Nope, sorry, despite the best of intentions, no writing at all for the past three days. I'll more than make up for it today, but as I've said before, that does nothing to create the habit.

I think I just needed to read and read and read. As you'll recall, I was feeling pretty deprived. So I've read the March 2011 issue of Asimov's (not a clunker in the lot; really good stuff, on which I'll report in my Magazine Monday column at FanLit). And I've read a big chunk of Mr. Shivers, a first novel by Robert Jackson Bennett, a book that should have been written by an old grizzled veteran who is entirely disillusioned with life, but instead was written by a fresh-faced young man who seems, by his picture, to have just graduated from college. And I've been dipping into the books that arrived from Night Shade Books the other day, which made me ridiculously happy (what's better than getting a box of books in the mail? Anything?).

Also got in a spell of cooking: roasted halibut with roasted vegetables (tomatoes, onions, green beans), flavored with ginger, curry and garlic. The house still smells of curry. Along with a nice chardonnay, that was our Friday dinner and an early Valentine's Day gift to my husband (I'm not crazy about fish and he is). Dinner last night was at Straits in Santana Row in San Jose; the food was fine (various Asian cuisines, including pad thai, chicken satay, tamarind beef and a few other great dishes), but the atmosphere was pretty horrible, with "music" (I use the term loosely) so loud and intrusive that you couldn't hear yourself think, much less hold a conversation with your dinner guests. I gather that's how the 18-30 crowd likes it, and that my dislike for it is yet another sign of impending geezerhood.

Today is a beautiful day and we're going to go for a walk, something we haven't done in quite a long time. And I got a phone call this morning asking me to do some writing -- legal, but for publication, so that was a good way to start the day. I need to exercise all the muscles, mental and physical!