Hell Yes!

Off to buy Wrath of the Lich King!

Note to Self

It is completely unacceptable to miss three doses of your medication in two days.


Now you pay.

Christmas Spirit

There Are Much Worse Things To Believe In
Sung by: Stephen Colbert and Elvis Costello

Elvis: There are cynics, there are skeptics
There are legions of dispassionate dyspeptics
Who regard this time of year as a maudlin insincere
Cheezy crass commercial travesty of all that we hold dear
Stephen: When they think that
Well, I can hear it
But I pity them their lack of Christmas spirit
For in a world like ours, take it from Stephen
There are much worse things to believe in.

Elvis: A redeemer and a savior, an obese man giving toys for good behavior
Stephen: The faith in what might be and the hope that we might see
The answer to all sorrow in a box beneath the tree
Find them foolish
Elvis: Sentimental
Stephen: Well you’re clearly none too bright
Both: so we’ll be gentle
Stephen: Don’t even try to start vaguely conceiving
Both: Of all the much worse things to believe in

Stephen: Believe in the judgment, believe in Jihad
Believe in a thousand variations on a dark and spiteful god
Elvis: You’ve got your money, you’ve got your power
You’ve got your science, and all the planets going to end within the hour
Stephen: You’ve got your dreams that don’t come true
Elvis: You’ve got the ones that do
Stephen: Then you’ve got your nothing
Both: Some folks believe in nothing
But if you believe in nothing
Then what’s to keep the nothing from coming for you

Stephen: Merry Christmas, Happy New Year
Now if you’ll forgive me there’s a lot to do here
There are stockings still unhung
Colored lights I haven’t strung
Elvis: And a one-man four-part Christmas carol waiting to be sung
Stephen: Call me silly, call me sappy
Call me many things, the first of which is happy
You doubt, but your sad
I don’t, but I’m glad
Both: I guess we’re even
Stephen: At least that’s what I believe in
Both: And there are much worse things

Everything I Need to Know About Love I Learned From "Twilight"

How to tell if a vampire is in love with you:

• He thinks you smell really good. No, seriously. He recoils at how good you smell.
• He can't read your mind for reasons that are never explained.
• He shows you his sparkly chest.
• He saves you from another vampire who had evil intentions.
  
• He saves you from a gang of Port Angeles roughnecks who had evil intentions.
• Hell, he saves you from a van that had evil intentions.
• He watches you sleep every night without your knowledge and when he tells you, you don't find that creepy.
  
• He wants to eat you.
• He doesn't want to turn you into a vampire.
• He's like totally going to be with you until you die of old age.

Somebody gag me.

Eyes Toward the Future, Heart in My Throat

Had a conversation last night I'm sure to remember for at least the next decade. I think everything's going to be fine. No, I think everything's going to be better than fine. We're just like Prufrock right now:

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

But those decisions are going to be made, and made with careful thought and planning. And I think it will all be for the better in the end.



(Sorry to be so cryptic)

Wow

"Can you spare some change for a bite to eat?"
"I'm so sorry, but I don't have any cash on me."
"That's all right. [pause] You're very beautiful."
"[pause] Wow, um. Thank you. [pause] Have a good day."


I wonder how long I'll remember that guy.

Also, I really need to learn how to take compliments.

I am Amazing

After spending a week two days behind schedule, I've finally done it! I've caught up! I am over a hundred words ahead of today's word count goal (26,666), which means that I am over half done with NaNoWriMo! Given this information, I should be motivated enough to maybe actually reach 50,000 words by the end of the month! Obviously, the goal has always been to meet the full 50,000 words, but I really had no idea what to expect when I started this crazy venture, so now that I've been keeping up for over half of it, I feel like I might be able to actually do it!

Hooray for me!

(And many thanks to Wren and others for motivating me and being patient with my schedule.)

*****
Me: I'm thinking maybe I'll do some dishes if I get caught up on NaNoWriMo tonight.
Wren: You need to prioritize.
Me: Yeah. I can do dishes in December.
Wren: Exactly.

The Reef! The Reef! The Reef is on Fire!

Okay, maybe that was in poor taste. But they would appreciate it. The Reef (short for King Solomon's Reef) is one of Olympia's oldest and most classic dives. It's a diner/bar type of a place that has a significant history and a devoted clientele. They also have a fun tradition of putting up interesting messages on their reader board rather than advertisements. A couple of my favorites (I've probably mentioned them before) are as follows:

(in the summer) "Hot? Come into the Reef! Ugly? That's fine too."

(re: going back to school) "You know all the answers! Spend your book money at the Reef!" (to which the book store across the street responded with: "We know the cooks at the Reef buy books instead!")

Well, on Wednesday morning The Reef had a kitchen fire, so they're going to be out of business for a while. It must've been pretty bad, because when I got to work there were several fire trucks, ambulances, and cop cars surrounding the building. But does that get The Reef down? No! Their reader board now says:

"This is why we can't have nice things!"

Ohgod

So... how many more days of NaNoWriMo?

I swear I'll be caught up by Saturday at bedtime! I must!

I actually really like the story. I just like doing other things besides writing in my spare time, too.

Ramblings

You know how they say that books take you to another world? I have found that to be true in my own experience. However, it's not always a good thing.

When I read too much, I get sucked into the world of the book I'm reading. I use it as an escape. Sometimes, I don't want to do anything else but live in the world of the book. Or, conversely, sometimes I am afraid or repelled by the thought of submerging myself in that world.

I'm not a writer, I'm a reader. I write when I want something to read that does not exist yet as far as I know. When I'm writing "Twenty Feet" (my NaNoWriMo project), I escape to the world that "Twenty Feet" inhabits. For the past two days, my mind has not wanted to live in that world.

Tomorrow, when I force myself to try to catch up with the word count for NaNoWriMo, how will spending all day in the book-world of "Twenty Feet" affect me? I always seem to be significantly affected by whatever I'm reading/writing.

It's why I can't read before bed, unless it's a book I'm familiar with. Maybe I shouldn't write before bed either.

Why isn't my mind satisfied with the world my body exists in?

More Work Antics

E-mail exchange from today:

Me: Which one of you bled on the [client] notes? Biohazard! If I get an infectious disease, I'm blaming you. Next time, a little less blood, eh?

[Boss 1]: Hmmm. I don't recall bleeding, or seeing blood. Maybe [client] came in the night, and this was intended to be a threatening message... I think we should put Dr. Jekyll on the case.

Me: You fool! Jekyll cannot even save himself!

[Boss 1]: Dash it all--you've seen through my plan. Now I must find a scapegoat, to divert attention from my nefarious machinations.

Me: You're approaching blogworthiness. You are indeed nefarious.

[Boss 1]: Double dashes! Now my thoughts and ruminations will be made public, when I'm supposed to be maintaining a low profile! I curse the day you arrived, with your twitter and your bloggery.

[Boss 2]: It was me, but it was beets. Which may be even grosser to you, I guess.

Me: A likely story!

Where Was I?

I'm following Wren's lead, and making myself pin down where I was when Barack Obama was elected President of the United States of America. If I ever have children, I hope they are amazed when I tell them of a time before we had a black President. I hope I will also be able to tell them about a time before we had women Presidents, and they will think we were living in the Dark Ages. I will tell him of a time when many of us couldn't afford to drive our cars, didn't have health insurance, and couldn't get a good education. But I don't yet know what the future holds.

What I do know is that last night my faith in this country was restored. It's tenuous, but it's there. I'm not ashamed to be an American. I no longer fear that we are in a downward spiral that we're too selfish and stubborn to pull out of. When Barack Obama was elected President I was in the home of two very dear friends. Four of the most important people to me outside my family were around me. I had prepared a delicious veggie tray and had been anxiously filling myself full of cucumber sticks, caramel corn, and Midori sours.

At 7:00 we switched to Comedy Central's Indecision 2008: America's Choice coverage. It felt right to be brought real-time election news by the people who had kept me sane regarding politics for the past eight years. At 8:00, Jon Stewart ended the show with the following words: "As of 11:00 Eastern Standard Time, Barack Obama is projected to be the next President of the United States of America." Shock, bated breath, worry about jinxing the fact that our greatest wish had just been granted. Trevor excitedly demanded that we switch to a real news station. There was no sound from the newscasters on MSNBC. We couldn't see the numbers properly at the top of the screen. Before us was a multiracial sea of tear-streaked faces, people cheering so loudly their voices were one, embracing friends and strangers alike.

We cheered, but were still nervous. We got a noise complaint. We waited. MSNBC announced that John McCain had called Obama personally to concede. I got to break the news to my sister by phone. Finally, around 9:00, we watched John McCain concede more gracefully than I could have imagined in front of a uniformly white crowd of bitterly disappointed supporters. They booed when McCain urged them to support Obama. It was the best speech I've ever heard him give. My father called and told me he loved me and said that this was the most excited he'd been since 1992.

We waited more. Finally, Obama and his wife and children came out on stage. We cheered. The entire world cheered as one. Michelle Obama's dress was amazing. There was bullet-proof glass around the stage. He spoke, and we were silent for a full twenty minutes. Many of us cried. He thanked us. He told us this was our victory. He told us we had a long road ahead. He said he would be the President of those who didn't vote for him, too. He said that he will listen to us, "especially when we disagree." He said, "The new dawn of America is at hand." He promised a new puppy for his daughters. That made me remember that I love him for showing how human he is.

The rest of the evening is a blur. We ate, we drank, we hugged, we sat in shock. We tried to imagine the new world that was before us. We wondered about local elections, about Prop 8 in California. No victory is untarnished. This victory will not solve all of our problems. But it's a sign that we're willing to try to be better.

I have rarely felt that I was present at the brink of history. Certainly not for something so wonderful as this. This morning I did not wake up from a beautiful dream; I woke up to a hopeful reality.

Brave New World

"You can live in staunch denial and mark me as your enemy,
but I'm just a voice among the throng who want a brighter destiny.
They sing with me:
We are the New America!
This is the New America!"

Bad Religion - "The New America"




I hoped for this day, but I didn't really believe it would come. Today I wake up from an eight-year nightmare to a new day I am only just beginning to imagine. I'm practically giddy; drunk on it all. I don't know what to say or do. But I'm happy, and hopeful. The road ahead will not be easy, but at least now I can believe that things might change for the better.

Ack

Ohgod. I'm not sure I can make it. Can we fast forward twelve hours?

One Day More

One Day More
Les Miserables
(selections)

One day more!
Another day, another destiny
The never-ending road to Calvary
One more day before the storm
The time is now, the day is here
One day more!
One more day till revolution
One day more!
One day to a new beginning
Raise the flag of freedom high
There's a new world to be won
Do you hear the people sing?
Tomorrow we'll be far away
Tomorrow is the judgment day
Tomorrow we'll discover
What our God in Heaven has in store
One more dawn
One more day
One day more!


It's a little melodramatic, I know. The atmosphere just feels similar.

Enter November

NaNoWriMo has officially begun. You may now monitor my progress via the Word War application to your right. I'm really, really happy with the story so far. I surpassed my quota for Day One, and I'm hoping to do so again today and tomorrow so that I'll have a one-day buffer for Election Day, which I will spend either working or drunk, hopefully. As everyone I know keeps saying, we're going to need to drink no matter what the outcome is.

Election Day is two days away. I don't think I can stand it. I'm torn between optimism that things have to turn out right this time, and terror that they'll be screwed up beyond repair. I'm working tomorrow and Tuesday (I've already voted by mail), but we're closing the office on Wednesday so that we can nurse our hangovers. Trevor and I are headed up to Wren and Matt's place after work, which should be fun. I'm looking forward to homemade potato chips and many, many midori sours.

Remember, remember, the fifth of November.
The Fifth of November will be an historic day not only for the Brits this year. The Fifth for us will be the beginning of a new era in America's history. Will we wake up on November 5 to brand new day filled with hope and promise and the belief that we can turn our country around? Or will we wake in despair, knowing that America couldn't save itself from certain downfall. Will we be proud to be Americans again, or will we be contemplating buying plane tickets to Canada or the UK?

Personally, I'm scared to death.

Time to go write some more.