I'm enjoying all your birthday links, working my way through the and commenting as I do -- they're like small wrapped presents, waiting for me to click on them. Thank you! Several links from other places that are delighting me this week: asakiyume is telling a lovely story about two girls -- one who lives in the sea, one who is imprisoned beside a volcano -- and about their countries...

Insomnia seems to have become a permanent friend...but I had a great day yesterday (early morning birding, some torcher, afternoon play and a lovely time with friends) and I am looking forward to my trip to Maidanahalli in a few hours with Garima and others from the BULBs (Bangalore Urban Lady-Birders...we have co-opted some male members, such as Rajneesh Suvarna , though!) I...

Can't decide where "home" is. Home is supposed to be where the heart is, but my heart seems to be in two places now...I have never spent more than 6 weeks away from Bangalore before, and my heart seems to have put down another set of roots, without weakening the first set in any way. When I decided to spend a longish time period in the US, I resolutely set my mind against thinking of several things...

Just this one tree will give my Indian friends an idea of the colours of the leaves during the fall season: We drove to Alton (where we'd been, another winter to see the Bald Eagles and then, further, almost to Grafton This is the area where the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers meet. The bluffs along the river looked very picturesque: At several places...

One of my great favourites by Mohammed Rafi is this wonderful song: A beautiful woman is really like a work of art...a "joy to behold", as the poet says. I think that in this video, Waheeda Rehman looks extremely beautiful. It's not the beauty of cosmetics..it's the beauty of feature. But the lovely part is that every woman *looks* beautiful to someone who loves her...lucky,...

A guy from AT&T came out here to fiddle with the U-Verse (DON'T GET U-VERSE, by the way) and the result is that I can suddenly connect to the Internet. I think he must have reset the settings on the router, because my dad had blocked my MAC address. It's possible that my mom's complaint about the Internet not working was caused solely by the kids playing Sims 2 on my computer for the last few days...

My poem "Anthology" is now online at Scheherezade's Bequest , the printless Cabinet des Fées . Fellow contributors include time_shark , hooks_and_books , tithenai , mer_moon , ajodasso , and other unusual suspects. The poem was not intended to contain an A.E. Housman echo, but I suspect Sappho won't mind. It reminds me that I need to translate some poems...

I forgot to include the winner of the free DAW paperback for the month of August. And that winner is . . . asakiyume !! Congrats! You get to chose any DAW mass market paperback that you'd like and as long as I can get my hands on it somehow, it's yours. Just send me a message here on LJ or send one to jpalmatier@sff.net with the paperback you'd like and an address where I should send it and...

The awesome Kate Baker renders a beautiful reading of my poem "The Journey to Kailash" at Starshipsofa . Thanks to Francesca Forrest ( asakiyume ) for alerting me to its existence. Also, I somehow appear to have infiltrated a fun free-form podcast with the Goblin Queens , Amal El-Mohtar ( tithenai ) and Jessica Wick ( mer_moon , and by the way, Happy Birthday, you), conducted...

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