After sleeping in this morning, then fixing some coffee, Janet and I watched home improvement shows, even though we have no house on which we could work. Regardless, the shows are always really interesting, and thanks to classes in woodshop and jobs where I need to be conscious of building materials, I actually know what they're talking about. Ebert and Roeper was on after that, and they dumped all over The Chronicles of Riddick, just like Nick. I was slightly interested in the movie before the bad reviews, but now I have absolutely no inclination to see it.

Then it was time to get the lazy asses off the couch, so I turned on the computer and put the final touches on my syllabus for the YWW, which starts tomorrow(!), while Janet worked on the painting for the new Strange Horizons membership card (she posted an early stage of it on her livejournal). I was up fairly late last night finishing it, and I have to say, it looks pretty good. I relied quite a bit on Ol' Mike's syllabus from last year, since it was such a good one, but I added some things, and took others away, so that it was still my own. I've got lots of examples of hooks, character, plot, and setting from existing fiction that I'll be reading aloud to the kids. Lots of writing activities. I hope it'll be fun. I'm a bit nervous, but hopefully after a day or two, we'll settle into a nice groove. Wish me luck!

I had some handouts for the kids that I needed to make copies of, so Janet and I headed to Kinko's around 3:30. While we were there, she got a three-quarter headshot taken for her INS paperwork. After that, I wanted to go next door to the Barnes & Noble cafe, but Janet convinced me to go check out the Raleigh Farmer's Market, even though I thought most people would be packing up by that point. We were going to try to go yesterday, but Janet was feeling under the weather, and, as Mike pointed out, it was hella busy. It was overcast when we got there, but plenty of people were still out looking around. We wandered through the produce and flowers, and picked some herbs to add to our small potted garden on the porch: woolly-apple mint, leaf-type celery, rosemary and citrosum, in addition to the dill, basil, ivy, and aloe vera that were already out there. It's nice seeing so much greenery out there, even if it is small. We ate a late lunch (since neither of us had eaten since this morning) at the seafood restaurant at the market, and it was delicious; they bring their fish and seafood in from the coast regularly, so everything is fresh. Janet got shrimp, and I got crab cakes. Yum.

Then it was back over to the B&N cafe, where I whipped out the iBook and worked on revisions of "Last Fare" for the Strange Horizons Oregon Workshop while Janet read a few periodicals. She discovered that a film called About Baghdad will be playing at the Rialto in Raleigh this Thursday at 7 p.m. The movie looks like an interesting one, about countering the many stereotypes that Americans have of Iraqis by showing the lives of the people living there, and illustrating that the US/Iraq issue is not a cut-and-dried one. If you're in the area, I would suggest going to see it; plus, Rania Masri will be there to field questions after the film.

Hey cool: there's now a Fahrenheit 9/11 blog! And Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask is now available for free download! And This Weather is now finished and available for purchase! And the new album by The Corrs is out! And the Nine Inch Nails site has been revamped! Yee-ha!

Now Reading:
Secret Life by Jeff VanderMeer

Stories Out to Publishers:
8

Books Read This Year:
32

Zines/Graphic Novels/Fiction Mags Read This Year:
17