I’m finally shopping my novel around, so I have more time to take care of the rest of my life. There’s something about a book-length writing project that shuts out too much else from the range of my attention, so I’ve decided that unless I sell this novel it’s going to be smaller creative projects for a while, like poetry, short stories, and some needlework and painting. I’m interested in art journals, at the moment, and in playing my guitar more. I’m a rank beginner, but I find music puts my brain into a completely different frequency or something, and I like it there.

While it would be easy (for some people perhaps, not me) to set a list of goals to accomplish, and stick to that set list, I’m more of a drifter. I look forward to browsing my creative urges for a while to see where they lead me. Hopefully they’ll lead into a little more organization and housecleaning. Writing a novel can really upset your housecleaning routine — if you even have one to start with, which I don’t.

I’m surprised and disappointed at the response by some progressives to Dennis Kucinich’s insistence that the State Children’s Healthcare Insurance Program (SCHIP) bill should cover legal immigrant children. If a child’s parents are here legally, and working in the US, which means they very likely pay taxes, why should their child, who has no control over where his or her parents decide to live, not benefit from this program? (more…)