Well, Writing For Dollars continues to be a tough row to hoe, even as I've also had these moments where I'll realize, "Hey, I'm enjoying myself!" Just got word back on the first draft of my second article and it was said to be "pretty good" this time. However, changes, maybe additions, will be necessary and I will find out tomorrow what awaits me.

This process is what writers do. When I was taking that course called Writing for the Print Media last year, the highly-experienced-journalist prof tried to approximate the process--sending stuff back for revisions and so forth. It was far more useful than someone just writing remarks in red in the margins with a letter grade on the top of the page. Writing is a process, not a one-shot affair (unless you're some sort of rare genius, and, by the way, I'm not).

In other news, there are some big, dark blue and white birds with tails the length of their bodies we've seen out here and I had it in my mind they were "Stellar Jays"--something I remembered from the Colorado Rockies. They're not. Today I picked up a huge book on Canadian birds and there it was: a magpie. Not very exotic and, in fact, considered by many to be pests. They're in the crow family. But for US they were still pretty interesting since they are Western birds.

I should add that today I also saw three common little sparrows hopping around. This actually was significant because you just don't see a lot of birds around (this time of year, at least) as you do in Toronto.

Hey! While talking birds, I forgot to mention this: while out for a walk with new friends on Easter, we saw a couple bald eagles way up in the sky. Now there's a bird we can all stand up and sing Yankee Doodle Dandy to...