I've been giving my sister "assignments" over the summer, including, but not limited to: developing schematics, assessing her own personal style, and writing essays. She is such a good sport; it actually thrills her to be given a new task. We also have an end of telephone conversation ritual. We each have to tell each other "something good."

Before we're about to say good-bye, one of us (usually me) will say "Let's do our something goods." Essentially, we take a moment to intentionally speak well of the other, to praise an improvement we've noticed, to "bless" an event that's coming up by proclaiming that it will be phenomenal, etc. The Bible says that we should "speak things that aren't as though they were," and that "faith comes by hearing." I guess you'd call them benedictions.

I printed out the 19 or so pages of the romance I'm working on and I see that I need to add some transition paragraphs, and make a decision about the lenght of my heroine's hair. It seems that she moves seamlessly from having a pixie cut on one page to wearing a "severe school marmish bun" on another. I guess I had two different concepts of her. Either way, I think she needs longer hair. No romance novel I ever read featured a heroine with short hair. I need to remember my target audience.

I've decided to work from home tomorrow. I need to focus. Too many interruptions at the office, besides it'll be Wednesday and as I've already established, that is the best day to be out of pocket.

Haven't heard from Gordon since last Friday and we are slated to go to dinner this Friday. I'm hoping he's open to do something in Fells Point. I already told him we're boycotting the One World Cafe: House of Disappointment.