Work just plain sucked today. I reached my quota of confusion at some point and pretty much gave up. It happens. No biggie.

It took me a long while to decompress after work and Ravenhub wisely avoided me, while supplying me with a healthy dinner. I drove him over to Mayday Books for an anti-war meeting. Then I drove over to Query Books to participate in a book club honoring local GBLT writers. Ellen Hawley spoke about her book, "Trip Sheets" in general terms. It was a small, intimate group and quite fun to be a part of. They had a drawing for prizes and I won a T-shirt for the coffeehouse attached to the book store, Wilde Roast. The slogan on the back says, "I can resist anything except temptation." :) That Wilde was one witty fellow.

Next month Ann Degroot will be leading a discussion about "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde. I bought a copy for less than $6 -- a real steal these days. I read this book long ago and enjoyed it for its sci-fi, magical components and probably missed tons of social commentary because I knew nothing about Victorian England and/or Wilde. It should be interesting reading it again. Especially interesting to be reading it at a time of new attacks on gay marriage, et al. Some southern legislator is on the warpath now to ban any book from school libraries that contains a homosexual character. Reminds me of the little kid who covers his own eyes and says, "You can't see me!"

In February Ida Swearingen will be talking about her book "Owl in the Dessert." I picked that book up while waiting for a meeting to start at Amazon Bookstore Cooperative. Then I sat down next to a stranger at the meeting. Turns out the stranger was Ida, the author of the book, who graciously signed my copy for me. It's a mystery novel with a fabulous female lead character. I'll try to read it again before the February meeting.

After the reading at Query, I drove back over to Mayday to pick up Ravenhub. The meeting was not yet over, so I hung about and checked out new books. Lots of great new stuff, but nothing that inspired me to buy.

Home by 9 p.m. and I wandered the web again, looking for left-wing women bloggers. I found a site called "What She Said" that collects the name of women who identify as leftist, even though most of them are rather mainstream liberals. Cruised through about 20 sites without finding much of interest. I continue to have faith there must be somebody out there!