Down the rabbit hole

What with the grand day of turkeys coming up, and famdamily coming to visit, my NaBlo posts are going to be - can you believe it? - even shorter. And with even less interesting content!

But I'm sticking it out since I'm so miserably far behind with my NaNo. I'm immensely proud of myself for cranking out as much content as I have, though. Eighteen-thousand-plus words. Not bad.

I'll bring the laptop with me when I go to pick up my dad & stepmother; I figure if nothing else I can try to write when/if Dude is napping. Oh, and that's a whole new post. Sleep training. I hate the term, it's not like babies don't know how to sleep. They just don't know how to comfort themselves. Maybe it should be called comfort training. Whatever, Dude's experiencing it and I'm actually kind of surprised by how sunny he's been today, given the miserable night we all had last night.

I went out and bought the bird today: 21+ lb of organic goodness. I hope it's enough.

Thirteen thousand

and change, that's my current word count on the NaNoWriMo tip. It's impressive to me because it's a lot of writing (for me). It's unimpressive ('zat a word?) because it's complete shit but that's partly the point of the whole project. So I'm going to keep plugging at it until the last minute and figure that even if I don't hit 50K (oh, how I'd love to hit 50K), I'm already ahead of where I was on Halloween.

So yay me.

Crowing

Can I just say how much I love myself for getting my posts in first thing in the morning so I don't have to think about it or freak out when I see the clock coming up on midnight and thinking to myself, "Self, you dropped the damn ball. Get up and post something so that you don't fail this challenge, at least." Then I kick myself in the head and trudge downstairs to write something stupid.

But today! Today I posted in the morning and now I can just ramble and avoid my NaNo. Like I'm doing now. But today, I'll share a little bit because I find it oddly amusing, especially considering how far it's gone from what I originally intended.

I will warn you ahead of time that the NaNo is all about quantity, not quality, so ... well. Read for yourself.

The fishwife looked at Lila, stunned. “You mean to tell me you have never had beer before? Where on earth do you come from and what do you drink there?”

Lila looked at her loopily. She paused for a moment and offered, “I am from Massachusetts and we drink milk. And coke. And coffee. And tea. And Ovaltine (that goes into the milk and it is chocolate - you do not know what that is yet, it will be several hundred years before it arrives here, I think,” her audience looked shocked and glanced around at each other uncomfortably. This was witchy talk. “ - and it has malt in it - I think that goes into beer, too, does it not? - and it is delicious hot or cold). And we drink wine -I do not, I do not drink at all, I am not old enough and it smells bad -. French wine. And California wine (California does not exist yet. Well, it is there but it is not Calif.. oh, never mind).”

A small cloaked man in the corner - who was originally intended to be a critical character but since fell into disfavor when he offered nothing interesting in the way of dialog or character development - cried out, “She is drunk as a lord!” And so his useful lifespan was essentially over. He went back to his drink glumly. Leave it to a sleep-deprived writer to underestimate his importance. He’d be back! If she thought he was just going to sit idly by while she wasted his dramatic potential, well, she had - A section of roofing beam suddenly let loose from its neighbors and silenced the drunk’s interior monologue. And good riddance to him, too.

“Thass right, I am! I am hammered. Wasted. Blotto. Drunk as a skunk. Four sheets to the wind. Inebriated. Intoxicated. Under the influence. Smashed. Pie-eyed. Poleaxed. Pissed. Plastered. Tanked. Trashed. Wrecked. One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor.” She slumped gracelessly to the floor. The brewer's wife came around the bar and hefted her to her feet.

“You’ll need a long night of rest after that bout, my girl,” the woman hissed. “But if you think you will be sleeping in and escaping your duties you have another think coming.”

Lila flapped her hands inches away from the woman’s face. “Back off. I am busy. I have important things to do, you know. I must piss now.” She organized her legs under herself and wobbled out the door to the barn.

It was a relatively pleasant place to sleep, actually. It was warm in the hay and the comforting sounds of the animals sleeping made her feel safe and secure. She only wished the donkey did not have such horrible gas.

Hours later, as she dozed fitfully beneath her blanket, a stranger came into the land. He was tall and dark and unusually handsome, as tall, dark strangers generally are, but he was not the marrying kind. At least if you wanted to stay alive. He was Jeff, the God of Biscuits and he was there to kill Lila, or at least maim her terribly if he could not quite pull off the killing, which was entirely possible as he was a god of baking for gods’ sake, and he would probably have to beat her to death with a rolling pin (which had not been invented yet, much like Massachusetts, California, and irony)or perhaps, if things went his way, pierce her fatally with his pastry forks.

Lila slept on, unaware of the danger she was in. And it is a good thing, too, because that very day the hapless donkey had eaten several cabbages.

Oh. Oh my. It is wretched, isn't it? This is so much FUN!

Oh, TiV0, where art thou?

We're having a crisis Chez Smacky. One of our Tiv0s has died on us. Yes, we're philistines and have two of them, get off my back. We got it at the hideous blue store and bought the extended warrantee (woohoo for Husband!). So I took it back yesterday and they gave me a gift card with the full purchase price on it. We can't buy a new replacement model because they're no longer made. So we're looking on the auction site and found two that have new, massive hard drives which ups the recording time by a factor muchness. But then I went to the TiV0 site and it says that we can only transfer our lifetime service to a unit replaced through the retailer or the manufacturer. Help me out here: since blue store gave us a gift card, this will appear as a new purchase, not an exchange, right? They don't open up for live calls until 7 am PST and that's a looong time from now, if you're antsy little me. Fudge knockers. I hate waiting.

I'm so far behind on my NaNo that I fear I will never catch up. And? I still have no idea where this damn story is going so I'm just writing little snippets of it as they come to me. Mostly it's descriptive, outlining the characters, where they live, etc. But the plot? She escapes me. Good thing I can do the NaBlo at least. Nothing too substantive, mind you, but something.

Dude is officially sick; he is a thourough and efficient snot machine, producing his weight in mucus every day. I'm sure that's not hyperbole but just in case it is, let me say that he's got A LOT OF SNOT IN THERE. It drips onto his clothes. And my hair. And my pillow and thence into my hair some more. And on my face. If you see me today, that's why I have weird little crusty white patches on my face. It's totally not leprosy. Sorry, Hansen disease.

So I got up at 4:30 to snorkle a certain little snout and when he fell asleep nursing (because he could BREATHE), I sat down to work on my NaNo, which I haven't managed to do in two days. I could cry. I really feel like I have the kernel of a fun story in there but I don't know how to dig it out, kwim? Like, I've never really been able to finish a story because I don't really get how to build up to the climax. I don't even know what it will be at this point, though my mother points out that that doesn't matter, you write enough and it will come. As it were. Ahem.

I originally thought I'd write on storyline, based on a story that I'm afraid I might have read as a kid, but no one I know recognized the plot so I think I may be safe. Either way, it's not like I'm doing this for publication; it's all about the torture.

Then I thought I'd expand on the story I worked on for my senior paper; it's got potential too. I quickly realized that I didn't have the chops to expand that to 50,000 words, and I hit upon a way to tie the two together. Thus far: 5570. That's like halfway to where I should be. Today.

But I'm going to soldier on. Of course, anything I might write while the kids nap today is going to be done while I'm half dead from exhaustion. It ought to be good.

If I were this resiliant

I'd be made of rubber. Perp was up to 103.3 last night and still wanted to play with blocks, sing songs, have a bath (necessary because of the monumental blowout but even so). I would be incapacitated. Period. Sometimes I wish I had hung on to some of these skills.

Bitchy

I spent a couple of hours with some friends at a (soon-to-be) weekly stitch & bitch. I scheduled it at the local yarn store because they have nice spots to sit and work, and it's upstairs from a coffee shop. Score.

I'm working on a crossstitch piece for a friend (hey, Z!) and one of these days I'll actually finish it. I think booking time each week to do it is the way to go; otherwise who knows when I'll actually get to it.

We were talking about taking time alone and commenting that we often felt guilty leaving the kids with our husbands. Like we were asking a lot of them to give us a few hours to do something for ourselves. What the hell is that all about? Yes, some of us have husbands who work full time. But, um, raising kids isn't exactly a part-time job. So why do we feel bad asking for some time off? We do this 24/7 and office jobs can be left behind. What is it with the guilt? I shouldn't feel bad about it for a single second, but I do. Husband has no problem going out for happy hour with coworkers once in a while, and this is pretty much the equivalent, though it's in the morning and sans alcohol ... that isn't the equivalent at all, is it? Whatever, I still should be able to just leave the house without a backward glance and go do my thing for a few hours, but it's terribly hard. And I'm not a guilt person by nature. WTF?

You know you have the same problem. Why is that?

One more for good measure

since I wrote fuck all for WriMo today: a NaBloPoMorandomizer for your perusing pleasure. I fear I will add many more blogs to my roll. Who has the time to read all this?!

Huh

Here's the interesting thing (to me, you may well find my "interesting" coma inducing, in which case I ask: what the fuck are you doing here, anyway?): when I get a groove on, writing-wise, and feel like I'm in the zone, I get up and distract myself with something else. Or I post. Or I surf. Whatever, anything but writing. Why?! I'm in the ZONE, man! Stick with it, bich. This is no time to slack. Into the breach, my lass! etc., etc., etc. No follow-through, that's me!

NaNo NaNo

hyuck hyuck. Sure, I'm dating myself, but whatever. It's a post and it's day one of NaNoPoMo/NaNoWriMo and I can't say that you should expect literature out of me for the next month. But you'll get something. Or other.

Setting myself up for failure

I'm going to attempt to complete BOTH NaNoWriMo and NaNoPoMo this year. Being one who prefers to fail in spectacular manner, I figure this is the best way to accomplish my goal.

So, ideally, you'll see me about every day for THIRTY.WHOLE.DAYS. AND! I'm totally insane and have signed up for Fly Lady. Which I hate. But dammit if my house isn't cleaner.

So. Yeah. Now that I've put my mental illness on display, I'm off for some snax.