Good good Friday

If it were summer, there'd be a lot of beautiful people out by the canal in the morning, jogging, running, walking, rollerblading, and wandering.

It's Good Friday and below freezing and what we have now is the diehards: dressed neck to toe and training for spring. One man was skiing on little roller-skis, with poles. Fast. Another man was running, or jogging, with an odd upright gait.

A lot of people were running in pairs. I noticed that pairs of men were invariably running silently; pairs of women were talking. As one such pair went by me the woman was saying (as briskly as her walk), "And then Brenda said...." The next group I passed was three people, one man, and two women running abreast. "My parents drank so much pop," the woman was saying.

I wondered how the rest of that conversation went. So much pop that - what? It was interesting that she used the word 'pop', which sounds American to me. I call the substance 'soft drinks'. I know a lot of Canadians call it pop too, but they didn't used to, as I recall... not around here.

There were buds on some of the trees. Poor things: it's rather cold for budding, but I believe that the trigger is light, not warmth, and any tree in these parts has to expect such things. There are some wonderful oaks in the park by Dow's Lake, their silhouette's starkly clear without leaves.

Another months, and the place will be full of tulips and crawling with tourists.

The canal is mostly unfrozen now, shallow flowing water with swimming ducks, and a red-wing blackbird pecking at the mud. Dow's Lake is still covered in ice. I walked on the Boardwalk for a change of pace. Can I call it a 'boardwalk' when it's over water? Can't call it a pier, as it follows the shore.

I enjoyed listening to the birds, wondering what they were. I wish I could identify birds by their sound, but beyond crows, loons and whippoorwills, I am clueless. I am, however, fluent in budgie.

While walking, I pondered my new Smallville slash story, particularly the title. "Tall Man" was my original working title, but it doesn't work. The theme is changing habits, but I don't like "Changing Habits" as a title. So what? "Old Dogs New Tricks" like the episode of The Professionals? I think not, wrong connotations entirely. It should be something sort of formal, sort of Latinate, I think... A weighty title. Antihabituation? Heh.

I passed the 100-mile mark on my Journey to Rivendell today. 102 miles, to be exact. Four shields for the Shieldmaiden . How satisfying.







Meanwhile, to my joy and delight, Space channel is celebrating Easter Friday by showing 6 hours of Smallville. They started withLineage. Gratitude and thanks to Mark and those wonderful people at Space.

Recommendations of stories

I put up a new page of my Smallville slash recommendations today - a long overdue job, as I hadn't updated my old page since November. I haven't been making good notes since then, either, and I'm sure I'm missing stories that I really should recommend.... As it is, the ones listed are the ones that stick in my head and reverberate there.

Missing stories. Hmm. What have I failed to list? There's that Te threesome with Clark, Lex, and Chloe. And something else very recent, where I liked Lana's role - oh, yes, spyhop's story, how could I forget? Will add it at once!

Now, what else....?

It's a good afternoon, watching SV on "Space" and fiddling with web pages while cooking from time to time. I'm thinking about making oatmeal cookies.

Time to get back to some writing, too.

Miller's Pond

This story was surrounded by oddities: an entire draft was lost, for example; and the final product is quite a bit rewritten from the version my beta readers saw. Many thanks to them, as they saw how to fix it and offered invaluable help: Alison, Gayle and Gail, you are treasures and I thank you.

I have already put this on my website at Miller's Pond .

( Miller's Pond )