Climbing the Third Stair

Sometime last week I undid a connection I had formed years ago. I had distanced myself a couple of months ago, when it was clear to me that the dividing issue wasn't going to go away, and then sometime last week it occurred to me that there was no reason not to take matters to their logical conclusion. After a few days of hemming and hawing I couldn't think of a reason not to--except the one that I might want to crawl back some day, which is unacceptable. The severing doesn't hurt, except for the knowledge that even six months ago such a thing was unimaginable.

Last week I got to see the layout of something I had written for an upcoming L5R rpg project. It was quite lovely! I won't say it made all the trouble I went through to get it done worthwhile, but it was a big step in that direction. Am now even more eager to see the whole thing published.

Sunday I went out to work in my garden; something that I'd been putting off for far too long. The whole garden is too large a project to tackle in an afternoon (or even a whole day), so I decided to start cleaning and planting at the south end and work my way north. After about 3 hours of work (which included stopping to dig a miniature rose thorn out of my finger and clean and bandage the wound) I had planted 2 kinds of radishes, 2 kinds of edible-podded peas, tatsoi, kale, mustard, arugula, lettuce, carrots, and swiss chard. I still have about three quarters of my garden left to plant, but staggering the planting will give me a more managable harvest. And more time to wrestle with the question of whether to grow potatoes or not. I've never done it before, and there is something intimidating about them.

Sunday was an idea day to plant because the weather was really pleasant and there was a near-certainty of rain on Monday. The National Weather Service did not fail me: it rained on Monday, it's raining now, and it might rain two more days this week. I'm not a huge fan of rain, except when it comes to my garden. I won't be able to do any digging until we have a few days of sun and the ground dries up: I should really use the time to pot my tomato seedlings into larger quarters. It will be a while before I can put them out in the ground, and I don't want my darlings to get rootbound.

The question of whether roleplaying games qualify as art has arisen on AEG's forum here. I'm posting a link because I think some of my readers might find the discussion interesting.

I have an opinion, of course, but I have refrained from posting. Partly because I fear that as a member of the Story Team I have the illusion of authority, and partly because I lack the time to do it justice.

Yesterday I asked my friend Brent for an icon for the Oni Mura Game, and you can read his complaints about it here in his shiny new lj here: koshindou. ;-)

Nevertheless he's come through for me, and now I have Fuji in all her spiky-haired glory. Now I have to rush over the the Jade Hand forum and change my avatar there.