So Much Going On

There really isn't that much going on. I've been enjoying my summer of rest quite a bit. Emiko is still going to Alma's three days a week. Only because we are paying for it, and Emiko loves going there and playing with her friends. So I get up in the morning, get her ready, get her to Alma's, and go back to bed. Which is superfantastic.

I've been bad about blogging, though. I have done lots of stuff. Heather (my awesome sister) came to visit in June for five days. Then we went to New Orleans for four days. It was really hot. We got home on Tuesday, and on Saturday, I was in Northwest Arkansas all by my lonesome. I decided not to take Emiko with me, although I felt bad denying her grandparents a chance to visit with her. I'll take her next time. Honestly, it was the first time I've been all by myself since Emiko was born. So it was pretty nice. Weird at first. But nice. And Heather was still on maternity leave, so I got to spend a lot of time with her and her new baby girl Addie. I have to get my pics downloaded.

But my newest diversion is Open Salon. I've been subscribing to Salon.com for at least five years now -- I find it to be a really great online news magazine. I was renewing my subscription last week. Since they make you pay for your subscription, they usually have premium offers that help make the price seem more worth it. You can get discounts from other web merchants, or free books. You always get a little extra with your subscription. Well, another premium they were offering was a chance to start a blog with Open Salon. You can create content and people can read it and at some point you can apparently get paid for your submissions.

I thought -- why not? So I signed up. It's still in the beta testing stages, but I think it's going to be open to the public in the next week or so, and you don't have to be a Salon subscriber to join. I think my friend Foxxy Diva should sign up -- the readership seems to be very white and I think they'd benefit from another perspective.

At any rate, I decided to use my "Poverty Sucks" post from this blog as my first submission. Wow, it was quite a debut! It was named an "Editor's Pick" and was on the front page of the site for a couple of days. I had lots of readers, and lots of responses, most of which were positive. I was told that it was a very un-p.c. piece. Joan Walsh, Salon's editor, told me it was great. It was pretty amazing to write something to a larger audience and have it well-received.

My next post was also well received. I'm going to post it here in a minute. In that one, Joan Walsh told me I was a great writer. That is just incredible.

So that's the other thing I've been up to. Oh, and we saw Lyle Lovett at Ravinia on Saturday. It was our first time to go to Ravinia. I had a good time, but I don't really get it. We had lawn seats, and I think most of the seats at Ravinia are lawn seats. There are some reserved seats, but that section is small.

I was imagining that there were screens around the lawn, so you could see the performer, but there aren't. So you can't actually see Lyle Lovett. There are speakers, so we could hear him. And we did walk over to the stage and caught a glimpse of him, so we knew he was really there.

But you can't see him. And people pay 20 bucks for these lawn seats. They go all out and have camp chairs and little tables and tablecloths and picnic baskets with food and wine and nice glassware. And candles. And everyone sits really close together.

So it was kinda weird to me. You basically pay quite a bit (parking is 20 bucks per car) to have a fancy picnic. But I'd probably go again -- now that I know what to expect.