi-circle under its eye and a very clean grey collar around the sides of its neck. According to The Sibley Guide to Birds, this means it's of the population that breeds in the Yukon and part of Alaska. I haven't really studied sparrows, (indeed, I'll admit right here I often dismiss them all as "little brown birds" and therefore unidentifiable), so it would be interesting to know more about this regional variation and what kind breed around here. As for relative size of this bird to the juncos--it was clearly smaller, but it was also all fluffed out (which brings up the wonder of feathers--they are not fixed you see, and a bird's appearance can change enormously just by how it's holding its feathers), perhaps to make it look bigger to all the louder and larger birds around it.

This post is already longer than I intended, so I'll just conclude by saying I watched with great interest the birds' reaction to various raptors that flew over head including (twice) a pair of red tailed hawks I'll definitely mention again, a Cooper's hawk and a small falcon (probably a kestrel, though I wasn't positive). Apparently, the white-crowned sparrow, at least, proved its worth to the flock, as its greater height seems to have allowed it to spot the Cooper's hawk first, and the flock's attentiveness seems to have discouraged the predator. They also ignored the red taileds very quickly after spotting them, as they posed no threat. And I ended the day by seeing an osprey, which, although it is black and white, is most definitely a bird of the Summer.

And this morning I woke up to fresh snow and the first Swainson's thrush of the year hopping along my walk looking for worms, as well as a little frozen corpse of a junco who probably flew into the window and died. So, it's bittersweet living so close to nature. I can enjoy watching the birds and being close to them and the warmth escaping from the house helps melt the snow around the walkway, but my human presence can be destructive too.

-Susie

We Are Not Amused

I wanted to write about birds today, but other things got in the way. First things first: the weather is cloudy and the evening sky has that lovely lavender-bluish tint it gets around here. There was some wind earlier and I hate to say, I stayed inside the whole time, which is not (happily) to say that I didn't see any wildlife. Gosh I love living here! Anyway, I was very busy all day, as I often am on Wednesdays and didn't have a chance to sit down and write until six! As I often do in such a situation, I said to myself, "Oh it's so late, I can't possibly work now! I don't want to!" but then I thought of what I'd say here, and the shame if I missed a day blogging/journaling because I didn't have a respectable wordcount. And I think a lot of what I wrote today was rather crappy, but I resisted the urge to edit and just forced myself to pound out the story. And the result? 1,708 words! I guess discipline can be taught!

Now, a few rants have gotten in my way this evening, I'm afraid. Firstly, the New York Times Sunday Crossword. Humpf. (Perhaps now would be a good time to explain that we get the NYT Sunday puzzle on Wednesday. After driving 10 miles to the post office. Yeah. Rural Wyoming. What can I say?) The puzzle was pretty easy, though some clues left me wondering about the mental health of the author, and I thought it was nice that they had all the planets in order. Well, almost all...All eight planets... To me, though, Pluto will always be a planet. So there! : )
Onto other rants. So, normally, I wouldn't admit to reading Newsweek, but two things stood out that I had to share (I'm sorry!). The first was a little "articlet" in the back about the Rowling/WB/RDR suit. Besides getting some facts wrong (My understanding is that the author of the Lexicon, Steve Vander Ark is not a defendant, but was a witness, also JK Rowling is co-plaintif with Warner Brothers.), and being unnecessarily inflamatory--and I'm taking the bait, the irony is not lost on me--("Harry Potter Author Makes Fan Cry"), it also brings up one of The Things I Hate Most In The Entire World which is "the Evil Rich Argument." Grr! Without incriminating myself (Why yes, I am a millionaire. How else do you think I can afford to write poetry?), I'd just like to say, rich people are not inherently bad. You may quote me on this. ; D
The fact is that fame has not made Jo greedy. In fact, people who try to paint this suit as about money are willfully ignorant, destructive and/or just total morons. Believe me, the idea that the Lexicon could unfairly or harmfully compete with "The Scottish Book" or hurt the movie franchise is absolutely and utterly ridiculous. And having been an avid fan of PotterCast since near the beginning, I'd like to give Steve the benefit of the doubt and bet that he wasn't just interested in grabbing a buck (or thousands) off the fandom, either. After all, the website is still up. (However, that doesn't excuse the fact that a librarian who's written about copyright law before should have known better, and it also says nothing about RDR Books who seem to have been misguided throughout the whole process, and who of course would make more money off the book than the author anyway.) The fact is that copyright infringment is WRONG, damn it! It is always wrong. That Jo is rich does NOT make her less entitled to sue over it. The fact that she's now rich only means that she can afford to sue over it! And I, for one, am grateful!
The other thing in Newsweek was the following quote from (ahem) our dear Vice President: "I have no doubt that we are in the midst of a global warming. Or, as I like to call it, Spring." Antipodeans are not amused. Neither am I really, but I understand physics...and astronomy, and natural science, and geography, and things like that. But maybe I'm just too educated to be a real American. And please, nobody write in and tell me he's from Wyoming and people in Wyoming don't know any better. My Mom already told me. : P

Sigh. Well, I feel better getting that off my chest. Plus I have fresh, warm, homemade chocolate-chip cookies...Oh well. I'll write about the birds tomorrow.
-Susie

The Power of Positive...Blogging?

If I have one really serious fault as a writer, it's that I lack discipline. This Journal is supposed to help with that. See, even if no one reads it, by writing it down, I some how have made it real. This is called intention and is one of the easiest and most surprisingly effective forms of magic. So, last night, I decided that if I could write down my word count every day in here, then I couldn't cheat or procrastinate as much, because anyone could see that I had been irresponsible. Behold the power of public shame!! So, each entry from now on will start with a brief note about the weather (because it's interesting around here, really) and my day's word count. This will also discourage me from blogging or playing around on my favorite websites before I've gotten my work done for the day. My goal is to write at least 1500 words a day, with an absolute minimum of 1,000. This is a fairly modest goal for me, as I generally write that much in an hour or two. But it's already working! This morning I sat down at the computer and opened my Current Project and said to myself, "Oh! I so do not feel like writing today!!" But, after only ten minutes of procrastinating, I forced myself to open the file and just start writing. And lo and behold I wrote 1,754 words. Huzzah! So:
Tuesday, April 22, 2008. The weather is warm and Springy, with uncertain clouds and lots of thin golden sunshine. The foxes have been very active in the East yard and I expect the female to make a den around there soon. I hope to see her with her kits again this year, though the coyotes have been back on the hill since March. No daffodils yet, though there's some short little green grass where the snow has melted and almost all of the aspens have visible red leaf buds. I plan to go for my walk right after I post this. Word Count: 1,754.
Yeah. That works. Anyway, it looks like I'm going to be getting a lot busier soon (Eeek!). I'm not entirely sure how that will be possible, but no matter what, I'm going to keep up my current progress on the book and keep posting here too. I can do that. I don't need sleep. More fun stuff to come, but now I need to get outside before I run out of time. Sigh. Adulthood is just not all it's cracked up to be.
-Susie Haberfeld (trying to boost search results...)

The Tangled Interwebs We Weave...

Today is my birthday. I am 24. It seems to me this year should be going better for me than it has been so far, after all, it is my year, i.e. the Year of the Rat. I am (proudly) a rat. Perhaps your year is not the year when everything goes right for you. Perhaps it's just when all the hidden parts of your personality become most apparent. In that case, then, it seems logical that this year I would be filled with self-doubt, which is I think Rat's greatest fault. And I am. So I decided, as a motivation I suppose, to start a blog on my birthday and continue to keep it for a year. The hope is that here I will record my thoughts and progress and by the time my next birthday comes around, when I will be a quarter of a century old, I will have achieved the goals I lay out here today, namely to get my next book in the secure grasp of a publisher--a real publisher--and feel I have finally earned the right to call myself an author, even though I've been a writer for many years. Because, you see, I think the difference between an author and a writer is more than just verb tense. A writer writes. An author wrote. But, like the proverbial tree that falls in the forest unwatched by human eyes, if a writer's work goes unread, has she been utterly wasting her time?
I hope to post some of my writing here in the future, although that is a sticky thing to do, as technically, any writing posted online is essentially published, even if nobody reads it. I will try to put up some previously published poems and I actually have a little short story in mind that would be inappropriate to post anywhere else, but more on that some other day.
So. Who am I? Why am I here? Where do I live? Firstly, I am a writer. That is my vocation. It is the only thing in the world I have really enjoyed doing and that has given meaning to my life. I do not write anything lightly, and hope that my view of the world is sufficiently different and interesting as to be important to others. In the meantime, I hope that my thoughts here will amuse you and give you something to think about that you might not have thought about before. My interests are wide and varied, and I hope to explore them all here as time goes by. I will keep all my entries public for the simple reason that the internet is never as private as some believe and if something is so personal I only want to share it with my real-life friends, I will tell them by other means. I will not be afraid to bare my soul here, though, as that's what writers really do.
Why is my name here Lepus domesticus? Because it's obscure. That's all. I am a sucker for bad puns, word games, and esoterica. It is scientific Latin meaning a domestic, or tame, hare. I got that from W.B. Yeats' poem "Two Songs of a Fool" whose first line is "A speckled cat and a tame hare." It is not my favorite poem of his, though he is my favorite poet, but I chose it because I have often felt like The Fool, but I relate more to the hare than to the cat. The speckled cat will wander out of the house away from the hearth and have his adventures and then return and sit smugly by the fire as cats are wont to do. The hare on the other hand, desperate to stretch her long, long legs will dash out into the woods, leaping and pirouetting as hares are wont to do, and may find herself at last on the table of the hunter, which neither cat nor fool will ever do. The hare's position is the most perilous, and she therefore represents life. We may be as secure as we like before the fire on the worn rug that has adorned our home for centuries, but eventually, we have to go out into the woods, we have to leap, and then we are in danger. So I'm leaping.
Where am I? My home is my center and very much defines me. It is a lovely cloudy day today and I will talk about the weather and my wild neighbors often on this blog. Today, however, I will only say this: Last year for my birthday I had daffodils. This year, there is too much snow. I saw some swallows floating by around noon, however, and a butterfly beat its sharp dark wings against my window. The nutcrackers are hoarsely chattering in the douglas-firs on the hill, protecting their new nest from the deep brown dark phase redtail and her mate, who like to perch up there and catch the wind. And the ravens are always soaring overhead and calling. As you can probably tell by my picture, ravens are very important to me, and to see them floating effortlessly and to hear their throaty rasps and caws and to watch them tumbling over and over in the high wind like so many black feathered clouds, always brings joy to my heart.
Happy birthday to me! Here's to a good year and all it brings!! And here's to all the things I bring to you who read here!