AI, Gardening, Cooking

Last night, Lee DeWyze made slogging through an unimpressive season of AI worth it all. Hallelujah, indeed.

I admit that I was a Casey James girl since the first -- literally. He sang fine, and then he took his shirt off in the audition. Also fine. I was in. But while Casey's very good, and mm, something good to look at it too, Lee is just phenomenal. What a voice.

I dislike Crystal very much. I think she thinks she's above AI. Others will say it's got something to do with being true to oneself, but I get the definite impression that, maybe privately, maybe just in her own head, she thinks AI and everyone associated with it is a bunch of pack mentality, Cocoa Puffs buying, no taste airheads. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But compare her to Lee -- he wears his heart on his sleeve, and it's a beautiful one (er, his heart, not his sleeve, although, I'm sure his clothes these days are expensive and very nice).

Crystal: there's nothing wrong with wanting something material. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be the best at something and having others tell you, with record sales or accolades. There's definitely nothing wrong with possessing wealth. Sure, you've got your good health, your baby's got his, you've got love, and that's what matters most. True enough. But having those things doesn't mean you have to disdain the rest of it.

*

Been busy. Writing projects 1 & 2 going strong, I made one submission yesterday and I was asked to include a short bio and I was actually decently interesting for once (why do I, a writer, have trouble writing my bio?), and I wrote a flash fic. In not-so-good news, that flash fic cannot be shown to anyone. It's so dark, so weird, that I'm embarrassed. I think that if anyone were to read it, they'd immediately think, "Does she have these thoughts? Where did this come from?" And I must have these thoughts, because I wrote it, right? I don't know what to do with it. I'll just sit on it until I can open it up again and it will be so long that it will seem like a stranger wrote it. That's a good plan. In other not-so-good news, I was over 8,000 words into a story that was rolling along, and I'd just hit the midway point. Suddenly, a niggling little thought! I went online and checked the place I was writing it for.

They have a 2,000 word limit.

I'm just pretending that I don't know any 8,000 word, half-written story or any place that wants a certain kind of story under 2,000 words. Nope. Don't know any of that.

*

Also been busy cooking and gardening, both of which are good for the soul, but really, they just take my mind off everything else for a bit.

As you can see, I've expanded my lavender garden. I now have two new plants, one of which is a white lavender, and the other is purple, but it's on graceful, silver stalks. They seem to be doing well. Miss Callie welcomed them to their new home by nibbling on them and rolling around on them. Because, as is well known, cats dislike lavender. :)

This is lemon and parsley from the night I made scampi with bay scallops and linguine. And lots and lots of garlic, of course. I also made a spinach, mushroom, Havarti tart, also with plenty of garlic. And a roast turkey breast with mashed potatoes.

All of this -- the gardening, the dinners -- comes courtesy of a morning spent at Detroit's Eastern Market this past Saturday. About 3 hours were spent swimming through the throngs, and we came out with several tote bags full of goodies, including a sweet potato-custard-caramel-pecan pie. Homemade. And believe it or not, it wasn't overly sweet.

We did come home, however, and immediately start working on the new bed and replanting things and generally killing ourselves. Cheerfully. Not so cheerful on Sunday, and is it possible to still be sore on Wednesday? Oh, man, I need to start doing yoga again.

*

And now I've wasted a perfectly good half hour or so blogging when I should be writing. ;) I think it's a non-writing day, but I'm out of books to read as well. I've got two on my wishlist on Amazon, but I need a third to get free shipping. Recs welcome, if you know my preferences.