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!