Interaction

I had a run in with one of my classmates today, tied in to a run in we had a week or two ago. He sits across from me in America to 1890, reasonably good looking, nice smile. Not much upstairs but that only becomes apparent durring group excersizes where we'll divy up tasks and five mintues from the end of class he'll decide he wants to do something else and hamstring us all.

Previously I ran into him in the parking garage as I was putting my iPod headphones on and he gave me a lecture about how are people supposed to talk to me with that thing on, and by the way was I scared about the drought. He made the word "drought" sound the way winter weathermen here say "blizzard" when there are flurries. I told him I didn't think much about wearing my iPod all the time, since I liked it, and that I wasn't scared of the drought because the government will probably arrange to buy water from somewhere else, or we could build a desalination plant on the coast and pipe fresh water in. He seemed startled there were solutions, and stalked off.

Today I didn't have my iPod on when I came to class because I'd been on the phone with a friend at the newspaper, and he smiled and waved like he usualy does because we sit across from eachother at the same table. I waved back, and got on with class. After class he lurked at the table, waiting for me to pack my bag, then closely followed me out into the hall.

"So, you said you lost your iPod?" He asked.

I said no, a little startled.

"But you're not listening to it."

I left my headphones in the car, I replied with a smirk. He laughed.

And then he grabbed my arm, just above the elbow, forcing me to stop in the middle of the hall, people rushing past and bashing into us.

"Well, at least you're not dissregarding everything around you for once."

And then he took off in the opposite direction.

I have to think that it's a good thing I cut my hair a few months ago, otherwise one of my pigtails might wind up in his ink well.

ETA 8 Days

Gah. Nanowrimo is right around the corner, and I'm wondering exactly how I'm going to pull it off this year.

College is slaughtering my time, not with homework, but with reading assignments. One of my classes generally requires about six chapters of reading a week, and I'm determined that school isn't going to be affected by my writing... Hrr. Time management, I guess, and I've got a huge project due in December.

We had a meetup last Friday at the Varsity and it was awesome. I got to meet a new WriMo, and see an old one, and Allison was a ball and a half even though she was sick. She's such a good sport about everything. Looks like we'll be hitting the Art Station and possibly the Woodstock Coffeehouse this year for Write-Ins again.

One of the fun things about the Nanowrimo forums, besides letting all of us chat about writerly and non-writerly things, is the astounding things people will put in their signatures. Blog links, offten, sometimes art for their novel, mostly quotes. There's one from a few years ago I can't seem to find or recall well enough for google to help me find it, something about writing sometimes being like raining fire... Hrr. But I happened across a couple of good quotes today, thought I'd share.


"Make voyages. Attempt them. There’s nothing else."
~Tennessee Williams

“Writing is easy. You only need to stare at a piece of blank paper until your forehead bleeds”
~Douglas Adams

"This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it's done. It's that easy, and that hard."
~Neil Gaiman

Night and Day, Day and Night

I've been on a Cole Porter kick for about two weeks now. It turns out John Barrowman, Tochwood's Captain Jack Harkness (squeeee), has a singing voice. Boy, oh boy, does he have a singing voice, and a penchant for the classics. One thing led to another and suddenly all those classic songs that I hadn't realized were by the same writer were, and I wanted to listen to all of them.

While I was doing my math homework this evening Mom was watching the Poirot film "Evil Under the Sun", and I found myself humming along with the end credits, only belatedly realizing they were "Night and Day". Some version I hadn't heard before.

I thought I had more versions of it on my iPod, but I don't. One is a repeat, just labeled differently.

There's a chipper sounding instrumental version by Bireli Lagrene, Fred Astair who sounds really tinny and high pitched, and John Barrowman singing with Kevin Kline from the De-Lovely soundtrack. I was sure Dinah Shore had covered it, too...

Funny how so many people can sing it, and make it sound so different.

Back to Rome

Having gotten past the slowness of typing already written pages, I found myself with so much school work that writing fiction seemed like a fiction itself.

After a quick lunch with Kevin today I finally found some more time to type away, and I got past 150 pages.

New wordcount: 88,384.

Edit: 5:41PM Wordcount: 89,511.

Edit: 7:01PM Wordcount: 90,319.

Bad News

Dad just called to tell me he has diabetes.

I started crying as soon as we hung up, after about an hour of conversation; none of which involved me crying. He didn't want to tell me about it because he knew I'd be upset, but wanted to tell me before I see him in Vegas. I just. I didn't want to have him hear me upset, so I held on.

I guess everyone has those relatives they never know. The ones that die right before you're born, or right after. My Mother's brother Carl had diabetes, and I never knew him. He lived by himself, and this was back in the day when they didn't have meters or testing supplies I think, and he got sick one day and no one found him.

I had this sobbing conversation with Mom, where she couldn't tell half the things I was saying, and I just kept telling her 'Dad lives alone'.

Some days I feel like such an ass about Dad. I love him, and I've never really lived with him except these few months here and there for summer break when I was a kid, and alternating holidays in the winter. And I get so angry sometimes because out in Vegas there's this girl he used to date, who has a kid, and he spends time with the kid. I like him, he's sweet, and he's reasonably well behaved, and I call him my little brother because there was this point where it seemed like they might get married. But they didn't and Dad still sometimes winds up taking care of the kid, and one day it just hit me that no matter how much time I spend with Dad from here on out, even if I moved in with him, I'd never have spent that much time as Joey has gotten. I call sometimes, and he's taking Joey to McDonalds or a movie because school let out early, and I think I'd have given my eye teeth for that. I'd have cut off my own hand if Dad hadn't always lived at least one state away and I got to see him for more than snatches at a time.

And now he's sick, and all I can think about is this Uncle I've never known, and feel bitterly jealous again about this kid who has no claim on him at all has had more of his time than I ever will.

Edit: 6:18. An hour after writing that I feel despicably petty.

Without a Trace Season 6, Episode 1

James Marsters is guest starring, and he doesn't look nearly as good as he deserves to.

Maybe I've just known him too long as Spike, but the brown hair really doesn't suit (at least not the shade it is) and it makes him look really old. Which, I know he's older than he looks already, but this just makes him look like...An accountant or something.

He's even wearing one of the worst suits I've ever seen and does this bizare thing with his forehead the entire first scene he's in. It's sort of a scrunched up, thinking forehead- like he's Sherlock about to solve a case. Except it goes on too long.

Another odd moment, at least for me. There's a lot of jobs out there that involve running, shooting, and doing general chase and action hero things. And I know heels look good on women. But women wearing heels and doing action hero stuff just seems goofy to me. I mean, I can walk in heels competently but I wouldn't run in them, or jump a fence, or get in a fight. At the end of the ep when Viv is going through a run down house possibly used for human trafficing, you see her step across this floor mattress in heels. Big, classy, business suit heels. I don't know how she does it.

Most Awesome Picture EVAR