What?

I missed three days of posts. Can that be possible? Have I completely lost track of the time or did I just have nothing to say? Me, nothing to say? Perish the thought.

Endless games of Mah Jong, writing in my paper journal, trying to get thru another book that could be wonderful if it weren't for the lousy grammar and even lousier word choices, and fending off rodents who are determined to eat my brand new tender plants, and bidding on jobs, two of which I didn't get. But I got one of them this morning: One hundred 200-300-word articles on weight lifting, body building, nutrition, and health for a whopping $100. Gotta start somewhere. The guy is looking for someone who can do the job quickly and use some key words and asked me to give him a sample. I wrote a 625-word article on working the biceps, using the phrase working the biceps once in the title and twice in the article. I did it. He was impressed and now I have 100 very short articles to write, which comes out to about 33/100 of one cent per word. Big pay for a writer of my caliber, but you gotta start somewhere. He says he will have more money for more articles later and wants to build a relationship with a good writer. I have, however, figured out how to snag these Rent-A-Coder assignments--give them a sample up front and dazzle them with your writing skills. That's how the other jobs were cut out from under me. Well, that and quoting really, really, REALLY cheap prices. Gotta pay the rent and buy food somehow.

After reading the good news, I decided to go downstairs to go to the bathroom again (thanks to elementalmuse who seems to have somehow attached her diet to my bladder -- she calls it sympathetic peeing) and stopped outside on the deck to check my plants, give them a drink and just drink in the clear mountain air and sunshine for a few minutes before I came back upstairs to rent myself out as cheaply as possible. While I was enjoying the view and the air, a little female hummingbird flew over me and perched a mere four inches from my hand and just ruffled her feathers and whistled at me. Lesbian bird, I thought at first, but I think she was just saying hello. She knows who feeds her. I talked her to her and she inched a little closer before finally flying away, circling my head once and whistling as she darted into the trees. It was a remarkable feeling having her so close and so unafraid of me. I just wish I could scare away the chipmunks and squirrels who have developed a taste for my flat leaf Italian parsley ever since I covered the new seeds in the covered tray so they can grow uneaten.

I noticed that mentalfuse finally made a double appearance when I was reading the journals I missed over the weekend and wrote some pretty interesting stuff about books and authors. About time he showed up. I was about to send out the blood hounds to find him and bleed him dry.

In the meantime, I'm going to shut up early. I just realized it's dark outside and I left the hummingbird feeder on the deck where the ravenous raccoons are sure to plunder the syrup and spill it all over the railing and deck to attract ants and keep the hummingbirds away. So, disperse.