Sitting here eating a late lunch, waiting for Drew to wake up from his monster nap. We had the neighbors over last night for some waffles and Scotch, and Drew was up late playing with his one-year-old neighbor buddy. They ran around outside with our dogs until they were all ready to fall over. Drew had a ball. He's getting sillier by the day.

And during his power nap, I've gotten some great stuff done. Like reading Jenn Reese's wonderful chapbook, Tales of the Chinese Zodiac (I still think "Dog" is my favorite, but "Horse" has a whole new meaning for me this go-round). Or realizing that I read fast enough, thanks, because that whole "rapid reading" book was making my eyes hurt (and I hate reading with my hand!).

I also read an interesting article about what local North Carolina writers think are the best book from the past 25 years they've ever read, and I'm trying to figure out what I'd vote for myself (I was happy to see American Gods make the list -- that would probably be in my top 10, along with High Fidelity and Cold Mountain and Perfect Circle and Last Call...). Unfortunately, they didn't ask many genre writers other than Sharyn McCrumb, who voted for the Gaiman book.

In the paper's Books page, I also found an article about baseball books link to this book, which I need to get to add to my research to my baseball novel, because it covers the distant history of the Negro Leagues (if only I had a birthday coming up or something... oh. Wait. I do... heh heh heh...).

But along with spending some time with Drew before his nap working on coloring and scribbling (and trying to prevent him from eating the colors!!!), the best thing I've done so far today was to sit down and jot down all the issues I want to tackle with my book Sixteen Miles from Everywhere. I'm getting psyched up to dive back into this book, after I sit down and re-read the whole shebang all at once, maybe next weekend if possible (which was why I was doing that rapid reading stuff). I'm not giving myself a tight deadline for this revision -- I'm just going to keep working on it 'til it's done. No more rushing, for crying out loud.

And now, I've rambled on for too long again. I think I hear Mr. Drew rustling around upstairs. We're off to buy some new colors when he wakes up... the kind that don't taste as good! Later.