Thursday 18 May 2000 There's a ring around the moon. We had thunderstorms earlier this evening, and wild winds during the day. But it's calm now, and the evening is mild and fragrant with old lilacs... The folks who live across from Ma have an enclosed back yard. It's not big, but they've got it landscaped, you can see a bit through the staggered slats of the privacy fence. They've got fairy lights-- that's what I call 'em: those 'shroom-looking things stuck in the ground that are probably solar powered-- around the edges, and a string of white mini-lights in the red dogwood tree that grows up against the fence. Tonight all the lights were on and it looked... odd. Pink dogwood blossoms with the mini-lights. It ought, to my mind, to have looked, I don't know, enchanting? But it just looked odd. Maybe it looks better from inside the fence. Or maybe it just looks odd no matter how it's viewed. (Remember the Emperor who was advised that he would only appreciate the carved cherry stone if he viewed it through a chink in a wall at sunrise? I always had my doubts about that one.) The folks on the south side of the street had the blinds open upstairs and were watching TV-- an old black and white set, or an old black and white movie. The blue glow on the walls of the room combined with the bright moon overhead to make it look as if there was a big hole in their roof. I haven't worked on the painting tonight. There's something wrong. I think the problem is that I'm trying to... paint with my head instead of my heart. I've got all this intellectual input about what the picture is supposed to be, what it's supposed to look like, how it's supposed to be executed. And, really, when you get down to it, I can only paint in my own style, in my own way. I've got to stop worrying about what I ought to do, how it ought to turn out. I'll turn in early tonight. I'm back at the JCBL tomorrow, beginning their equipment inventory. And Saturday I have to go swap NIC cards in the computers at Jesse Smith so the second circulation computer won't keep going offline. I have plenty of work to do. I did watch some TV tonight. ER. Season finale. I probably wouldn't have watched it else. After Doug left, the rest of the relationships in the show got trite and the new characters were-- and remain-- deadly boring. And then when they killed off Lucy they killed off any further reason to watch the show. I only kept watching in hope that Carter and Lucy would get together. Tonight I was really hoping they'd kill of a few more of the cast. No such luck. So much for ER. So much for most of TV. The X-Files, season eight. Gawd. I had hoped they'd end it by leaving everything high up in the air and walking away. That would have left room for speculation. Hope. I dread tuning in next season-- hell, I dread tuning in the season finale. From the look of the preview, every character ever introduced is going to be in it-- and I'm not betting the "dead" ones won't be there, too! So, what do I watch, you ask? Total Recall 2070, La Femme Nikita, and Relic Hunter. I like these shows because they haven't started to take themselves seriously. When they do, it's all over until the next batch of off-hours TV experiments surfaces... I miss Hercules-- but not the last season: that really sucked. but, before that, it really appealed to the educated mind, and there was a lot of humor & wit, too... I miss... I miss a lot of the old shows. I miss the days when the actors and producers of the shows didn't resent the audience loving the shows. Nowadays, if the fans indicate that they really, really, really love a show or a character, everyone gets really, really, really pissy and ruins everything. Deliberately-- Enough! Sleep will be more rewarding than ranting.   Copyright © 2000 New Moon Please feel free to comment at: The Madwoman's Message Board