Heather and I watched the premiere of Wonderfalls, because we happened to be on the couch when it came on. I was quite impressed. I'll certainly watch it in the future. It's quirky, tender, charming, and funny -- what more could I ask?

It'll probably get canceled, of course, because it is both quirky and in a terrible timeslot. So enjoy it while you can. Though Fox has so far let its other quirky good show, Arrested Development, survive, so maybe... but no. Arrested Development has a better timeslot, and doesn't have any of those pesky fantasy elements.

We went to Borderlands on Saturday night to see Jay Lake, Alan Clark, and Paul Groenides for the culmination of their week-long literary/visual/sculptural experiment. The art and sculpture were good, and though I haven't read the story yet, knowing Jay, I think I can expect it to be good, too. It was pleasant, as always, seeing Alan Beatts and Jude, and extra-fun to see Jay. I drank wine, ate cheese, talked to various people (including Frank Wu and Jed -- more surprise treats). I bought a couple of Joe Lansdale novels that I inexplicably didn't own. I restrained myself from spending more money, though I was sorely tempted, as I always am in that place.

Flytrap is officially closed to submissions for issue #3. I'll be answering all my poetry submissions over the course of the next week. So be patient, grasshoppers.

Billy Collins was on NPR tonight, for the Arts and Culture series, basically just reading poems for 40 minutes (culminating in "On Turning Ten", which is probably my favorite of his). I told Heather that, if I'd been at the reading in person, I would've been like a fan at a rock concert, yelling out "Do 'Consolation'! Whoo, dude, do 'Consolation'!" And, lo, he did "Consolation." I like what Collins has done for modern poetry -- he's shown a whole generation of people who view poetry with extreme wariness that poems can be fun, accessible, charming, quirky, and moving. He has a deceptively straightforward style, and while there are times when I find him a bit disappointingly lightweight, overall he's one of my favorite poets, someone I can keep coming back to. I pick up his books, and they're old friends.

Speaking of old friends... Heather and I are stone broke, right, so we're trying to save money wherever we can, which means cutting back a bit on the entertainment budget, which normally involves going to a fair number of movies, renting DVDs, buying computer games, etc. So, to make my entertainment budget go from too-expensive to zero-cost, I've started playing Chrono Trigger again. Ah, Chrono Trigger. Best video game of all time. Yes, that's right -- video games reached their pinnacle during the reign of the Super Nintento Entertainment System. I say that with all sincerity. Chrono Trigger is the smartest, most charming, most endearing, most compulsively playable (and, more importantly, replayable) game I've ever experienced. And now I'm playing it again.

I once spent a whole summer playing Chrono Trigger, going through to see all the different alternate endings (the major variations, anyway; there are still minor variations I haven't seen). I don't expect I'll get that immersed in it again this time, but it's a lot of fun when I want to unwind at night.

I wrote two poems last night, "Making Monsters" and "Soul Searching." I almost never write poems anymore, for some reason, but occasionally an editor asks me for one. Then I spend a couple of weeks thinking about possibilities, randomly reading through The Encyclopedia of Fairies or A Dictionary of Angels or Brewer's or whatever other reference books happen to be piled near my books. Then I write a bunch of bad first lines, and finally something starts to come together, and I make a poem or two that I like. Which happened last night.

I used to write five or six poems a week, and about, oh, .25 of them were worth keeping. Now I write five or six poems a year, and they're usually all keepers (I start some that I don't bother finishing, too). I don't think this way is necessarily better. I wish I wrote more poetry. But I tend to spend my time and attention writing fiction. It took me about as much thought and effort last night to write those two poems as it takes me to write a novelette (though the actual writing time is shorter, with poems, which is a small advantage). Ah, well. Fiction is the path I've chosen.

The weather is still lovely, though the clouds of pollen are getting to me, with the itchy eyes, and runny nose, and so on. The past two days at work have seemed ludicrously long, subjectively, for no particular reason that I can discern -- perhaps the fact that the weather outside is so fine makes it more difficult to be inside. We go to press on Thursday, though, which means things will begin to speed up exponentially over the next two days, and time should pass more quickly, then.

Tonight, I didn't have a glass of red wine. I had a glass of chilled chardonnay.

So passes winter. Welcome to spring.