Thanks etc

So, how was everyone's Thanksgiving? Mine was fairly nice. My parents told Vynce and me that Shrinky Dinks were a waste of money, so we never had them - until now. They're actually kind of neat, and thanks to the kits I bought at The Christmas Tree Shop, we now each have a new set of tiny, colorful, Christmas ornaments. In other news, Vynce and Megan are thinking of skipping the wedding with family and friends thing, and eloping to Vegas. Since that's always appealed to me too, obviously I don't disapprove.

2009 has hardly been a banner year for anyone, yet there are things to be thankful for. Despite the twin scares of H1N1 and the mounting unemployment rate, I don't know anyone who has really been affected by either yet. Both babies arrived safely. My sick friend does have cancer as I've feared, but his doctor thinks that his prognosis is very good. I made it to 50,000 words last Tuesday :) though I have a ways to go get before it's truly a complete novel - I'm shooting for Ground Hog's Day, but we'll see.

Before I sign off this last November post, I have a story for you.

I think I mentioned in another post that my best friend and I brave the Black Friday crowds every year. (Oh boy, waking up before 4am is the worst part) As it turns out, I learned a few months ago that she really liked lobsters as a kid. Well, while we were out shopping, we found a light up Christmas lobster. Yes, really. It lights up and it waves its claws. As you can imagine, we went home with it. And then we set it up, hoping to make her parents roll their eyes when they saw it.

I went home shortly afterwards. Then I got an e-mail... the gist of which was that her parents didn't notice it, but an elderly neighbor did. The neighbor couldn't see it clearly from her house, and from her perspective there was red wavy lights coming off the porch. Would your first thought been "oh, it must be a light up lobster"? Hers either. So she called them all upset, worried that their porch was on fire. Oops! Our plan to make her parents smirk had a fatal flaw. At least they were able to bring the lobster over the the neighbor's to reassure her that it was just a light, not a fire. I'm glad she took it in good humor, because I like the neighbor, who puts up with us visiting her every year at Halloween.

Hope you had a good November too, everyone.


"I’m a fire and I’ll burn burn burn tonight" - Biffy Clyro, Who's Got a Match?

A Disquieting Dream

So, I had a dream last night that's still bothering me. I'm crush-less at the moment, which is the only reason I've been able to write 45,000 words in three weeks: no one is taking up space in my head, (well, except for brief daydreams that what I'm writing becomes a best selling novel that gets turned into a show resulting in me meeting him or him), so I suppose that it's not unexpected that the dream was kind of, sort of about my most recent infatuation though it has pretty much run its course. Not that said guy was in the dream, though.

Instead the dream was about me having given a baby we'd had to his mother without even bothering to name her first. In the dream the baby was around two, and I hadn't kept in touch with her father or grandmother, but I was standing in their neighbor's yard watching her being pushed on a swing and regretting not staying in her life.

Geez, I know I've said I don't want daughters, but awake I can't imagine simply giving one away! It's not as though I have anything against little girls, but I know what it's like not to have a great role model for being a girl, and I have serious doubts if I'd do any better a job than my own mom did. She was unwell most of my early childhood, so my father was very much the more involved parent, which is probably why I've been told more than once that I can sometimes "think like a guy."

I'm sure that Liam's birth is what put the baby dream in my head, but not why I'd dream of giving it away. I hope that's not my subconscious commenting on how good a parent I'd be.


"I don't need you here to validate me. I don't need you here to tell me anything. Fire away with a loaded gun, light the night I'm on fire." - Kill the Alarm, Fire Away

They're Here!

Do you remember over the summer me saying that two friends were expecting babies? As of last night they've both arrived.

I'd like to take a moment to welcome Liam and Ari to this strange and not infrequently beautiful thing we call life. Welcome, fellas, please make your stays long ones!

"You should know how great things were before you. Even so they’re better still today. I can’t think of who I was before. You ruined everything in the nicest way" - Jonathan Coulton, You Ruined Everything

Nanowrimo 2009

As you may or may not know, November is National Novel Writing Month, more commonly known as NaNoWriMo. The goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. It sounds like a daunting task, but thousands of people "win" every year, and I have twice myself.

This year's story is going pretty well. I've had this week off, so I've tried to make the most of it, knowing that things will get harder once I go back to work on Monday. It's been my goal to write 25,000 words by bedtime tomorrow, and given I'm up to 23,084 words, I'd say that's probably going to happen. This will leave me needing to only write 1100 words a day for the rest of the month instead of the usual 1667 people shoot for, and with some luck I might not need to worry about writing at all Thanksgiving Day or the day after (I'm one of those brave souls who "does" Black Friday with a friend every year) which has been a problem in the past.

I think things are going so well because I really like my story this year; hopefully I won't immediately jinx myself by saying that. I haven't won since 2006, because in 2007 I got the flu and then pneumonia in November so I didn't even try, and last year I scrambled for ideas and picked two that didn't have any real mileage to them. (my complete score since 2003 is 2 wins, 2 loses, and two years sitting out. come on lucky number 7!) This year I'm doing what I said back in June that I some day should - write a story about someone who can cross between life and death. The current story has little in common with the fragment I wrote down then, and somehow involves our heroine helping the police look for a serial killer, by crossing over to talk to his victims. Who knew that was going to happen?

Anyway, I'm having fun crafting an urban fantasy story that completely lacks vampires, werewolves, ghosts, fairies, and elves. Instead Caitlin is dealing with a teenage foster kid with the same ability as she has, the first person she saved who grew up to be her neurotic ex-boyfriend, and a guy who'd be perfect for her if only he'd ever been born. Oh, and of course the female detective who is trying to solve a string of murders with Caitlin's reluctant help. Not too complicated, right?


"Oh my God, I'm sitting on a time bomb. It's just a matter of time. I can't wait forever. Nothing lasts forever." - Educated Animals, Time Bomb

October Music

I listened to a lot of new music in October, but I didn't like most of it. This month's music round up is a heck of a lot shorter than usual. Oh well, maybe November will be better.

7 Worlds Collide - Red Wine Bottle
10 Years - So Long, Good-Bye
A Place to Bury Strangers - In Your Heart
A Place To Bury Strangers - Keep Slipping Away
Armor For Sleep - Hold The Door
Autolux - Turnstyle Blues
Azure Ray - 4th of July
Barenaked Ladies - Take It Back
Biffy Clyro - Semi-Mental
BLK JKS - Summertime
Bloc Party - Flux
Blur - Beetlebum
Cedars - This Century
Chris Walla - Sing Again
Controlling the Famous - Heart Attack
Eddie Pedalo - Bulletproof Wolves (La Roux VS Prodigy)
Educated Animals - Time Bomb
Five Thirty - You
Hurt - Talking To God
Ian Brown - Keep What Ya Got
Iron & Wine - Peace Beneath the City
Kasabian - Underdog
Kate Walsh - Your Song
Kathleen Edwards - Asking For Flowers
KT Tunstall - Another Place To Fall
KT Tunstall - White Bird
Les Elephants Bizarres - Down the Stream
Loreena McKennitt - Huron 'beltane' Fire Dance
Marina V - Something Of My Own
Michael Zapruder - Ads For Feelings
Nickel Creek - You Don't Have To Move That Mountain
Papercranes - Treasure
Porcupine Tree - Shesmovedon (Tim Palmer Remix)
The Kills - U.R.A. Fever

Bold = I have other songs by them in my mp3/cd collection
Italic = I'd heard but didn't like other songs by them
neither = never heard of them before


"You reach me. You bleach me. You teach me of me how familiar. We're bad, what we do. Stupid fools." - Damien Rice, Woman Like a Man