No Smoking Food and Other News

So. It's always hard to pick up on abandoned writing: Do you start where you left off and cover everything in between? Or just sort of pick up where you are now and run, hoping no one will notice?

Me, I'm going for a summary of several entries I thought about writing:

In the past few weeks, I've discovered that vinyl makes some people sick, and that I am one of those people: A new (and very pretty) vinyl floor in the kitchen had me heading out of the house as soon as possible and staying out for as long as possible. That cut down on blogging for a while, because, really, who wants to blog about fumes? I'm happy to say they are gone now, by the way, and have been for a while. Other Stuff (of a generally nicer nature) happened as well.

For starters, all that absence gave me the chance to act like a proper American: I went and worked on a laptop in Starbucks, while drinking coffee paid for with a coffee card, and while carrying a cell phone and an MP3 player. I felt all grown up and patriotic about it.

I wasn't carrying a BlackBerry, though. Do you think it still counts?

I also had the chance to visit the Gene Autry Museum of the American West. It's a neat museum with lots of nifty paintings and a really great early jukebox. It would be an even better museum if it didn't feel the need to keep apologizing about its contents: Just about every display in the area that dealt with Westerns had a little note saying that women, Native Americans, and/or Latinos were not well represented in this or that film. Come to think of it, a lot of the paintings had similar signs. A general disclaimer along the lines of "The views expressed in these paintings and films are not necessarily those of the management" would have been sufficient.

Oh, and there were no displays from The Phantom Empire. I was really disappointed there, as I had hoped for at least a face mask. Still, they did have the lovely tack from the Rose Parade on display, and they are the museum that advises its guests that there is to be No Smoking Food in the galleries, so I can't complain too hard (and the picture sort of counts as blogging about it, right?).

I've read a lot. Some reviews may follow.

I've done some more writing for The Broken Hourglass. The main site is being updated again, by the way, so there's more to explore.

And I've discovered Terry Pratchett, Disneyland, Facebook, and watercolor painting.

Now... let's see if I can rediscover blogging!