This Is My Secret: The Blog and Website of Writer Kristin Cashore

I also found a new home. I'm moving! (To the next town over.) Cambridge, I love you and I'll miss you. But you're too expensive, and also, you're LOUD.

May all the goodness continue... though I wouldn't complain of a slower pace.

And that's the news from here.

From home, here's an update on my re-flowering orchid:


A lot of people are nervous about caring for orchids, but in my experience, the big secret is that they do great with a light touch. It's practically impossible to underwater an orchid. This particular orchid suffered through a sustained period of neglect (like, over a year) during which, distracted and preoccupied, I probably remembered to water it once a month, then, whenever I did water it, fearing to drown it, gave it very little water. It's repaying me with a whole new stalk and seven healthy buds!

Further afield, we went to Wolf Hollow, a wolf sanctuary in Ipswich.




Kevin took these pictures with Fancy Camera, from a distance, through two spaced-out chain-link fences. You might be able to see the diffused image of the fences; it looks like distortion in the air around the wolves.

I recommend this place, it was really interesting! We learned that wolves have been grossly misrepresented as human predators. In fact, …

You know it's a good trip when you don't pine for home even once. And you know you love your home when you get back and find yourself practically skipping from room to room because you're so happy to be there. Three weeks is a long time to be away from home! All of my plants utterly thrived while I was gone, which is a sign that (1) as I suspected, I have been overwatering them this winter (they *loved* not been watered for three weeks); and (2) re: my orchids, which would *not* have loved not being watered for three weeks, I have an excellent steward. :o)


I'm soaking in as much home as I can right now, because I leave on another trip in ten-ish days.

Loved the recent cover feature in Boston Magazine called "Single by Choice," by Janelle Nanos. "When it comes to getting hitched, more Americans than ever before are saying 'I don't.' Singles now make up nearly half the adult population in this country, and new research suggests they’re happier,…

Let's start with a new cover that I LOVE. Here's Graceling in Japanese, published by Hayakawa:


Can I have that outfit? At least the boots? Next, here's one of my favorite things.


Let me help you parse that picture: an orchid sits in a leather chair. (No, that's not where I normally keep it. The sunlight was streaming through the window where it normally sits, plus, it was being encroached upon by an aloe plant on one side and a zebra plant on the other, so I moved it to someplace dignified for the sake of the picture.) A stake protrudes from the soil and a small red monster sits atop the stake. A stem with a few buds is growing its way up the stake. BUT! BUT! Guess what? A few weeks ago, that stem didn't exist. It was an orchid with a pot, big green leaves, a stake, a monster, and NO STEM. Then I went to Australia and left my orchids in the sunny window of a hot apartment for two weeks. A friend watered them for me. When I got back, they ALL made it very …

After two weeks of lovely, restful travel I am back home and am blogging from my red couch. So many things to do. I have about 40 books out from the library (mostly for work), about 150 movies on my Netflix queue (many for work!), a megaton of email (mostly work-related!), lots and lots of, um, work, less than two weeks until I fly to Australia, my Christmas cactus is in bloom, an orchid died, and the flowering trees in Cambridge are all abud. (Isn't "abud" a word? The dotted red line is telling me it isn't. I'm going to use it anyway.)

Fueled by my outrage, encouraged by friends, and armed with some great suggestions, I'm moving forward with opening a new checking account at a bank that doesn't suck, and closing my Bank of America account. (I blogged about my banking rage in an earlier post.) Have you heard of community development banks? They're commercial banks, but they have a mission to generate economic development in low-to-moderate income…

I've been home for a couple weeks now, but I'm only just starting to get on top of the accumulated mail, laundry, grocery shopping, etc. The more important things, however, are completely under control. For example, one of my orchids is about to blossom, and I moved my ginormous (easily 6 feet tall, probably 4 feet wide) money plant tree out of my front window and into my office. It was getting too much light in the front window; the leaves were getting sunburned.

So. As I sat in my office swivel chair the other day, swiveling a bit (as one does), a hand appeared over my shoulder. I knew myself to be alone in the house, so there was only one explanation -- it was the ax murderer -- so I jumped and screamed, and even grabbed a pencil with which to STAB HIM TO DEATH.

Anyway. Turns out I'd just swiveled myself against my money plant tree, which was being friendly, not with hands, but with leaves. Which was QUITE a relief.

One of the things I haven't really gotten back on top…

As you can see, I am very good at taking an enforced blogging break. Like last week's post, however, today's is mostly full of worthy links to other people's websites. Plus, orchid nonsense that has no relevance to anything.

Three things.

1. I'm a little behind the curve on this, but May 1 was BADD, or Blogging Against Disablism Day. What is disablism? It's discrimination against people based on a disability. That's an inadequate definition for something complex, really, so here's a short BADD post full of a whole bunch of powerful definitions for disablism. (Also, here's the wikipedia definition.) On BADD, people with and without disabilities blog about their experiences, observations, and thoughts about disablism. Here, at Diary of a Goldfish, you'll find an archive of posts from this year's BADD. To give you an example, here's a post on Rebecca Rabinowitz's fine blog. Also, here's Sarah Miller's reaction, which spoke to m…

Thursday randutiae!

First, the cover of Fire, French adult edition (published by Orbit France). -------->

Second, a new addition to the Gallery of My Favorite Objects. Here's a bunny I faced the other day:





















And here's his antelope (?) and canine (?) friends. I faced them, too.
















These fingers puppets were made by Donna Marbet, and I got them at the Cambridge Artists Cooperative in Harvard Square. The nails were painted by me. :o)

Moving on: for you poor, patient souls who are not Buffy fans and put up with me anyway, my title today is a line from a song in the Buffy musical episode. You can listen to it here. And here's my favorite song in the episode, just 'cuz, well, yeah, okay, I'm trying to convert you.

Next up, behind this link is an article by Paul Campos and Marilyn Wann about fat politics -- specifically about how, in their words, "it's simply wrong to judge people based on what they weigh." Read it, do! Hat-tip goes to Rebecca Rabinowitz, …

The discussion of favorite and least favorite words has been delightful. I've learned that Schmetterling is the German word for butterfly -- isn't it beautiful?

So, do you ever feel like you need a good cry -- not necessarily because anything terrible has happened, but just because you need to clear out your system and process things? What do you do in times like that? I do things like listen to sad music (like Barber's Adagio for Strings -- here's a gorgeous choral version), or meditate, or watch the My So-Called Life episode where Sharon's dad is in the hospital (that one gets me weeping every time!). My sister, secret codename: Cordelia, used to be very accommodating when I needed a cry and couldn't seem to get started -- she would offer to give me a good kick or something. (Cordelia is a therapist. Real good with that emotions stuff. ^_^.)

I've been a little overwhelmed lately, and I haven't had time to arrange for a good cry. But in the meant…