Languages fascinate me, and thus this page, Fluent French: Experiences of an English Speaker, fascinated me. I've always regretted not deeply studying any language besides English (though I have a smattering of phrases in several languages and a bit of German under my belt).

Some people have drugs, booze, or chocolate. In the end, I have words. Think of that as you will.

Discovered in a quiet and rather reticent corner of the web: Journal of a Writing Man.

Discoveries like this one tell me that perhaps I'm not the only person taking the literary path. Or that I'm not the only person attempting to create a personal site for, more than the immediate gratification of a blog, but instead of the quieter and more contemplative gratification of a journal.

I've added this page to the list of links. I suspect I'll be back to it rather quickly.

If you haven't seen the Library of Congress' exhibit 'The Empire That Was Russia'—The Prokudin-Gorskii Photographic Record Revealed, then you should take the time to look at it.

Before you do, though, read up on the process. A short summary: a photographer travelled around Russia in the 1910s ('nineteen-teens' if you're my grandmother), photographing everything from royalty to commoners to landscapes to architecture.The incredible thing is the medium he used—a camera with three filters, which provided him three photographic plates. One red, one green, one blue. He apparently had a stereoscope-like contraption that allowed him to project his images back together into one color photograph for others to view.

Much better after staying home, resting, and getting a good night's sleep. I'm about halfway through Christopher Buckley's The White House Mess. Should finish it this weekend.

I have cat hair all over my red shirt this morning—Tenzing was absolutely determined that cuddling was going to take place before I left for work. I wasn't given a lot of choice in the matter. So this morning I was eating my cereal with my right hand and cradling a ten-pound lump of purring orange-and-white cat in the crook of my left arm.