Today was a brilliantly beautiful day; I love Maryland's climate, and I especially love Maryland's climate around the turning of the seasons, where I can go outside without wearing forty-leven layers of clothing, because it's nice enough to enjoy but the mosquitos haven't realized that yet. It's supposed to get up to 80°F by mid-week and then snow on Friday. Oh Maryland, my maryland.

So I spent half the morning crawling around on the roof, cleaning out the gutters. I want an excuse to go up on the roof more often. Actually, I want to put a trapdoor in the ceiling of the attic, but when I suggested it, Mom wanted to know what the *point* would be. It's a *trapdoor* in the *attic*. How can you even ask that question?

Then I spent half the afternoon digging in the dirt. Mom took an offhand comment I made about the daffodils, which have made a bid for freedom from the bounds of the flowerbeds, and ended up expanding the flowerbed by the mailbox to about four times its previous area. Then she wanted *me* to suggest what to put in it.

Ever since I read the Secret Garden at about the age of six, I've wanted a bit o' earth of my own, and she offers it to me *now*? I used to spend hours poring over seed catalogs and daydreaming. I haven't the first clue what to suggest. All I could think of was 'tomatoes', because I've been craving fresh homegrown tomatoes ever since last summer. Anybody have any nice suggestions for a sunny spot by the road that won't get much care, and already has some rosebushes, daffodils, gladiolus, some tulips that never bloom, and possibly other random perennials?

Then I spent half the evening cataloging books. The LibraryThing list is now at well over a thousand, and the halfway point is beginning to be visible. (Mind you, that's the halfway point of books that I consider in some way mine; if I was doing books-in-house, or even books-in-house that I *wish* were mine, it would be much longer.) I've taken a break from the SF and I'm working on my nonfiction collection now, and I keep running across all these books I want to read! But I don't have time! I need to spend a summer in a cottage by the water, and do nothing all season but cook and wander and read and think. (One of those books that I want to finally sit down and read is Walden, by the way.)

Oh! And speaking of tomatoes, I listened to SGA's Grace Under Pressure while I was cataloging: somebody had put several episodes up on the ep-sharing community as sound-only mp3 files, and I love that idea. In fact, back before we had cable, I had figured out a way to get the TV/VCR setup to give me only sound and no picture, and I used to do that all the time. Even before that, Mom had an elderly radio in her sewing room which would pick up VHF and UHF audio; that's how I was exposed to several ST:TOS episodes for the first time. I wish I knew an easy way to turn the picture off with our current cable setup, because I am in love with radio dramas.

And it's amazing how well Grace Under Pressure worked as a radio drama. Granted, it probably helped that I'd seen the episode before, and it was probably one of their lowest budget episodes for the season, with no new sets and no new characters and no new special effects, and that probably helped too. And I probably didn't get as much out of the episode as I did when I watched it with picture, but I followed it perfectly well, and I think I *enjoyed* it more; because I could close my eyes and let go, and let it be.

A couple weeks ago at Sunday School one of the other teachers was asking if we thought that his student would be able to listen to a radio drama, and when I said "of course, why wouldn't he," he said, "Well, you're different, you *read*."

Any kids I raise are going to know radio dramas.

ETA: Is it too much sga_flashfic? I'm having trouble as seeing this card as made by anyone but Major Sheppard.

I was shanghaied at the last minute into going to the BRIDGE annual fundraising banquet (and oh my stars and garters do they need a better web presence!). I did have betters things I could have been doing with four and a half hours of my time than sitting around eating bad food, but I actually kind of enjoyed myself. I got to have dinner with two of the candidates for our county executive (VIP table yay!), and meet a third one, and I got to find out a lot more about the major public issues our church has been heavily involved in, and the speaker was very good and very inspiring.

And I could see myself getting heavily involved in local politics *terrifyingly* easily. At the age of about twelve, my girl scout troop went to the special visit day at the Maryland Legislature, and sitting in on a committee meeting, I realised that this was the perfect job for me, because it was *exactly* like school: sit around in small stuffy rooms pretending to listen to people nobody else is listening to either, while actually doodling on the notepad that you have hidden under the table, and outcomes that actually have nothing at all to do with facts, or what was being said in the little rooms, and everything to do with whether other people like you or not, and how you managed to manipulate the numbers. Then we went and had a mock-senate vote in the big senate chamber, and the Gazette photographer singled *me*, out of four hundred girl scouts, to photograph speaking to the Senate.

Obviously, it was my natural photogenic quality and my brilliant political charisma.

And I actually care about local politics, unlike national politics; I've given up on national politics more-or-less, but there are ways to make a difference here, in the short term and small area, that could build up to big ones, or at least make things better here and now regardless of what's going on at the other end of 295. And I even know what some of them are (Increase public transit and bike/walking routes. Low-income and mixed income housing with transit access, and keep increasing mixed-use zoning. Put people in charge of the public schools who aren't complete idiots and also on the take. Foster a sense of community in all the scattered unincorporated postal districts that pass for towns by creating and emphasizing community identity and pride. And so on and so forth), and have a vague idea of how I could start getting in with the right people and making a reputation for myself, and even turning the connections I already have in the schools and churches into the right kinds of connections. And I *care*; I love this county, as deeply messed-up as it is, and I'd love to see it start to shine the way it still could, and I'd love even more to be a part of making it that way. Especially if I could get into traditional Maryland politics, the way that's all about behind-the-scenes manouevering and very little about grandstanding for the public: too bad that the corrupt old ways are giving way to the corrupt new ones.

Too bad I'm not the sort of person who is energized rather than wiped out by intensive socializing; I can fake extroverted only so long as I can go be alone and recharge for about three hours afterward.

Besides, I'd probably have to start wearing a bra.