What is Tai Chi?

[livingdeb]

I spent the morning not writing. And most of the afternoon. I cooked a double batch of pancakes. I did a yoga class at the gym. (I still don't know which part of the "Body Flow" class is tai chi. I can easily classify everything we do as yoga and pilates, although I probably don't know what I'm talking about. Alright, definitely.)

Nanowrimo Update

I have a new strategy for the novel writing. Or maybe I should put novel in quotes. I'm just going to have more scenes where the main characters teach each other stuff and share stuff and I'm not going to worry about if nothing big happens. It will be like a happiness manual written in dialog. Or some narcissistic thing where I'm just talking to myself for 50,000 words. But I don't have to care about how stupid it is. Because it's just nanowrimo which is all about quantity, not quality.

And I can't write without having something happen, even if it's not much. And with so many tens of thousands of words ahead of me, it's still quite possible that some of my small scenes will turn into bigger scenes and something novel-like will emerge anyway.

So, today I wrote 2663 words, my second-highest count, bringing me ahead of schedule a bit (I'm now scheduled to finish November 28). This also brings me past the 20,000 mark, so I get to add another star to my sticker. And it's all about the stars, not the novel, you know.

(My blog buddy is now over 27,000 words! Woo hoo! Yea, blog buddy!)

Speaking of not being about the novel, I wrote about pancakes, started writing about going to the Grand Canyon but got stuck, and then wrote a letter about the wildflower center. Today's excerpt is more informative than fun. But if you insist. (If you don't insist, jump to the journal entry of the day.)

Dear Marjorie,

... But the Wildflower Center isn't just about pretty flowers. It's about native plants, meaning plants that not only are adapted for an area's soil and weather, but plants that have been there so long that they have evolved in conjunction with each other and the wildlife.

They're pushing the idea that people should plant natives in their yards instead of plants imported from elsewhere. The problem is that there's a reason people import plants from elsewhere--they're pretty. Whereas whatever plants happen to be growing nearby tend to be seen as weeds.

If you are like me, you are thinking, well they are weeds. And they're probably mostly ugly. I mean plants that grow in rocks? They're going to be all cactusy, right?

In the early days of xeriscape, which is only concerned with water levels, not being native, people really did plant nothing but succulents in rock gardens, and although it's an interesting look, it's not what most people want in their own yards.

So this Center had its work cut out for them.

They have several hiking trails through native-planted terrain. Most of it is “meadow,” which does in fact look like a bunch of weeds. And some of the plants are indeed cactus, though I only saw prickly pear, and not the other varieties I saw at McKinney Falls. And some of them have names like Lantana horrida.

Some of it is “woodland,” which is made of up of a bunch of different scrawny, twisted trees. One of them actually throws off highly allergenic pollen for two months of the year, but it's evergreen and is kind of pretty. In the spring it has little blue-grey things on it, buds? I don't know, but it's interesting. But it just feels like you're walking through pointy scrub which you have to be careful in because you could get your clothes snagged on any of it. A good place to set a horror story.

However, if you pick and choose from available plants, you can get a pretty nice little garden going.

My favorite part is where they have two plots of land side by side, each the size and shape of a normal yard and landscaped like a normal yard, with pretty plants around the edges and grass in the middle. One plot has plants found in a typical yard. It's pretty--they didn't slant the data by not taking care of this plot.

The plot next door looked equally good. It had similar bushes and flowers and grass, but there were two differences. The second plot doesn't need watering except in the worst of droughts. And the second plot has significantly more butterflies, other insects, and birds. It was literally bursting with life. The other plot might almost as well have been planted with plastic plants. It was so weird.

Journal entry of the day: llcoolvad's I Am Old where she links to a site that takes her down memory lane. I actually never knew most of this stuff because I am not that cool, but it's still a very interesting and diverting site. Not good for November! When I am supposed to be writing!