My xmas tree.

This is going to sound like blackest heresy, especially coming from me, but I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps our NotAWebring should become a webring. I'm all for more people joining in, but it's becoming a bit...er...ponderous in its present form.

Truthfully though, I only read a handful of the ones listed on my main journal page. I'm biased toward journals that are journals and not just listings of submissions and rejections. I like to see some insight into the journaler's psyche, revelations, and observations. I like to read about the person's writing, but I also like to read about the person's life outside of writing. I'm not as picky about format, though I do like to be able to see quickly if a journal has been updated recently. Poor grammar and spelling makes my teeth hurt, though I can easily forgive typos. I use wordpad--which does not have a spellchecker--to create my pages, so I am guilty of typos myself. I must also confess that the use of the small "i" where a capital is normally employed is not my favorite thing.

I do read a handful of journals not listed out front. I think my favorite, just for the depths of pathos, grief, pain, joy, discovery and all-out feeling portrayed by the author is Tess's (Under) the pink. And of course I find Ceej's Battered Black Book to be interesting and entertaining, with naked insights and honest observations. Michael Rawdon's Gazing into the Abyss is a nice break from the journals of Writers. It's usually just everyday happenings and observations, but for some reason I find it very refreshing.

I'm still toying with how I want to change my whole site. I like how my home page turned out, but I do want to do some sort of total overhaul. It seems like a perfect way to avoid writing.

I got a phone call last night at about 6pm. This is right smack in the middle of my sleep cycle--would be the equivalent of a 3am call for most of you--so I was enormously incoherent at first.

Caller: "Hi! Are you sleeping?"
Me: "Uh, no." (Which was true, since I had to wake up to answer the phone.)
Caller: " . . . your cop friends . . ." (Here I am trying to get coherent, and caught the "cop friend" line, and started thinking, Oh, it's Cop#1 calling me. But Cop#1 knows I'd be asleep now, and it sure doesn't sound like Cop#1. And Cop#2 doesn't have my phone number. Ah, this must be Kent.)
Caller: " . . . calling from work . . ." (I begin to get confused again. But Kent called me earlier today. Why would he call me again?)
Me: "You work on Saturday?" (Kent works on Saturday? He didn't mention anything about that this afternoon.)
Caller: "Yep, working on a Saturday, out here in the desert."(Desert? Is San Jose in a desert?)
Me: "Uh..."
Caller: "(something I can't recall where Kent's name is mentioned)" (Okay, this isn't Kent...)
Me: "Uh..."
Caller: "Yeah, and Alexis is out of town this week." (Enlightenment crashes upon my sleepy little head. It's Daniel!!)

And I am quite sure Daniel knew I was groping for recognition and was enjoying dropping little hints for my poor sleep-deprived mind to trip over. But Daniel is on that very short list of People Who Are Allowed To Wake Me Up, so once I finally attained recognition and coherence I was able to have a somewhat intelligent and quite interesting conversation with him.