Sandy discovered the syllable "ha" yesterday, so she's been saying "haha" today. She doesn't know what it means, but it's still adorable.

The fact that a Terminator television series starts tonight completely messes up all my stories that refer to Terminator 6. Fortunately, the only story where Terminator 6 has a role that really matters is the one I'm working on right now, and I've found a way to fix it. It'll be a lot of extra work, but it'll be better for it when I'm done.

Now let's hope the show is halfway good. I mean, it has sooo little going for it: no Cameron, no Schwarzeneggar, no Hamilton, and during a writers strike. It is so boldly stupid to make a Terminator television series under those conditions, that I almost can't believe it'll be bad. I mean, you have to admire that kind of audacity. And, with that much stacked against it, it'd really be more poetic for the show to be bizarrely brilliant.

It is good to be home. I love spending so much time with my family and Winterson's family during the holidays, but it's hard to be living in someone else's space and always borrowing computers. (Winterson brings his own, but I don't have an internet-worthy laptop.)

It is also good to have reached the point where my home really feels like my home. We don't go home for the holidays any more. We come home from them.

A guitar for Winterson makes a nice present for me. It was meant as a present for him -- and he clearly likes it, but it's turning out to be a nice present for me too. So far, he can barely even play the chords for "Louie Louie," but I'm already enjoying listening to him practice.

Finished my first novel today. Drafty. Very drafty. But finished!

Here's what I want to know about the latest episode of Heroes: exactly what kind of lab requires the class to light their Bunsen burners and then listen to a lecture about Charles Darwin? Even if it's a "general science" class that covers both biology and chemistry... that still doesn't make sense.

Now that I've had crab-cakes with jicama for the second time, I'm always going find crab-cakes without jicama disappointing. You wouldn't expect it, but jicama offers the perfect crunchy contrast to soft yummy crab-cakes.