when the worrying starts to hurt, and the world feels like graves of dirt

I'm blogging v. fast tonight because I want to watch Craig in five minutes, and I also want to paint my fingernails, both of which are more important than documenting what I did today. That's mostly because today was something of a wash -- I did wake up and go to Des Moines, with the intention of spending a couple of hours shopping and at least five hours writing.

Instead, I spent five hours shopping and two hours writing. There were a lot of things to get on my shopping list, and I also went to two different malls, which contributed a lot to the amount of time I spent on this endeavor. The top things on my list were a spring coat and a good all-purpose sweater; sadly, I discovered that all of the spring coats were stocked in February and have already been cleared out to make way for summer stuff. And of course sweaters were all gone in like November or something. I really dislike how far ahead of the season you have to buy things; by the time the weather is appropriate and you want something, you're a season and a half too late. Bleh.

But I did find a jacket that I liked, although it was exactly the opposite of what I initially wanted -- I was aiming for a trench coat in either black or a cute spring color, and instead ended up with a magenta raincoat. It's actually perfect for me, but so much for my attempts to grow up.

The rest of the stuff that I got is suitable for my impending old age, though; I got several new pairs of pants, and there isn't a single pink pair among them. I also got a couple of skirts, a dress, and several shirts. I've realized that my wardrobe is way too heavily focused on the super-casual side, and I have too many tshirts, so while I have time off and can spread the shopping out (since contrary to popular belief, I don't like shopping), I'm trying to reconfigure my clothing selections. Granted, it's not fun that I have time off to shop but don't have an income with which to retrofit my closet, but c'est la vie.

I did manage to write 2400 words at Borders, even though there was a live band -- I believe their name was Soundrabbit, and they were from Boulder, Colorado. They were pretty good, although I think they may have been surprised by the crowd -- after me, the next youngest person was probably in their late thirties/early forties, and most of the people were part of a knitting group that had apparently already planned to meet there. So, I was entertained and productive and caffeinated, which is a great combo.

Okay, Craig's on, so you lose. Or win, if you are glad that I am not going to keep rambling. Goodnight!

i've been through the desert on a horse with no name

Today, Felicia directed me to this site - www.facestat.com - interestingly enough, one of the three people behind the company running FaceStat is our mutual friend Brendan. FaceStat allows you to upload a picture; using a wisdom-of-crowds approach, it gives you feedback an hour or so later on a number of attributes that a bunch of complete strangers judged while looking at the picture.

So I gave it a test. I uploaded this picture (from my friend Katie's wedding a year and a half ago):


















And approximately an hour later, got these results (apparently from a sample of ten strangers):


ethnicity: Caucasian / White
weight: chunky
political affiliation: moderate
relationship status: dating
intoxicated?: true
gender: female
trustworthy?: false
wealth: average
attractive?: true
intelligence: average
age: 25
funny?: true

And I thought - this is a great way to screen pictures if one is going to join an online dating service. For instance, of the 10 people who rated this picture, 9 of them thought that I looked untrustworthy, which completely surprised me. Also, I wasn't intoxicated when this picture was taken. And 2 of the people actually rated my intelligence as 'dull' - I can attribute some of this to either the well-known correlation between perceived attractiveness and perceived intelligence, and there is also a likely sample bias given that the people who will sit around and rate pictures may not completely represent the overall population. Still, it says something interesting about me that the thing that most offended me was that people thought I didn't look intelligent.

However, I thought that the whole thing was interesting. So if you have a somewhat thick skin/morbid curiosity, check it out. You can only upload one photo per day, but the interface is easy to use, and the results come in less than an hour. Let me know what you think!

And that, my friends, was pretty much the only 'productive' thing I did today. I did a lot of online window-shopping. I watched tonight's fine CBS programming ('Survivor' - I paid for my excitement over Natalie's BB9-eviction by having to watch Ozzy, my favorite survivor, get blindsided at tribal council; after that, I watched 'CSI' and 'Without a Trace', the 10pm news, Letterman, and Craig). I read the latest issue of the Romance Writers' Report, published by the Romance Writers of America, and got excited about all the great workshops that they'll have at the conference in July. My mother made some delicious steak fajitas, which I enjoyed with my parents. I exfoliated my face. Yay.

Tomorrow I must write, so I'm going to escape the house and go someplace, even if there are more thunderstorms like there were today. We only had one brief power flicker this afternoon, and there were no tornadoes, so it was all pretty unremarkable. Now it's time for bed!

the other white meat

The only good thing that happened today was that Natalie was kicked out of the Big Brother house. Yes, my life has sunk to the level that I'm paying attention to Big Brother. Bleh.

Actually, I lied -- several great things happened today. For starters, it was 74 degrees at one point today, which is awesome considering that it was snowing last week. And, my mother made tenderloins for dinner -- I never see proper tenderloins anywhere in California, so it's awesome when I get them here. Tammy will be happy to know that we had tater tots with them, which were also awesome, albeit not quite as awesome as the tenderloins.

For those of you who have never seen a real tenderloin, I found this site, which you can explore at your leisure. The best tenderloins are the ones so big that they cannot be contained by one bun; in fact, at the tavern in town, they actually serve them with two buns, but my mother's tenderloins are a million times better than those. For the curious, she breads hers with crushed saltines (none of them fancy panko breadcrumbs that you coast-dwellers are familiar with!), and if you like pork, tenderloin is second only to bacon in the vast pantheon of pork goodness.

Now that I've said that, though, I'm not sure that I can accurately rate the pork pantheon. My brother doesn't eat pork, because it was all we ate in Ukraine (other than chickens who had clearly starved to death), and he has a serious aversion to it. But I love the stuff, and often come to the startling realization that I rarely have it in California. In my mind, the top members of the pork pantheon are:

1) Bacon
2) Tenderloins (breaded and fried)
3) BBQ pork butt, shredded (I had this at my high school graduation party)
4) Ham (either whole hams baked for dinner, or leftover ham for sandwiches)
5) BBQ ribs
6) BBQ pork buns (dim sum)
7) Bologna
8) Hotdogs (plain, corndogs, or pigs-in-a-blanket style)
9) Pork sausage
10) Porkchop (baked)
11) Ham and bean soup
12) Pork roast (this is what we ate in Ukraine virtually every night -- and I have to admit that if the smell of boiling cabbage permeated the kitchen just like it did everything in Ukraine, I would probably be less thrilled)
13) Porkchop (grilled)
14) Ham balls (Gram Wampler makes these - ground ham, baked into ball form, with some syrupy sauce. Sounds gross, but they're delicious)
15) Bologna salad (only in v. small quantities, like on a cracker - grind up some bologna, mix with Miracle Whip and chopped sweet pickles, and serve on a Ritz cracker at your next fancy function)
16) Bac'o'bits (probably not real pork)

Do you agree or disagree with my pork pantheon? Did I miss anything? Do you find any of it to be an abomination? I'll admit that the ranking is pretty loose, since the top eleven, at least, could all be number one at some point depending on my mood. And 'bacon' probably shouldn't be number one -- but bacon is a number one condiment/sandwich topper, even if I don't usually eat it by itself.

Okay, I'm going to bed -- I skipped Craig tonight so that I could go to bed early, but thinking about the wonders of pork kept me awake later than planned. Goodnight!

ten hundred percent

Today I took a trip to Chariton, which is the county seat of the county directly to our north. I picked up my brother's contact lenses at the eye doctor's, where I unexpectedly ran into my grandmother. I also went to the homemade candy store on the town square and bought some peanut clusters and 'turtles' (walnuts covered in caramel and chocolate, yum). Their candy is amazing, so it's a good thing that it's half an hour away.

On the way home, I stopped in at my former high school. Very few of my former teachers are still there; as the social studies teacher told me, the junior/senior English position is now like the 'Defense Against the Dark Arts' job from Harry Potter, since it's been held by five people in four years. But I did see my social studies teacher and my Spanish teacher; I was hoping to see the band director and the guidance counselor, but they weren't around.

Katie will of course think I was a huge dork for going back -- but I was a huge dork in high school, and it's not like I've gotten any cooler. And the social studies teacher promised some good gossip if I go back sometime when he's not on his way to a track meet, so I'll have to stop by again. He hasn't changed at all -- I've always thought that it was a miracle that he hasn't been fired for sexual harassment (and in fact, during my senior year, I flipped him off and walked out of class at one point when he made a joke about my menstrual cycle), but apparently his charm has carried him through. Anyway, today he asked me where I'd been living before I came home, I responded 'San Francisco', and he asked me if I was still straight. I'm glad that he hasn't changed -- there's something strangely comforting about it.

I spent the rest of the night playing around with my blog template, eating a delicious dinner made by my mother (cheeseburgers, corn, and fried potatoes -- healthy!), watching Big Brother (why am I so stupid?), and rereading the last forty pages of my manuscript so that I can figure out where to go next with it. Tomorrow I need to write like crazy, so I should go to bed!

another day, another new template

I'm trying out another new template. My tastes run towards either calm, serene sea tones, or awful, over-the-top black/magenta schemes, so we'll see what wins out. My desire to act like I'm 26 instead of 16 is pushing me towards seafoam, but I've lost that battle before.

I'll post a real post later!

experimentation

I'm playing around with new templates, since I'm v. bored with the way my blog looks. RSS feeds are the way of the future, so many of you won't even see the changes -- for those of you who still come here manually, rest assured that even if the background gets all snazzy, the content will still be as snooze-worthy as before.

sandstorm

This weekend was not even worth mentioning from a productivity standpoint, since there was no productivity. I did backup my entire hard drive, which is something that I've needed to do for quite some time.

Today, however, was not so bad. Granted, I wasted the daylight hours. But I wrote briefly around six p.m., before talking to Katie (who may or may not look like a chola with Sharpie eyebrows, depending on how her experiment with threading went tonight). Then I had dinner with my parents -- my dad again grilled two types of meat (beef steak and pork steak), and my mom made baked potatoes and green bean casserole. Yay midwest!

After that delicious dinner, I actually forced myself to sit down and work on the book, and I managed to write 3715 words before stopping to watch Craig at 11:30pm. That's 400 words above my current daily goal -- the daily goal had been 1500, but now I want to finish the book by April 23, which is nine days away, so I'll have to write 3325 words/day to finish.

It turns out that listening to trance music while writing is awesome. I'm using Pandora's auto-generated trance station, and it spits out a nice mixture of Tiesto, Darude, Paul Van Dyk, ATB, and some other random DJs/musicians. If I have one unfulfilled dream in life, it is that I secretly wish I had spent my youth as one of those skinny little trance kids with crazy hair dropping ecstasy and dancing until dawn. I had a brief brush with that lifestyle at the Love Parade in Berlin in 2002 -- although instead of dropping ecstasy, I was drinking some awful, unthinkably-warm German rum that John had smuggled into the club via a baggie in his pants, so my transition to raver kid was not meant to be.

I shall leave you with something I photoshopped today. I call it 'chandrian' -- a cross between Vidius Chandicus and a Mondrian painting. I decided that 'Chandrian' is a good nickname for our friend Vidya, and since people in that group switch nicknames as often as most people switch their socks, I'm hopeful that I can use it for at least three days. Goodnight!

i know i could look at anyone but you now

Happy birthday Aunt Becky! She turned 29 for the eighteenth time, which is pretty impressive.

Today was a long but v. productive and entertaining day. I made it up to Des Moines in time for normal-people lunch (as opposed to my usual 2pm lunches) -- my parents had gone up early for an appointment with their CPA, and I conned them into buying me lunch (sprout sandwich!) before going to Borders' cafe and settling down to work on my romance novel.

I wrote 6,192 words today! That's pretty great, particularly since I spent half an hour on the phone with Gyre and half an hour on the phone with Laura. I also got completely tweaked out on caffeine -- I had two triple lattes and a whole pot of black tea, which wired me well enough that I was in no danger of falling asleep on the way home.

Before going home, I had a late dinner with Aunt Becky and her scandalous boyfriend -- intruding on their post-movie dinner probably put a damper on her boyfriend's scandalous tendencies, but Aunt B called three times to see if I wanted to go with them, so I assumed that I was truly welcome. It was fun to see them, and dinner was delicious -- I had a creole pasta with andouille sausage that qualified as the spiciest thing that I've had since my return to the Midwest.

However, by the time we were done with dinner, it was almost eleven p.m., and I had to drive ninety miles through snow and suicidal deer to get home. For those of you living in California, please feel free to gloat -- I know I highlighted Iowa's variable weather patterns as a reason to move back, since I was bored with the fairly uniform weather of Northern California. But I conveniently forgot that 'variable weather' makes it quite possible that you will have a tornado warning one day, flooding overnight, and a snowstorm the next. Ha.

The snow wouldn't have been so bad, but there are deer everywhere -- I only saw five (three of which crossed the road in front of me, less than a mile from my house, preceded by two rabbits whose death wishes I thwarted by a timely application of the brakes). But for every deer you see, there are six more fornicating in the bushes and producing more of the little bastards who will try to take you out as soon as they're big enough to do some damage to your car. Luckily they're not kangaroos, since kangaroos will kick you to death if you hit them with your car, but it's still a little nervewracking to spend an hour and a half waiting for something to leap out of the ditch and try to kill you.

I'll have to write tomorrow -- as I told Aunt Becky, I broke off just as Malcolm and Amelia were about to consummate their marriage, and they're probably eager for me to finish the scene. I also mentioned the impending consummation to Laura when we were chatting -- but I was sitting in Borders at the time, and when I said 'they're about to consummate the marriage', the guy at the table across from me looked startled and then stared at me for awhile. Good times. And now I should go to bed -- I need to rest up if I'm going to write a similar amount tomorrow. Goodnight!

it's a lot better than this crap-fest

You get the rare double post because I am in love with Craig Ferguson. I was going to go to bed so that I could get up early, but I decided to stay up and watch Craig instead. And boy, am I glad that I did -- he just did a segment with Betty White, in which she brought her tax receipts with her because she said that all of his interviews were only about him anyway, then proceeded to make fun of his penis enlargement and illegal immigrant status before encouraging the at-home viewing audience to switch to Showtime to watch 'Bad Boys' with Will Smith because 'it's a lot better than this crap-fest'. Hearing 86-year-old Betty White, in her best Rose Nylund act, make dirty jokes with Craig Ferguson topped off my night. If it's on youtube or cbs.com tomorrow, you should watch it!

Now I'm going to finish watching Craig, and then it's time for bed!

look, ma, no cavities!

Today I went to Centerville with my mother for a dentist appointment -- no, I don't need my mommy to take me to the dentist, but we had consecutive appointments. I'm proud to report that I have no cavities for the twelfth straight year. That's pretty amazing, considering that I drink so much sugared tea and diet coke, but I won't question it. I also saw my sister briefly, since she met us at the dentist's to pick up some stuff (Aunt B - Jackie says thank you). Then, my parents and I had lunch at the Pizza Ranch, which is strangely more renowned for its fried chicken, before coming home.

The rest of today was quite exciting -- we've had 'severe weather', which means thunderstorms and a slight amount of hail. There was also a tornado near Centerville, right where we had driven through only three hours previously -- when I drove through, there was dense fog, but it cleared up just in time for a tornado. Yay. If my grandfather was here, he would have taken us out to chase the tornado, like when he took me tornado chasing when I was three and he was babysitting me. On that evening, my parents got to the restaurant where they intended to have dinner and found that a tornado had destroyed it. Nothing quite that exciting happened today, alas.

The thunderstorm made me feel quite wild and reminded me to live life to the fullest since it might end at any time -- so I staged a coup and watched NBC in the kitchen. Shocking, right? I watched the new episodes of '30 Rock', 'The Office', and 'Scrubs', all of which made me v. happy. I may get exiled by my CBS-loving parents, but I only intend to rebel occasionally, so hopefully they'll forgive me.

Also, I forgot to report that yesterday, I saw brown people! Specifically, two elderly Indians, with Indian accents that made me homesick for Hyderabad. Given how cold and miserable it was yesterday, they were probably more homesick for India than I was, but I didn't ask them.

either way it's okay you wake up with yourself

Today I went to Indianola to work on my book. I wrote 2076 words, and figured out the gist of what I want to have happen in the next section. I also had a delicious sandwich that did not make my lips swell -- it's a miracle!

The other big event was tonight's secret society meeting. My grandmother hosted, and since her living room gets crowded when we have Christmas Eve there with only ten people, you can imagine how difficult it was to squeeze in eighteen women. Also, it was strange to sit on the floor of her living room and not receive arcane types of money (from Uncle Mark), or tiny gold-wrapped Josephs Jewelers boxes (from Aunt Becky), or odd Christmas decorations made out of socks and toothpicks (from my cousin Andrew). But the meeting was fun -- and while the proceedings are of course highly mysterious, I can divulge that Cheyrel (who is in the same general age group as my mother) asked if she could be in my novel, and specifically requested that any character named after her should be a 'tart'. Ha!

Then I had vision (which I have frequently) of how mortifying it will be if my book is ever published, since I will have to make eye contact with friends, coworkers, and people who have known me since I was born, knowing that they may have just read a scene involving words like 'manroot' and 'velvet sheath'. Perhaps I should take a v. long vacation if the book sees print, so that I can hide out in Morocco or something until the titillating storm dies down.

Tomorrow I have a dentist appointment, conveniently located in the town thirty miles to our east (Centerville, pop. 7000). Centerville has stoplights! And they got a McDonalds about ten years ago, in addition to their Taco Bell/KFC, so they're a genuine metropolis. They're also home to a Wal-Mart, which, true to Wal-Mart form, has sucked the oxygen out of the non-Wal-Mart economy in all surrounding towns (including ours -- people don't mind driving half an hour to buy cheaper crap). It is also, interestingly enough, the town in which my parents met, when my mother was eight and my father was three -- and the town my mom was living in when my dad stalked her until she agreed to go out with him. Ah, the memories.

Now I need to go to bed -- I probably won't go anywhere else to write tomorrow, which is a shame. My father pointed out an apparent correlation between the distance I drive away from home and the amount of writing I get done at my destination -- Indianola is thirty miles closer than West Des Moines, but I wrote half as much today as I did on Monday. He suggested that I drive to Minneapolis every day to write, but since Minneapolis is 342 miles away, I feel that there is probably a point of diminishing returns somewhere between here and there. There's also a possibility that I wrote less today because I only spent two and a half hours writing, rather than five, but I will have to examine this issue closely over the next couple of weeks.

infinitely infantile...but ultimately worth each and every while

CBS should realize that 'Secret Talents of the Stars' has been poorly conceived and marketed, given that my mother actually chose not to watch the series premiere, and instead watched PBS. Getting my parents to change the channel for anything other than the Olympics, the Super Bowl, or Iowa State basketball (since March Madness and the Masters are conveniently broadcast on CBS) is nearly impossible, so this is the sign of a truly abysmal show.

I was pretty unproductive today (or, as my favorite author, Robin McKinley, sometimes describes herself on her blog, I was a 'lazy slut'). I didn't set an alarm because I thought that I would wake up naturally and get out of bed, rather than hitting snooze for an hour like I normally do. But, I awoke naturally at 12:15pm, which was later than I would have gotten out of bed if I'd set the alarm for 10am and hit snooze for awhile. Boo.

But, the officers for secret society came over and we practiced initiation; I'm not an officer, but my mother asked me to be the prompter. Luckily, we stopped sacrificing live animals back during the Great Depression, when the by-laws were amended to recognize that people would rather eat the animals than slaughter them in an ancient ritual. After the practice, I got all sorts of good dirt about what's going on in the area, but I won't divulge it here -- Katie, you'll have to call me back if you're curious.

We had steak tonight for dinner, with mashed potatoes and gravy, and so all in all it was a great day, if you ignore the fact that I didn't write. I'm going to get up early tomorrow and go to Indianola to write. I will also have the sandwich with guacamole and sprouts, and when my lips blister and my tongue swells, I will tell myself it is just a one-off and not continued proof that I'm likely allergic to avocados. Yay!

dare to dream

I was actually productive today -- that probably doesn't matter to those of you who have to get up and go to a full-time job five days a week, but for me, it was quite an accomplishment. Granted, I didn't get up until 11am...but I left the house around 12:30 and drove up to Des Moines, where I worked at Borders until 8:30pm. And in the six hours that I worked, I wrote 5400 words! That's about 22 pages, for those of you keeping score at home. That puts me past the 55,000 word mark. Theoretically, if I could write 5000 words a day, I could be finished with the rough draft in nine days, but those would have to be pretty intense days. However, I'm going to set a stretch goal (to revert to corporate-speak) of April 23 -- that's sixteen days away. Whether I can hit it remains to be seen, but I'd like to send it to some friends for feedback by the first of May, and I need to spend some time editing it before that happens.

I got back from Des Moines just in time to watch the last two minutes of regulation and the entire overtime of the Kansas/Memphis game. While I am morally obligated as an Iowan to despise Kansas during the regular season, I felt safe cheering for them tonight, since Iowa State is laughably far from being able to compete with them anyway. Now I'm watching Craig while waiting for my fingernails to dry -- yes, I've painted them again, because I have time for things like this. He spent an extended amount of time talking about the Olympics, which made my night. Now I should go to bed, so that I can get up tomorrow and do some writing. Goodnight!

annoyed about paypal

The only thing of real worth that I accomplished today was cleaning my room -- and I find even that to be of dubious value, but it pleases my mother, and since I would be homeless if she kicked me out, it seemed like a necessary endeavor.

I know that I'm about to sound like a corporate whore, but I really hate PayPal. Yes, a big reason why I hadn't kept my account current was out of some weird, misguided loyalty toward Google Checkout, but I also always found PayPal to be kind of annoying. So when I got an email several months ago saying that they'd frozen access to my account, I didn't think that was such a bad thing.

However, I now want to join an online chapter of Romance Writers of America, and they accept membership dues via check or PayPal. As a child of the e-commerce revolution, I hate paying for things by check; in fact, I watched in shock when I was at the gas station the other day and some chick paid for her gas with a check. Anyway, I went through all the motions to unfreeze my account, including giving them my home phone number so that they could call me...and now, three days later, the message still says 'complete these steps to verify your account', with a 'completed' by each step, and no further options. Impatient, I created a new account -- but then it refused to let me pay by credit card, insisted on using my checking account instead, and I have to wait 2-3 days for a couple of micropayments to go through so that I can verify the amounts and get the account set up. Grr. I thought my allegiance to Checkout was purely blind loyalty, but it has never given me this much grief.

So, since I've basically wasted the whole weekend, I'm going to get up tomorrow and write until I can't write any more. And that output had better be at least 5000 words, or else I'll be v. disappointed.

when i was young i knew everything...now i'm old and the smartest son of a bitch around

My father is famous for intentionally (or, more often, unintentionally) modifying song lyrics when singing to himself, and tonight's version of Verve Pipe's 'The Freshmen' was classic.

Today I took my old Pontiac Sunfire for a spin; I had sent it home with my parents last fall, and we haven't gotten around to selling it yet, but I thought it could probably benefit from being driven. Part of me misses having a smaller, sportier car with better gas mileage, but the Rav4 is obviously a serious upgrade. My next car (likely in six or eight years, depending on how the Rav4 holds up) will probably revert to the sporty side. By then, I see one of three scenarios unfolding: 1) I will be making it as a novelist and so will likely buy something used (unless I'm *really* making it, in which case I will buy something extravagant), 2) I will have sold out and committed to corporate America, and will purchase a high-end sports car to console myself, or 3) the Mayan-predicted end of the world will have arrived, in which case, if I am still alive, I will likely be too preoccupied with finding something to eat to worry much about buying a car, even if there were still automakers in existence.

Tonight, I made risotto for dinner as an accompaniment to the barbecued chicken and pork that my father made (yes, two types of meat for three people is overkill). The risotto recipe is from Mario Batali's cookbook, and I've made it for my friends before -- it's simple, although risotto requires frequent stirring. But I realized as I was standing there stirring for twenty minutes that my parents would probably be happier with rice cooked with Campbell's cream of mushroom soup and fake onions, and my suspicion was correct (as my dad said, "it was great...but you don't have to make it again for my sake"). Sigh. So I guess I'll be eating risotto leftovers by myself for the next couple of days. I also drank a glass of wine that was produced in Minnesota -- it wasn't too bad, and I'm eager to try out some Iowa wineries once it warms up a little bit. But I can't go to wineries until I finish this book, which means I should get up tomorrow and write!

it's just a trick of the light, she says

I decided to go to Des Moines today, since I'd gone several days without writing anything. But before going, I had to dress well enough to merit my fingernails (observant readers will remember that I painted them with 'An Affair in Red Square' last night -- and scarlet fingernail polish looks absurd with a Blogger sweatshirt). So, I blow-dried my hair, wore darker lip gloss than usual, and threw on the silver metallic DKNY sweater that I got on sale for $15 (marked down from $90) last week. The sweater was more low-cut than anything I've been wearing recently, and it brought back memories from college, when Zach and the other boys occasionally tried to throw berries down my shirt whenever I was wearing something that showed off my breasts. Ah, the good old days.

Anyway, I had a late lunch at Panera, worked a bit there, decided I was freezing, and moved to the Borders cafe down the street. I wrote 3092 words today, which is twice the daily goal -- but not enough to make up for the fact that I haven't hit the goal in five days. However, I decided to stop rewriting what I had -- now that I've fixed the glaring issues in the first eighty pages of the book, I'm going to press forward into uncharted second-half territory and write the rest of thing before I start editing again. The editing process is surprisingly enjoyable, so I'm not too worried about polishing a second (or third) draft. This means that I should get back to writing brand-new stuff, because that's what I'm more afraid of, and if I don't tackle it, I will never finish.

The only other thing of interest was that I had a nice conversation with Vidius Chandicus today, and so she gets a label on the blog. Congratulations, Vidya! Now, I suppose I should go to bed so that I can get up and write tomorrow. Yay.

you could be the one for me...and you could be the one that i adore

Today was pretty much a wasted day in the heartland...I awoke with the best of intentions, but instead spent the afternoon engaged in playful arguing with my parents about such subjects as evolution and reincarnation. We then watched Oprah, I took a "break" to check my RSS feeds, and then had dinner with them while watching "Survivor". After dinner, I decided to paint my fingernails (two coats of 'An Affair in Red Square', plus a clear topcoat, which is 2-3x more effort than I usually put into my fingernails, but I'm a lady of leisure right now!) while reading the latest Susan Elizabeth Phillips romance novel.

The book is 'Natural Born Charmer', for those of you who care -- it's another Chicago Stars book, and the hero is the latest quarterback (Dean Robillaird, who replaced Kevin Turner, the quarterback who got with the children's book writer). The heroine is an itinerant portrait painter. The writing was, as usual, excellent, and a lesson in how to write great, snappy dialogue punctuated with visceral scenery descriptions.

However, I'm getting tired of SEP's books, I think. I will continue to read them because it's difficult to find such well-written books, but the Chicago Stars series is basically the same two characters over and over again. The guy is impossibly gorgeous, but more down-to-earth and intelligent than anyone gives him credit for, and is typically working through some major mother issues; the woman acts likes she's tough as nails and doesn't back down for anything, but is hiding a serious sensitive side. There's also the requisite side relationship between two middle-aged characters who are rediscovering what it means to love each other; the adorable but self-conscious preteen; the antagonist elderly lady who is a lot nicer than anyone realizes; and to top it all off, it's set in a small town that is filled with people who are mysteriously able to make the town charming and self-sustaining and possibly revitalized, directly contradicting the facts about how many thousands of small towns are in their brutal death throes.

Anyway, despite that, I would still recommend it, but you'll like it better if you haven't read 'Dream a Little Dream' or 'Nobody's Baby But Mine'. Actually, I'd recommend just reading those two instead.

In other news, I've mentioned that it's a 90-mile drive for me to get to West Des Moines, home of the nearest nice malls, the nearest Starbucks, the nearest Borders, etc. Well, I calculated today, and that's the same as the distance from Palo Alto to Stockton. But, imagine driving ninety miles through virtually nothing, rather than the vast sprawl of unwashed humanity.

On the ninety mile drive to Des Moines, I go through the following towns:

Humeston: population 546
Lucas: 257
Liberty Center: 26
Indianola: 14,227
West Des Moines: 53,945

That's a grand total of 69,064 people.

On the drive from Palo Alto to Stockton, one would go through the following towns:

Palo Alto: 58,598
Mountain View: 70,708
Milpitas: 62,698
Fremont: 210,158
Pleasanton: 67,724
Dublin: 45,000
Livermore: 82,845
Tracy: 75,800
Lathrop: 14,625
Stockton: 289,789

That's a grand total of 977,942 people.

And the other interesting stat - it's 57 miles (from here to Indianola), before I hit my first stoplight. There aren't any stoplights in my entire county. Isn't that awesome?

Okay, that's enough for tonight. Happy Friday!

let's build a fence!

Today you get the rare double post! Score!

After posting this morning, I picked Aunt Becky up, and we spent several hours shopping and touring Des Moines. In a nod to Cody, I've picked 'city of corn' for the Des Moines label -- my family was lobbying for 'dogtown' in honor of Des Moines' Drake Bulldogs (who were a fifth seed in the NCAA tournament), but since Drake lost in the first round and will likely never win another game, city of corn seems like a more apt description.

Then again, the city has really expanded beyond its agrarian roots. Aunt Becky directed me toward downtown, where we visited an Italian grocery store, a tea store, a paper store, an art/craft gallery, and a kitchen gadget store. We also went out to the new mall on the west edge of Des Moines, which is the ultimate upscale suburban mall -- all the usual suspects (including Sephora), as well as Cheesecake Factory, PF Chang's, etc. Aunt B was nice enough to buy me a new pair of sneakers (much needed -- my last pair was purchased at Hyderabad Central in 2005, and while they have been good companions to me, they are out of tread). I tried to turn her on to the magic of Sephora, but she remains in a committed relationship with Bobbi Brown. We did not see her scandalous boyfriend, but we did have a v. tasty pizza lunch (including the taco pizza, which I never see in California, but which is a midwestern staple). So, all in all, it was quite the lovely day!

However, I was exhausted after the fact, and ended up taking a half-hour nap in a Walmart parking lot on the way home. Since it's ninety miles from Des Moines to home, it's a long way to go when you just want to take a nap. But, after the nap, I was completely refreshed, and made it home in time for dinner. My dad fixed his grill, and so we had the first real grilled steak of the spring (all previous steaks have been George Foreman'd). Then we watched Big Brother, CSI Miami, the ten o'clock news, David Letterman, and I'm now watching Craig. I'm quite excited...Craig is going to be in Des Moines in April, and I bought tickets for my parents, brother and I!! I'm hoping he feels the electric current between us and rescues me from my drudgery to live with him in Hollywood, but I'm not holding my breath. Now, though, it's time for bed!

early morning procrastination

Today is April Fool's Day, and also Ritu's birthday, which is remarkably fitting. Happy birthday, Ritu!

Also, the jhoke is on me, since I'm up earlier than I've been in weeks -- I spent last night with Aunt Becky so that I could drop her off and pick her up from an appointment this morning. Aunt Becky likes to pretend that she has one foot in the grave, but she also likes to act like a teenager, so hanging out with her is always fun. We watched 'Dancing with the Stars' and 'The Bachelor' -- I normally don't see those shows because they're on ABC and my parents are a CBS household, but they were pretty good. I also tested the efficacy of my potent allergy drug cocktail, and am pleased to report that it held up against my aunt's two Persian cats. Even though Singulair supposedly causes suicidal tendencies, I would have been more likely to stab myself in the face last night if my allergies had attacked, so I'm going to keep taking it.

I watched Craig Ferguson last night, and it was a fantastic episode. He had a sketch of him playing Larry King, and one of his extra guys playing Craig Ferguson -- those types of sketches are becoming my favorites, because when someone else is pretending to be Craig, the real Craig can barely keep it together while he watches the fake Craig do all sorts of heinous and disgusting things.

Also, for the 99.9% of you who don't watch Craig, you missed out on Sir Richard Branson announcing the Google/Virgin joint-venture 'Virgle', intended to establish a human colony on Mars. It was quite a funny interview, and while I knew it was fake, I was still sad that it wasn't real -- I mean, how awesome would it be to colonize Mars? I have to admit that space colonization is one of those childhood dreams that I've never quite overgrown. The urge to explore 'new' places is why I went to India and Ireland (even though they've been copiously explored by other people), and that urge is starting to rage in my blood again. What I'm going to do about it, I don't know, but I need to channel it into finishing my novel before I think about anything else.

Okay, speaking of novel, that's what I should be doing right now. Aunt B and I are supposed to go shopping after I pick her up; since she has excellent taste (and by 'excellent' I mean 'similar to mine'), it should be fun. Yay!

i know i stole your coat...you can have this song i wrote

Tonight I went to a retirement party for one of the sheriff's deputies. I don't know him all that well, although I do know his wife, who is the editor for the local paper, and so used to work with my mother. However, this is the deputy who came into the convenience store when I was working one night back in high school, and asked me if I checked IDs when I sold cigarettes. I said that I did (mostly true - but I knew a lot of the people buying and so stopped checking the ones whom I knew were 18+), and he told me to make sure that I kept checking them. Twenty minutes later, I saw his car waiting in the parking lot when a kid I had never seen came in and asked for a pack of cigarettes. I ID'd him, saw that he was underage, and said I couldn't sell to him. Then the deputy came back in later and said I'd done a great job. And my employers thanked me the next day. So, even though sheriff's deputies are not always popular with everyone in a small town, I must say that I always liked this guy.

Anyway, the retirement party included barbecue pork sandwiches and baked beans, so I was pretty happy. Laura/Ziv would be happy to know that there was an abundance of plaid, as well as a couple of people wearing overalls - but we also had ample furniture, which I'm sure they would find shocking.

The rest of my day was uneventful. I made the mistake of staying up until 4:30am reading last night, so I didn't wake up until noon. It looked nice outside, so I decided to go for a walk - you know you live in the middle of nowhere when you go for a 45-minute walk and only see two cars. Granted, I spent half of the walk on an unmaintained dirt road, but still. One of the two cars was our postman, whom I've known forever, and he stopped to say hi. And happily, I didn't see any of the mountain lions (aka cougars - but of the feline variety, not of the 'older women preying on younger men' variety) that are supposedly invading southern Iowa, so I came back with all of my limbs intact.

Now, even though it's relatively early for me, I am going to bed. I didn't write today, which means I need to write more tomorrow to make up for it. Goodnight!

i've just crossed the line from fashion to crime (but it's such a perfect fit when i am wearing it)

I'm feeling slightly feverish again - and Ziv/Laura, no, our thermometers are not made out of corn. I'm quietly rooting for malaria - it's possible to contract it several months after exposure, and I've been to India several times without taking my pills. We'll see, though - it's more likely that it's a pesky flu, or good old hypochondria.

Today was another excellent day - I woke up relatively early, but then hung out at home until my mother finished making egg salad for lunch. After I ate with my parents, I left for Des Moines later than I intended. I planned to stop at Sephora for a few minutes, but I made the mistake of going into the mall through Dillard's - where I discovered that they were having a fantastic sale. So, true to form, less than twenty-four hours after I told Vidya that I didn't qualify as a compulsive hoarder because I don't buy multiple identical items of clothing in different colors, I bought multiple identical items of clothing in different colors. In my defense, the shirts I bought in multiples were only five dollars each, which was a steal. In fact, I ended up getting ten shirts and two pairs of pants for less than I spent at Sephora. I will leave it up to you, gentle reader, to judge whether that means I got a fabulous deal at Dillard's or was shockingly extravagant at Sephora.

I then proceeded to Borders, where I was a good girl and refrained from buying any more books. Instead, I sat in the cafe and knocked out 4026 words on my romance novel - some of it was stolen from the first draft, but the majority of it was fresh prose. Between today, yesterday, and what I wrote on Monday, I'm actually slightly over the goal for the week. Yay!

I got home around 9:30, and I only had to avoid a herd of deer and one skunk to make the ninety-mile drive safely. I had leftover steak for dinner, watched a bit of basketball (I will ignore the fact that Katie, a fraudulent University of Texas alum, tried to gloat about the Longhorns' victory over Stanford), and am now considering going to bed. But I'll likely stay up way too late and read part of one of the books that arrived from Amazon today - I got volumes two and three of the vampire/werewolf/valkyrie series I mentioned earlier in the week, so you can guess what I'll be doing this weekend. If I don't end up in the hospital with malaria, that is. Goodnight!

i'm almost ready - yeah, it's almost true - for almost anyone but you

Except for the fever I felt coming on after dinner, and the fact that I drove two hours (half of it in sleet) for a sandwich, today was a fantastic day!

I meant to leave home earlier than I did, but instead I reread part of that paranormal romance novel I was so giddy about last night. It reminded me of another tangent I meant to take last night -- while paranormals are dying, this may signal the medieval subgenre's return to popularity. Paranormals are really medievals, only the lords are vampires/werewolves, and everyone's got cooler gadgets. They still have to obey a complex set of social rules and adhere to strange, binding types of honor; many still live in castles and manors that have been magically hidden from prying humans; and they all inexplicably prefer bows, axes, and swords over guns and grenades. Since the ultra-alpha male always remains popular, even when the leading subgenre is switching from pirates to Scottish lairds to firefighters to Navy SEALs to vampires/werewolves, I have a feeling that medievals could make a comeback. I'm ready -- they were last popular about ten years ago, and I've missed them.

Anyway, I went to Indianola and had a fantastic sandwich - it's been almost a month since I've had a sandwich with sprouts, guacamole, mustard, and non-white bread, so I was v. excited. I spent a couple of hours there working on my novel, but broke off early when I was stunned to get a call from none other than Walter Talbott, the famed Talbotross. Those of you who met me in the past couple of years have likely only heard whispered legends of Walter's greatness. Those of you who know Walter will be glad to hear that he is well, or at least alive, and he sounded quite chipper on the phone.

When I got home, I received the second unexpected call of the day, this one from Arod, who told me all about what she's been up to in the past couple of weeks. I worked on the book some more, ate dinner, and then finished the chapter I was working on. That puts today's word count at 3389, which is more than double the goal (yay!). I need to pick up where I left off tomorrow, since today went remarkably well.

I finished off my night by painting my fingernails and talking to Vidius Chandicus for quite awhile. We talked about a wide variety of issues, focusing significant attention on how awful the frozen pizzas from Whole Foods are. We also talked about the Oprah episode that I saw a bit of yesterday - it was about compulsive hoarding, and featured a woman who had crammed enough stuff to fit in a 10,000 sqft warehouse into a 3,000 sqft house, never realizing that underneath the piles of stuff were mice nests and rampant black mold growths. Ugh. But Vidya was dismayed to learn that the hoarding she has accused me of (mainly in regards to my excessive kitchen supplies, furniture, books, clothes...the necessities, really) is probably genetic on my part, given that several of the people on my dad's side of the family are compulsive hoarders. That makes me a helpless, genetically predisposed victim, which makes me less fun to tease, I suppose.

In my defense, though, I do use the stuff I have (even if it's rarely, like my deviled egg plate) - and unlike my grandfather, I didn't keep stacks of rocks all over my property. So I feel there is hope for me.

That's all for now; it's time for bed!

just waiting for the daylight to come crawling in on me

I am perhaps the last one to the party in the paranormal romance genre (scouts report that the genre is flaring out, since readers are glutted by a couple of years of vampires and werewolves and witches and other fantastic beings engaging in preternaturally amazing sex while trying to save the world from a dark and horrid fate). However, I have arrived - on a whim, I ordered a paranormal romance from Amazon (along with an external hard drive and a copy of 'Roberts' Guide for Butlers and Other Household Staff', published in 1827). I only meant to read the first chapter; several hours (and a break for a secret society meeting) later, I finished the whole thing, and ordered the next two in the series from Amazon.

For the curious, the book is 'A Hunger Like No Other' by Kresley Cole. And I'm only mildly embarrassed that it tells the story of a werewolf king who falls in love with a half-vampire, half-Valkyrie girl who cries bloody tears and has pointy ears. The writing is really, really good. And, there was one moment in which the heroine seemed to do something unbelievably stupid (known as 'TSTL' in the romance genre - acronym for 'too stupid to live', applied to heroines who only get into trouble because of their own tremendous stupidity), and she actually acknowledged that she seemed 'too stupid to live', but quickly explained her way out of why it was a stupid move. That's when I completely fell for the book - the moment may have been just a bit contrived, but it didn't feel unnatural or forced.

Okay, now that I've turned off half my readership (including Katie, who never forgave me for being so unbelievably dorky as to be caught reading a Robert Heinlein novel featuring a cover photo of floating Martian flatcats in high school), I should really go to bed. The rest of my day was either not worth mentioning, or not mentionable (secret society meeting - my mother is president and could excommunicate me if I divulge secrets). But I really need to write tomorrow, especially since the next two books in the series should be here on Friday. Goodnight!

we were entertained by dampness and ricketts

The title is of course from Craig Ferguson's monologue, this time in regards to his childhood in Scotland. He also made a joke about Sean Connery playing 'Sam I Am' from the Dr. Seuss book, but I'm sure it has lost something in written form.

I preordered the new Counting Crows cd from iTunes - but now that I'm trying to download it, it tells me that I'm now forced to upgrade to the most recent iTunes release. Bah. I'm downloading the new version now, but since I want to go to bed, that means I'll have to wait until tomorrow to get my virtual hands on the music.

I scored a major victory today when I found a great cafe only an hour away from my house - they have sandwiches with *sprouts*! and *guacamole*!! The cafe is on the Indianola town square, which will mean nothing to those of you who don't live in Iowa. Indianola is home to the National Hot Air Balloon Museum and Simpson College, and is the nearest real 'civilization' (where 'civilization' is defined by the presence of McDonalds, Quiznos, and a significant number of stoplights). This means I can stop off in Indianola when I'm desperate for a mocha, rather than continuing the extra half-hour to the west edge of Des Moines. Yippee.

By the time I got there, I only had an hour and a half, since it closes at five. I managed to write 1035 words, which is 465 below my goal - but what I wrote ties into another 600-word segment, so that may technically mean that I 'wrote' 1600 words today. It's iffy, though, so I need to make up for it tomorrow. I should have written more when I got home tonight, but instead I watched Britney Spears's appearance on 'How I Met Your Mother', as well as the rest of CBS's fine evening programming.

I spent far too much time tonight putting together my page for my Stanford reunion class book - I can't believe my five-year reunion is this fall. I tried my best to be appropriately clever without seeming arrogant, which is a v. difficult task. Craig was playing in the background, which helped, and I also chatted briefly with Vidius Chandicus and Claudia. Now I'm going to go to bed so that I can get up and write tomorrow, because that's what writers do! I may also drink cheap whiskey and find a wife to beat up, but we'll see how the day goes.

with an ironclad fist, i wake up and french kiss the morning

I love nonsensical lyrics, and the line from Bon Jovi's 'Bed of Roses' serving as this post's title is one of my all-time favorites. What can it possibly mean?!

Today was a delightful Easter. We had Easter dinner (that means lunch to you coastal heathens) at Uncle Mark and Aunt Kathy's, approximately two hours north of here. Dinner was delicious; I'm always a fan of ham, and they had it in abundance. Following dinner, Aunt Becky forced the 'kids' to hunt Easter eggs, which is something of a tradition - but given that the kids in question are me (age 26), my brother (age 22), my cousin Drew (age 14), and Drew's cousin Bobby (age ~21), you would think that the tradition would have died by now. Of course, Aunt B likes to say that she's 29, so to keep that illusion up, it helps her to maintain the aura that we are younger and smaller than we are.

This year, Aunt Becky apparently felt that she needed to up the ante. I hadn't been to Easter dinner in several years; the last time I hunted eggs, they contained mostly candy and quarters, and were strewn all over the yard. This year, it had snowed this morning, so Aunt Becky constrained her hiding efforts - and the eggs contained various denominations of money, as well as opportunities to win 'fabulous prizes'. At the end of the hunt, I only had four eggs (of the available 21) - but I came away with a two-dollar bill, four dollar coins, and a 'gigantic origami gift set' that will teach me how to make a variety of origami products with the ridiculous quantity of enclosed decorative paper. Obviously the origami set wasn't in an egg - I had a chance to pick a wrapped mystery prize, and that's what I came away with.

I'm also happy to report that communism has finally died out in our Easter egg tradition - the benefit of being older is that we don't have to pool our eggs at the end and split them evenly. I may have came away with fewer goods (Andrew had more money, Michael got more prizes), but I feel that democracy won an important victory today. Yay!

After the Easter egg hunt, we played Guitar Hero for quite some time before heading home. I spent the rest of the evening hanging out with my parents and reading a book. Tomorrow, though, I need to get cracking on my book in earnest. I have now been home for three weeks. I'd like to finish the first draft by the first of May, which means I need to write ~1500 words/day between now and then. We'll see how it goes, but clearly I need to go to bed if I'm going to get up and write tomorrow. Goodnight!

there are no cinderellas

Stanford won, Duke lost, and my parents celebrated twenty-eight years of wedded bliss (and 26.5 years of making inappropriate innuendos that, for the past fifteen years or so, have completely grossed me out). All in all, it was a great day!

When I woke up this morning, my sister and her family were here, but I only saw them for ~30mins. I spent the rest of the afternoon playing on the internet (boo) and watching basketball (yay). My parents and I had dinner in town at the tavern in the back of the American Legion hall - it was the perfect (?) place to go, since it was where they had their wedding reception. There were ~20 people in there tonight, and my parents knew all of them - one of the couples was even at their reception way back in the day. In California, it would be rare to run into someone I knew while out for dinner; here, it's rare to run into someone you don't know. But, not as rare as the steak I had - it was barely warm, and was that purple-red color that indicates you could have gotten the same level of doneness by cutting into a live cow on a really warm summer day. Mmm.

Now, I should really go to bed - we have to go to my uncle's for Easter dinner tomorrow, which means I need to get up around eight. Goodnight!

back on track again

For those of you who read stuffwhitepeoplelike.blogspot.com - I found out via my subscription to Publisher's Marketplace that the guy who writes those posts just sold a book. The announcement reads: "Blogger Christian Lander's STUFF WHITE PEOPLE LIKE, satirically exposing a culture that prides itself on individuality and diversity, yet manages to express these beliefs in exactly the same way, to Jane von Mehren at Random House". I love that this guy is going to make a ton of money off of pointing out to people how retarded their culture is.

In other news, I did not watch Drake's heartbreaking last-second loss in the NCAA tournament today - although since it was a buzzer-beater in overtime, with a No. 12 seed knocking off a No. 5, the shot will likely be replayed daily throughout the tournament, so I'll get the chance to see it again. Instead, I talked to Gyre in honor of his birthday - the conversation may not go down in history as well as this year's Drake team will, but it was good to catch up nonetheless.

I spent the rest of the day attempting to work on my romance novel. However, I spend waaaay too much time online. I think it qualifies as an internet addiction. For some reason I don't sign on to chat in the mistaken belief that it will distract me - but then I can spend hours reading about a myriad of topics on wikipedia, or read the blogs of all sorts of published authors (who are published because they actually write their damn books, rather than reading other people's blogs), or check the half-dozen websites that I frequent.

Dad made fabulous pizza for dinner, and I spent the rest of the evening reading part of a romance novel while keeping an eye on the games. I will say that reading other romance novels is good for me - it definitely helps me to see what techniques I like and which ones I wish to avoid. I'm thoroughly annoyed by the one I'm currently reading - it's way too dialogue-heavy, and the plot is extremely thin. In fact, I think this is a perfect book for me to finish, even though I'm not interested, because my book could run the risk of being dialogue-heavy and plot-thin. It's easy to get wrapped up in the 'show, don't tell' maxim of good writing, and end up using far too much character interaction as a substitution for some well-written exposition. And, just like in this book, my characters are only really kept apart by their own competing desires - there aren't any villains or evil family members to throw conflict their way. So, I'm going to finish reading it, take copious notes, and hope to avoid this author's mistakes. However, since she's hit the New York Times bestseller list, I don't want to avoid all of her steps - just the ones that made this particular manuscript vapid and annoying.

Tomorrow's my parents' wedding anniversary, and they're stuck with having both me and my brother in the house - and my sister may come for a visit. Please send them the appropriate condolences; they deserve better at this stage in their lives.

come let me make up for the things you lack

I killed a possum today! I was driving home from Des Moines, switching CDs because I wanted to listen to 'SexyBack', and I hit a possum while going sixty miles per hour in my rav4. It made a thud against my left front tire, I looked in the rearview mirror and saw it lying in the road, and then the vision was obscured by darkness. Not nearly as glamorous as shooting it, trying to decapitate it with an ice scraper, dropping a rock on it, stabbing it with a pitchfork, or any of the other variety of methods I've heard of for disposing of possums, but I guess I'm doing my part to keep the Iowan marsupial population under control. Unless, of course, it was playing dead - tricky bastard!

The big excitement of the day was that I went to Des Moines. Due to my overwhelming urge to stay in bed, I didn't leave until one p.m., thus arriving in West Des Moines a little before three o'clock (after a quick stop at Quiznos, where I had a turkey bacon guacamole sandwich, and steadfastly refused to take the small blisters that formed inside my mouth as a sign that I'm allergic to avocados). I went to Half Price Books, where I picked up a dozen books - mostly romance novels, but a couple of 'research' books, including one on the tartans of the Scottish clans. Then I went to Borders, where I wrote almost five pages in the cafe while drinking a delicious mocha. I also did some book shopping at Borders, coming away with another five books, before driving home in time for dinner (tuna noodle casserole! yay midwest!)

I spent a couple of hours tonight reading one of my new purchases - 'The Art of Seduction' by Robert Greene. It's ostensibly research for my romance novel, since it discusses the archetypal seducers - I thought it would be interesting to pinpoint whether my characters have any of these seductive traits, and make sure they aren't displaying anti-seductive traits (unless they want to). However, the book is quite fascinating in its own right - he's making the basic argument that seduction arose as a woman's weapon to regain some power in a world dominated by the aggressive, force-backed power struggles of men, but that as society has morphed, aggression is no longer rewarded to the extent that it was. So, over the past couple of centuries, seduction has increasingly become a tool for both sexes, and is a vital skill in *all* relationships, not just sexual ones. I would recommend it to you, but I want to keep its secrets to myself!

burn out the day, burn out the night

I was a complete slacker today. I set my alarm for nine a.m., but shut it off after hitting snooze a few times. I did drag myself out of bed before noon, catch up on Google Reader (addiction/bane of my existence), and then have a quick sandwich with my parents. My dad and I went to finalize my new phone, which now places me back into the realm of people who are able to establish real human contact. Of course, whether talking on the phone constitutes real human contact is up for debate. But anyway, I got a phone that actually works in southern Iowa, and I spent the evening playing with it. I intend to go to Des Moines tomorrow to work on my book, buy some romance novels, and drink some espresso-based beverages, and while I'm there I'll turn on call-forwarding on my blackberry so that I can be reached with my old number. Yay.

Nothing else of particular interest happened; I watched 'Big Brother' and 'Jericho' (funny to get intrigued by a show that will likely be cancelled after next week's episode), watched Craig (of course!), and generally did nothing of real importance.

But what was perhaps the biggest time-waster of my leave of absence so far was that I read the *entire* divorce judgment between Paul McCartney and Heather Mills. You too can read all fifty-eight pages, if you want. It was quite interesting - the judge really didn't pull any punches with Heather Mills. My favorite quote from the judgment was, "If, as [Heather Mills] has done, a litigant flagrantly over-eggs the pudding and thus deprives the court of any sensible assistance, then he or she is likely to find that the court takes a robust view and drastically prunes the proposed budget."

I had no idea that phrases like 'over-eggs the pudding' were allowable in divorce judgments! I really should move to the UK. But, it sounds like Heather Mills deserves it - the woman poured her water glass on the head of Paul McCartney's divorce lawyer, which doesn't exactly make her look like an aggrieved party.

Okay, that's enough for tonight - I need to actually accomplish something of substance tomorrow, so I think it's time for bed.

"there are some things i keep sacred...my middle name. who i sleep with. and what kind of hand moisturizer i use."

The Olympics are coming up (triple yay), and I should be reading up on the summer stars - but this article on Johnny Weir and Evan Lysacek in the New York Times caught my eye. I have been completely remiss in keeping up with figure skating the past couple of years, so I've missed out on their rivalry, but this article made me super-psyched for Vancouver in 2010. It boils down to a skater whose weight is described as 'avian' (he's 125 pounds!) facing off against a guy who doesn't shave before competitions and would like to see figure skating in the X Games on a half-pipe. It's like 'Blades of Glory', but real! Now if only Apolo Anton Ohno could beat those South Koreans in every short track speed skating event in 2010, I would be a happy camper - but I'm not stupid enough to bet on it, even though I love that guy.

I'll quickly recap the last two days, since I'm sure you're dying of curiosity. Yesterday started on an inauspicious note when Aunt Becky woke me up by coming in and jumping on me. Thankfully I'm pretty immune to such torment, so I went back to sleep for a couple of hours - but my family's behavior indicates that I will probably never grow up. Then, we went into town for a church dinner - that's lunch to you non-midwesterners. The food was only okay - the women who have typically done the cooking are now at least 10-15 years past their solid cooking abilities, and so everything seemed a little less tasty than in years past.

I also had a fifteen minute conversation with someone from my high school class. It was good to see that she seems happy, even if she was the one who wrote the 'senior prophecy' page in our final yearbook. All of the other prophecies were moderately nice - but mine claimed that ten years past graduation I would have 'dropped out of Stanford, moved to Mexico, married a goat farmer, and raised four kids while living barefoot in our barn'. Rather bitchy thing to write, but I guess I'm over it. Since my ten-year reunion is a year away, I'd better get busy!

I spent the rest of last night and all of this morning/afternoon editing and rewriting the first chapter of my romance novel. I wanted to submit it to a contest sponsored by the San Diego chapter of Romance Writers of America - by submitting the first 25 pages, I could get feedback from the contest judges. And, if I miraculously happen to final, it would be judged by an editor at one of the main publishing houses. I mostly entered in order to get some feedback from people who don't know me at all, and so that I can see how I stack up when compared to other unpublished manuscripts out there. I mailed it today with fifteen minutes to spare - then came home to an email saying that the conference deadline had been extended by a week. Damn.

Nothing else has really happened; Craig did a great skit about Bono and the Edge in honor of St. Patrick's Day, but since I gush about everything he says, that's not really noteworthy. I read a romance novel tonight in the name of 'research', and I was surprisingly annoyed by it. Maybe I'm analyzing plots too much because I'm struggling with my own, but I thought that this plot was completely unbelievable. The heroine is kidnapped twice in three days (and gets married between the kidnappings), the hero is tormented by every stereotypical demon in the romance world (petty/spoiled mother causing a hatred of all wealthy/titled aristocrats, suicidal father, strong need for revenge due to someone's massive embezzlement leading to his family's financial ruin, extreme fear of dark enclosed spaces due to a bad experience in a massacre at the prisoner-of-war camp he was incarcerated in during the War of 1812). Add to this that they had only ever seen each other three times before the girl's first kidnapping, and he immediately decides that he's willing to go off and rescue her while marrying her to save her from ruin. And, they'd only been married a week before they decide they're in love, at which point the book essentially ends. Ugh. I thought my storyline was too rushed, but this is ridiculous.

So, I think I might go to Des Moines either tomorrow or Wednesday to renew my supply of romance novels. They say you can't be a writer unless you are a reader too, which is all the excuse I need :)

silliness

So, I woke up at 6:45am - four hours of sleep definitely isn't enough when one is used to getting ten. I debated whether or not to go to Des Moines, since it snowed last night and I didn't know what the road conditions would be. However, I finally dragged myself out of bed, threw on a sweater, skirt, boots, and makeup, and drove up to Des Moines with the intention of going to a chapter meeting of the local romance writing group.

Since I said 'intention' in the last paragraph, you can probably guess that I didn't go. I was running late anyway, and would have just barely made it. But I decided that I would rather spend the time drinking an espresso-based drink (since I've had waaay too many of those convenience store 'cappuccinos' that contain more high fructose corn syrup than any actual coffee or milk) and working on my romance novel, instead of sitting through a meeting on 'getting know your characters' - I currently feel like the only thing I do know is my characters, so I didn't think that would be particularly helpful.

I should go work in the cafe at Borders more often - I wrote seven pages in two hours. I decided to take a break and look for some romance novels to buy, but then my parents called and asked if I wanted to have lunch. They had come to Des Moines for something else, and I ended up meeting them and Aunt Becky for Long John Silvers (mmm midwestern fish). We had a delightful time destroying our arteries, and then Aunt Becky and I hung out for a couple of hours. It was great to spend some quality time with her, since the last time I had seen her was in the family circusmobile at my great-uncle's funeral. We checked out some property that she and her fiance intend to build upon someday, went to Bed Bath and Beyond, and all was good. Then I drove home, watched some tv with my parents, and am now turning in at the relatively early hour of 12:30am. No Craig tonight, so that makes it easier.

Maybe tomorrow I'll discuss the secret meaning of my name, but I'm too tired to go into details tonight. However, I will leave you with this - I'm salivating over Cross' spring pen/notebook collection. Every season they put out a new limited-edition set of three different ballpoint pens with three different notebooks; I ended up buying last season's 'quasar' pen in a rosy color, and multiple notebooks because these are the best notebooks I've ever used. The lines are just right (I like v. narrow college-rule), and the covers are durable and snazzy (or, if I were on 'Project Runway', fierce!) at the same time. This season's collection is 'kalahari', and I'm in love - http://www.cross.com/catalog/productlisting.aspx?cat_name=Kalahari+Collection. I want the orange pen, I think, and I want to continue stockpiling notebooks against the inevitable day when Cross discontinues the line (or the Mayan calendar ends and we're thrown back into the stone age, so that I can recount our tragic decline and fall for later posterity). But, I'm going to hold off a week or two and see if the impulse dies down - any bets on where I'll land on this issue?

i could swear i let you know...i tried one day to let you go

I had intended to keep going with what I was writing last night. However, the internet is my nemesis (perhaps proof that it was, after all, invented by Al Gore?)...I ended up reading stuff on Google Reader for far too long this afternoon, after waking up at 12:30pm. I then showered, ate lunch, and ran into town to get gas and wash my car. Washing the car was relatively pointless, since it got dirty again as soon as I left the pavement and took the gravel roads home, but at least I got the salt off from my forays into the snowy wastelands of the Great American West.

On the way home, I drove through Allerton (the smaller town that we're technically affiliated with, since it's only two miles from us instead of four). Driving through town is utterly depressing. It doesn't help that it's March, the spring thaw has led to a lot of mud, there is no green to be found anywhere, and it's been too messy all winter to pick up from the aftermath of a catastrophic ice storm they had a few months ago (remind me to post pictures of the trees in our front yard - it's a disaster zone).

But even if I were driving through town in the most glorious summer ever (and yes, summers in Iowa are glorious - possibly the best anywhere), it would still be depressing. On the main block alone, several buildings have completely collapsed, destroyed by decades of neglect. One of my favorite places in town was Milford's store - he had an old-fashioned soda fountain, and you could get shakes, malts, cherry, lemon, or chocolate Cokes, phosphates, ice cream with v. stale cones, etc., as well as whatever stuff he happened to have in stock, most of it well past the expiration date. He passed away awhile ago, they came in and auctioned off all of the stuff, and now the entire southern wall of the building is collapsing onto the sidewalk.

It's a v. strange thing to watch a town decay before your eyes. I spent a lot of time there when I was younger, because my grandparents had a store in town - but they sold the building years ago, and I noticed the other day that one corner of the giant mural panels on the north wall had fallen off. Even though the post office, bank, civic center, bar, and legion hall are still occupied, it's only a matter of a few years before the entire main street falls into complete ruin.

I've been worried about the economy, considering that I've forsaken six months of salary - but my current, self-selected 'poverty' is likely just a blip on my long-term earnings curve. Regardless of what happens with the economy in general, though, it's too late for Allerton - the damage was done decades ago, the seeds planted well before I was born. When I went to the town play last weekend, they said that in the early 1900s, when Allerton was a railway hub and hosted various chautauquas and other events, there were 192 businesses active and advertising in Allerton alone. This year, the play had managed to solicit advertising/sponsorships from ~100 businesses in the entire county this year - and since those solicitations were a way to raise money for the play, some of the businesses (like my grandmother's - she paid for an ad for a store that has been out of business for ten years) aren't exactly viable.

On top of all of this, one of my high school classmates died this week. I wasn't friends with him (in fact, was petrified of him, since he wasn't particularly kind me or my friends), but it's still a complete shame. I should probably be writing something other than a romance novel - the combination of grinding poverty, drug abuse, and structural collapse would be better suited for fiction or horror than for romance. Or, perhaps I should make up a memoir in which I'm a drug-addicted seventeen year old with three kids who pulls herself out of an impossible situation by a combination of prostitution and knitting - I could probably sell it, unless my brother or sister rats me out to the New York Times.

It's not all bad, though - the majority are v. nice people, many of whom I've known my entire life. And it's v. nice to have some significant solitude - I was sick of living in a 'city', even in Palo Alto is considered a boring suburb. It's time to stop brooding and go to bed, though. I have to wake up early tomorrow morning so that I can get to Des Moines by 9am for a meeting with a local chapter of romance writers. If I get really ambitious, maybe I'll use this as a way to force myself to start getting up earlier every day - but don't hold your breath.

finnegan begin again

I need to learn how to write during the day. I basically sat around all day, ate dinner (porkchops and baked potatoes), and watched 'Survivor', 'CSI', and 'Without a Trace' (all fine CBS programming) - none of which was particularly productive, even if my mother's cooking is delicious and the CBS programs were entertaining.

However, I then proceeded to write from ten p.m. until now, with an hour-long break to watch Craig. Craig was great, as usual; tonight was a rerun of when he was sworn in as an American citizen, and it was nice to see him so earnest and excited about becoming an American. I was surprised that the oath of citizenship includes swearing to bear arms for the US, but I suppose it makes sense. At the end of the show, some Scottish band called the Wicked Tinkers performed - and he joined in as a drummer. I should get one of their CDs as inspirational music, I think, even if they weren't quite as attractive in their kilts as I intend for the hero of my romance novel to be.

Anyway, I'm heavily revising the opening chapter - I think that I was struggling because the voice at the beginning is so different from what it is later on, and I want to ensure that there's continuity and strength throughout, but it really has to start with a bang on the very first page. If I can clean up the first couple of chapters, I can skip back to fixing the remaining portion of the book, since I'm actually pretty satisfied with most of what I have. However, unless I want to go fully nocturnal, I should really go to bed - sunrise is in less than three hours, alas.

monkeys so naughty, they pretend to be donkeys

If you've never lived in a small town (or rather, outside of a small town), you're really missing out. Spending time at home is reawakening all of the old familiar struggles - part of me wants to 'escape' again and go off in pursuit of fabulous amounts of money, while another part of me wants to take up the ancient and dying arts of quilting, canning, preserve-making, etc. while living in a farmhouse and appreciating the simpler pleasures in life. Call it 'Dior vs. dimestore', perhaps. Thus far, Dior has been winning out (as evidenced by my perfume), but small town living does have its charms.

Then again, 'charms' are in the eye of the beholder. Personally, I had a lovely time at lunch - my parents took me to the tavern in the back of the American Legion hall, where the walls are covered in fake wood paneling, the stuffing is coming out of the decades-old chairs, and everyone in the restaurant talks to everyone else. Case in point - we were joined at our table by the local undertaker, and ended up having a lovely conversation about killing possums. You can tell that possums are a complete scourge in these parts, and people seem to take delight in figuring out ways to kill them with whatever happens to be on hand - just as possums seem to delight in playing dead and then walking away after you've stabbed them with a pitchfork or smashed them with a rock.

At least the funeral home director was talking about possums and not people; and the cheeseburger was delicious, regardless of the nature of the conversation. After lunch, I spent the afternoon researching Regency-period weddings, which increased my desire to spend a couple of weeks in England/Scotland this spring. If I'm going, I need to start making arrangements, but I should really be focused on the book right now. Sigh.

Tonight, I went to a meeting of my secret society - my mother and grandmother are members, and I've known many of the other members all of my life, so it was nice to catch up with some of them. I was initiated when I was a freshman in college, but haven't attended regular meetings because I've been in California - so as long as I'm home, I think I'll go. I can't tell you what happened at the meeting (it's a secret society!), but it was a good time, even if I missed 'Big Brother' because of it.

That's all you're getting out of me tonight - let's see how much writing I get done tomorrow. Goodnight!

fix yourself a breakfast with great american eggs

I finally wrote something! Not that it's time to break out the champagne, but after dinner tonight, I actually wrote ~1000 words (the equivalent of four pages). Granted, if I maintained that pace, it would take one hundred days to write a whole book, and I would prefer to be done in 30-45, so I need to step it up. But, getting started was the hardest part, I think - although stopping to watch Craig Ferguson was v. v. easy. He was great, as usual - my favorite part of tonight's episode was when he talked about how there's no one who's prouder to be an American than he is, but he really doesn't like that 'Proud to Be and American' song - it just makes him want to lease a truck, or buy some eggs.

Anyway, I'm starting back at the beginning in an effort to fix up the seventy pages that I wrote three years ago as part of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Once I've got that done, I can do a quick continuity edit of the next 130 pages, before writing the last half of the book. I do think this can be done in a month, but I can't afford to sit around much more. Then, I can be done with a first draft by the first of May, send it out to some friends/critique people for review, and plot the second one while waiting for comments. Sounds like a plan, eh?

Here's what I did with the rest of my day:

1) I didn't get out of bed until almost noon because I am lazy. In fact, I would guess that of the seven deadly sins, sloth is the one which I most frequently commit (as evidenced by the fact that it has its own label on my blog).

2) I chatted online with Vidius Chandicus twice, which merits her a label on this post. We discussed Danielle Steel's fabulous house (chalk one up for envy), which I will never inhabit if I don't get over my sloth.

3) I had lunch with my mother - I rarely eat bologna in California, but it's one of my favorite things here. Isn't it odd that bologna and steak are my two most frequent sources of protein? Although I guess calling bologna 'protein' is perhaps stretching it.

4) I went to the library. I was going to do some writing there, but they've turned the heat way down to conserve fuel, and even though it was almost sixty degrees today, it will take awhile for the building to recover. So I checked out a few books and came home.

5) I talked to my uncle, who suggested a ridiculous penname - but not as ridiculous as what Vidya and I came up with - Fraulein Swampinathan. It would target both the German and the Indian demographics, which are huge!

6) I had dinner (chili, no steak) with my parents, and my dad brought me a bunch of pink rosebuds. He brought my mother red rosebuds. Isn't he a gentleman?

7) I actually wrote today, which makes it the best day since I've come home. Let's see if I can keep this up!

must not cry...tears will ruin pantsuit

I was rather unproductive today. I intended to start writing, but instead spent too much time researching how long it would take for a post-chaise to go from London to the Highlands in 1815 (answer: post-chaises could probably go 8-10 miles/hour, and it's ~470 miles from London to the area of the Highlands where my book is set - granted, that's on today's road system, I need a map of the old post roads - so I expect that's around 5-7 days, depending on how many hours per day they traveled and how long they stopped for lunch, horse changes, etc.)

The only real highlights of the day:

1) Daylight Saving Time - awesome!

2) Mom made a steak and potatoes variant tonight - minute steak, mashed potatoes, and gravy. Mmm. That brings the official steak and potatoes count up to four!

3) I attempted to write at the kitchen counter tonight, but my father came out and we talked for awhile, which means I can blame him for my procrastination. The conversation was good, though - we hit up several major topics, including the Great Wall of China, Russian politics, and what coyotes eat (his answer: mice, birds, rabbits, and occasionally one of our cats).

4) Craig Ferguson. I love that guy. The title of this post is in reference to his robotic impersonation of Hillary Clinton. Tonight was one of his better episodes - someone pretended to be him while he pretended to be Prince Charles, which I thought was a lovely interlude. He also made an extended joke about Winston Churchill - I think one of my favorite things about Craig is that he makes jokes about events that happened decades ago, and expects his audience to either get it or play along. No dumbing down of the monologue just because he's now an American citizen!

It's bedtime - tomorrow I shall actually accomplish something! I've been home a week, so I need to get cracking.

i want to be with you, will you come with me?

Today was another great day in the heartland. My grandma came over for brunch, and then stayed to watch basketball. I spent some time coming up with a pseudonym for my book (premature, I know, since I have yet to finish it, but I got a gmail account for the name that I think I'll use), and then signed up for all of the Romance Writers of America mailing lists so that I can start getting more info on the business. I also saw a movie with Katie, came home and watched the news with my mother, and then spent the past couple of hours surfing the web.

Highlights of the day:

1) Hearing my sweet, septuagenarian grandmother tell how she beat a possum to death the other day with an ice scraper and a rock. This proves that if we got rid of guns, people would still find a way to kill things.

2) Eating brunch at home - my father's fried potatoes are what started my love affair with all brunch-related activities.

3) Watching Drake University (based in Des Moines) win the Missouri Valley Conference tournament, earning an NCAA playoff berth for the first time in 35+ years.

4) Hanging out with Katie - even if we did end up watching 'The Bucket List'. It was the only movie playing at the theatre in town - and of course it made me cry, even though I wasn't a huge fan (too much depiction of the suckiness of cancer/aging). We saw many of the same people who had gone to the play last night, including several of the actors. We also ran into another high school classmate and ended up watching it with her, which was fun. We then cruised around the square for a few minutes before going our separate ways - I'll have to visit her in Dallas while I'm on sabbatical. Alternatively, I can befriend her dad, although that might be a little weird.

5) Spending FAR too much time using Google Reader. I've subscribed to a whole bunch of blogs by agents, publishers, authors, and readers of romance novels, all in the name of research. And I think it's worthwhile too - but perhaps worthwhile as something to spend half an hour or an hour on, not 2-3 hours or more every day. The beauty of Google Reader is that all of the blogs I like are collected in one place, with an easy way of telling whether they've been updated since I last read them, and so I can stay organized and not mindlessly surf. The dark underbelly of Google Reader is that all of the blogs I like are collected in one place, and I can waste HOURS on it.

Perhaps I'll learn self-control while I'm on sabbatical - or perhaps I'll continue to procrastinate. I also signed up for a subscription to Publishers' Marketplace so that I can see the types of deals that are being made in the industry right now - and which authors are represented by which agents. Clearly I'm interested in the business side of all of this - now I just need to finish a manuscript (or two) so that I don't go back to my regularly-scheduled life as a complete failure. Now, though, I'm going to bed - but first, happy birthday Tammy!

we'll be doin' the hula in bamboola

Katie is, to my delight, in town this weekend - she got a job (yay!) and decided to come up here and get sworn into the Iowa bar before her job starts on Wednesday. In an effort to find something to do, we decided to go to the town play, which just happened to be tonight.

Every year, my hometown puts on a play - the first one was in 1981, and my parents were in it (while my mother was pregnant with me), although they haven't been in it again. The plays tend to alternate between Western musical comedies and pirate/seafaring musical comedies - this year was pirates, which I always find to be preferable. It's held on the stage of the Centennial building - a multipurpose community center housing the library, fire station, city clerk's office, and a large room with a stage, kitchen, etc. that works well for gatherings of ~200 people - plays, Christmas pageants, church suppers, auctions, etc. The yearly plays tend to feature a fairly stable cast, and are always directed by the same three women (whom Katie and I aspire to be someday).

The first fifteen or twenty minutes, while we waited for the play to start, were so-so - I ate a $1 hotdog and $1 nachos, Katie had popcorn, and we both kind of wondered whether we should have bothered. However, it turned out to be pretty funny - there was a character who did some wildly-inappropriate things while wearing a beret and a gold cape, another character carrying a fake yorkshire terrier named Rasputin, and a third character who was completely over the top, wearing a Rastafarian wig and leading a band of preteen pirates. The casting in these plays is always amusing given the dearth of qualified participants (and an occasional excess of not-so-qualified participants) - the use of adolescents to play the pirates was particularly inspired, even if they couldn't sing very well.

So, I'm glad we went to see the play; my town may be dying economically and physically, but there is still enough community spirit to put on a play, which is nice to see. Afterwards, Katie and I cruised around for awhile, stopping at the convenience store where we used to work, and lamenting the fact that we're still not cool enough to know where the parties are. We have plans to see each other tomorrow too, so I'm pretty happy.

The rest of my day was uneventful - I spent a couple of hours working on the plotting of my book, and I'm feeling pretty good about it. I think I have the ending mostly figured out, finally - yes, romance novels are always happily-ever-after, but getting there is a challenge. I'm going to have to start back at the beginning and rewrite as necessary to make sure that things are tight and clean before progressing to the end. Yay! And I must say that if I can't write my book here, there's no point in deluding myself about making a career as a writer in the future - there really are few to no distractions outside of the house, provided that I can stop wasting hours of the day online. Someday soon I'll take pictures for a virtual tour of my town, but right now it's time for bed.

take that, modern anorexic skanks!

Ah, Craig Ferguson. I love that guy. Tonight's post title is in reference to a comment he made after showing a picture of one of the famous Raquel Welch posters from 'One Million Years B.C.'. One of the best things about being in the midwest is that Craig is on at 11:35pm, rather than 12:35am, which means that I can watch him in realtime rather than messing around with Tivo!

Today was another great day in the heartland. I went to Des Moines with my parents, where I doubtlessly looked like I was seventeen - not many twenty-six-year-olds are wandering around Des Moines on a Friday afternoon, with their parents, wearing a fuschia hoodie and sneakers. I also had to top the fuschia hoodie with my pink fur-trimmed down-filled bomber jacket, since it was about 17 degrees outside - it's waaaay too cold for March.

The main purpose of the trip, at least for me, was to buy a papasan for my room - this is the third papasan I've bought in my lifetime, and it's hard to tell whether it will be my last. The first one was in my room junior and part of senior year, until it was destroyed on a fateful Thanksgiving - after partaking of copious quantities of alcohol, four of my freshmen tried dancing in it, and it promptly collapsed. One of them stepped in a freshly baked lemon cake that was on the floor nearby, and in my hangover-induced hunger/poor judgment the next morning, I ended up eating the cake around the footprint. Yum. The second papasan survived until last year, when I gave it to Julie (who had been involved in the demise of the original papasan) - that papasan met a similar fate less than 24 hours later. However, this papasan should last for the long haul, and I anticipate many fun book-plotting sessions while relaxing in it over the next few months.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful; we had barbecue for lunch and hamburgers for dinner, so the steak count remains flat for the week. However, I did get to have Starbucks at a SuperTarget in West Des Moines, so that was exciting. Also, Katie called and is in town for the weekend, which means we're going to hang out tomorrow. I also talked to Vidya online (which I suppose means she gets a label), and exchanged text messages with Oniel during the brief time that my phone actually worked while I was in the city. And, I spent a couple of hours tonight working on my novel - still no writing, but I'm feeling much much better about the ending, so that's great. Now, though, it's time for bed!

One last thing - since San Francisco was labeled 'city of sin', I need a new label to denote Des Moines. Any ideas?

if you've never stared off into the distance, then your life is a shame

While I still haven't started actually *writing* anything (boo), I did spend a substantial portion of the day *thinking* about it. I have my official membership credentials to Romance Writers of America, which means I have access to all of their online archives...which means that I have a lot of industry-related articles and e-books that I can read in the name of 'education', which is a stellar guilt-free type of procrastination. Some of it was quite interesting, although the economy makes me nervous since any serious downturn could affect book sales.

However, I'm going to try to ignore the business side of the book for awhile and focus on finishing it first. Happily, I had a breakthrough tonight with my hero - I was having trouble figuring out why he wouldn't want to be married, and I didn't really want to do the whole 'former love jilted him, turning him off of marriage' thing because it seems so forced and cliched. I think I've figured out what his deal is, and while it may still be absurd, at least it's character-driven rather than just a convenient plot twist.

The downside is that, in order to make this work, I really need to rewrite the first hundred pages or so. That's actually fine, since the first half of what I currently have is weaker than the second half and could benefit from some change. So I think I'm going to work on rewriting the beginning before I move on to finishing the middle and the end, since I think that will lead to a more cohesive manuscript and make it easier for me to finish the damn thing.

In other news, we had some shrimp teriyaki stirfry tonight, breaking the steak streak. Never fear, loyal readers - I'm sure there is steak in the v. near future. Perhaps not tomorrow - but I'm going to Des Moines tomorrow to do some shopping, which should be fun. Now, though, I'm going to go to bed - my father says I have to be ready to go by 10:30 tomorrow morning, and since I haven't gotten out of bed before 10:30 since getting home, that could be a challenge. I love being unemployed!

we expect her gone for some time...i wish her safe from harm

Tonight I was sitting at the kitchen counter, eating a steak-and-potato variant for the third straight supper (Jen C - I'll put up a counter in the next few days!), when the topic of my romance novel came up. Here's a snippet of the conversation:

Me: My characters fight all the time.
Dad: So he doesn't 'slip into her wetness'?
Me: [pause] Well, yeah, he does, but not yet.
Dad: Well they're surely not fighting then, are they?

For those of you who wondered if it would be awkward to write a romance novel in my parents' house - it's more likely that they will make me feel uncomfortable (and get a laugh out of it) than that they will feel awkward about it at all.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful - I've unpacked most of my stuff, except for my books and some clothes, but I'm waiting on shelves for the rest of it. I guess that means that tomorrow, I have no choice but to start writing, and not stop until I'm finished. Scary, eh?

I'm also realizing that I'm going to have to come up with some new labels for my blog posts, since the old ones (such as 'city of sin', 'family time', 'slogging', and 'vidya') are becoming less applicable day-to-day. Watch for new ones to roll out as I think of them, but I think that 'parental antics' is going to become a more common one in the coming months.

Finally, I'm going to post my favorite music video ever - only John will think this is worthy of posting, but the rest of you will just have to deal. Gavin Rossdale and his ridiculous, widow's-peak-accentuating haircut are gorgeous, as are the special effects of the electrical current and the smashing spheres. 'The People That We Love' may not be one of their most famous songs, but it holds a special place in my heart, and makes me sad that Bush broke up. Yes, I'm still living in the 90s. But, coming home will do that to you - and as Katie discovered, my musical taste hasn't changed all that much in the past eight years, so it's not like I can go 'back' to listening to Bush, the Goo Goo Dolls, Counting Crows, etc. - I'm already there!