I did it!!!!

I did it!!!!

I wrote a 50K word novel in 30 days!!!!!

It ain't pretty. It's actually pretty darned ugly! But it was fun and it's actually really rewarding to FINISH something.

:D

And at the same time I'm starting something... I've been seeing a new boy. He's cute and sweet and quirky and a great communicator - he agrees whole-heartedly with my "better out than in" philosophy. So I am cautiously optimistic.

:D

A New Day

OK, so hopefully today can be a new day.

The sun is shining, my apartment doesn't look like too big of a shithole, and I just don't have the energy to be angry any more. (For now, anyway ;p )

For the record, I really wish things hadn't escalated as they did. I was angry and I vented and a few more people chimed in with their own gripes. Some of it got kind of mean. I regret that.

For the most part, I like to keep this blog positive - there are so many wonderful people and wonderful things in the world and I really don't like to dwell on the negative stuff.

But I got angry and I vented.

Roo and I have exchanged emails and I think we understand one another.

If anything, perhaps it's a good reminder that our actions have consequences. Things we say and do affect other people.

Anyway, it looks like a beautiful weekend ahead. Enjoy!

I Got Your Back

I am extremely lucky.

I have many wonderful friends and a large, loving family.

Some of them I see frequently, others I see rarely if ever.

The one thing I know? They've got my back. Each and every one of them.

And I've got their back. All of them. I've even gone to bat for people who later proved unworthy of my efforts. Repeatedly.

I'm a big believer in second chances. Hell, I've even been known to give third, fourth, and even twentieth chances.

But some people have no concept what friendship really means. They don't have your back. They can not be trusted to stand up for you when others are doing horrible things. They'll stand up for themselves (as they SHOULD!) but you can't count on them to stand up for YOU or for the people who stand up for them.

They take without giving. Without REALLY giving, anyway. Not when giving becomes difficult.

Luckily, I know enough of the warm, strong, loving, supportive, loyal type that it doesn't bother me too much when one of the others proves to be unworthy of my friendship. There are too many positive people in my life to waste time on those who dwell in negativity and meanness of spirit.

Thankfully, the good people in my life far outnumber the bad. So I'm not too worried about those people who aren't worthy of my time.

For all those I love, I hope you know, without doubt that I got your back.

Cincinnati Sushi

So... my mom makes this totally tacky little white trash appetizer that I just love.

Basically, it's a dill pickle slathered in cream cheese, wrapped in a slice of ham and then sliced into little rolls.

She also makes a sweet pickle version that I'm not a fan of with salami instead of ham.

She calls them (wait for it!) "Pickle Rolls"

She's been making them forever and I've never met anyone unrelated to me who's even ever heard of such a snack. But they're standard fare at our house.

So you'll maybe understand my shock - SHOCK - to discover them on the menu at the bar I went to on Friday night.

And they had a name: "Cincinnati Sushi"

Awesome.

November

Ah November is nearly here.

Time for pumpkin pie and turkey and pretty reds golds and oranges.

Time for crisp fall days and cute fall jackets and skirts with tights and boots.

Time to think about gift shopping and holiday travels.

Time for sniffles and warm socks and kitties crawling under the blankets.

Time for nanowrimo!!!!!!

Ah yes, it's that time again! National Novel Writing Month is nearly here!!!!

50,000 words in 30 days.

Badly drawn characters in absurd situations, plot holes, absurd situations, unbearably loooong descriptions of EVERYTHING just to get to that all-mighty word count.

I'm a bit ahead of the game this year, though. I actually have a plot!

It's not a *good* plot, mind you, and I have no clue how it will end, but hey: PLOT!

I am now taking suggestions for silly dares and cameos.

;p

Mother @$%^&*!!!!!

Sigh.

My car was broken into last night.

Again.

Seriously. Again.

This time they threw everything from the glove box and the console onto the seat but didn't take anything except the dashboard coin drawer - with all of $3 in quarters in it.

Sigh.

Since the new parking meters take plastic now, I don't need to carry change in my car. But for pity's sake!!!!!

And there's really not much I can do without actually ponying up for a car alarm.

From a website about Hondas:

A user wrote:It's very hard to protect a 4 gen accord. Most of the time a thief will use a flat head screwdriver to pry the top of the window from the rubber molding enough to get a grip on the window, then all that needs to be done is pull the window out with one hand and unlock the lock with your other hand. You would be surprised how far one of those windows will bend before shatering [sic]..."

Sigh.

So I'm actually considering dropping over $200 to protect a 15yo POS with less than $20 worth of crap in it.

Or I could just let this keep going and hope they don't eventually break my effing window...

Hey! But at least now I know how to get into my car if I accidentally lock my keys inside!

Ships in the Night

More like "Trains in the Day"

I love it when I get a window seat on the morning train and by some mystical convergence in the universe, a south-bound brown line and a south-bound red line train leave Fullerton at the same moment.

The two trains chase each other on their not-quite-parallel tracks. One pulling ahead and then the other for all of two minutes.

And then, just before the brown line stops at Armitage and the red line shoots down into the subway tunnel, the two trains come together so closely that their respective passengers could almost kiss.

I love watching the people in the other train. Some of them asleep. Some of them reading books or newspapers or texting. Some of them staring into space. And some of them, like me, scanning the faces of those on the other train.

And I love it when I meet the eye of one of these people and we both smile, sharing a moment.

Little moments like that make me smile.

:D

Back in the Pool

So B and I broke up tonight.

It wasn't any great shock for me. It had been building for a while. His schedule was becoming an issue for me, as was the fact that I felt he wasn't making enough effort to make time for me. I wasn't feeling like a priority in his life.

The situation was starting to make me feel bad about me and I can't do that. I won't do that. I've played the junior partner in relationships before and I'm not interested in going there again.

It finally came to a head this weekend.

I went to see him - knowing that things had to change... or end.

It was so hard. And remarkably easy.

He knew why I was there. We'd both seen it coming. So, before I could drag out the little speech I'd prepared ("I really really like you - so much! - but this isn't working for me") he told me that he just wasn't feeling what he wanted to feel.

It wasn't what I wanted to hear - who wants to hear that the guy she likes doesn't like her back? but he was honest and kind about it. And it was obviously tearing him up. He was visibly upset at the thought of hurting me.

But you just can't force a feeling that just isn't there.

In the end, we hugged, we kissed, we wished each other good luck.

And then I left.

This isn't what I wanted. It isn't what he wanted. But it's what had to happen.

I'm sad. I'm very very sad.

But I'm not heartbroken. I've had my heart broken before and I know what's that feels like and this isn't heartbreak.

But I'm disappointed. And sad.

But I'll be OK.

Passing

I just found out that a former co-worker died.

We have known for a while that he was ill but no one was able to get any details about what was wrong with him or even where he was.

I personally had a pretty conflicted relationship with this man. On one occasion towards the end of his employment with us, I had to write him up because he was flagrantly insubordinate to me.

This was just one incident in a downward spiral. He had, at one time, been a very jovial, almost too-friendly employee but his personality slowly but drastically changed in the last couple years he was here.

It got to the point that he was no longer able to work.

But once he went on disability, it became more and more difficult to find out how he was doing. He would not return calls from coworkers and HR wouldn't (or couldn't) disclose details of his condition.

Plus, we heard from several of his friends and members of his family that he had distanced himself from them and was not responding to their attempts to reach out to him, either. It seems like he isolated himself pretty completely - and that makes me indescribably sad. To think of someone - anyone - being alone during the end of their life is bad enough, but to know that it happened because they made the decision to push their loved ones away is even sadder.

I'm feeling very numb right now and I just wish things could have been different.

Neverending Story

Sigh.

So my car got broken into last night.

Again.

This is at least the third time.

The part that kills me is that I live in an incredibly boring neighborhood. It's pretty damned safe and boring and quiet and boring.

The first time they stole my GPS.

Stupid of me to keep it in the car, I know. But I figured it was "safe" because I didn't advertise it - it was a handheld one with no mounting bracket or anything, and I stowed it in the middle compartment rather than leaving it or its paraphenilia out on the seat.

But it WAS stupid of me to keep it in the car.

I occasionally do stupid things.

But usually USUALLY I learn from them.

So I no longer leave anything of value in my car.

The second time they broke in, they stole my ipod charger and the earbud for my phone. Seriously? The earbud for my phone???? That's worth about $10.

But some people can't help being assholes. They just have to keep coming back for more.

This time, I'm not even sure they managed to get IN my car. There are pry marks all around my window and a few small gashes in the leather on the door. (I'm soooo thankful they use a jimmy instead of breaking my windows!) But as there was nothing NOTHING worth taking this time, nothing went missing.

I wish this shit would end.

But I accept that there's little I can do to prevent it, short of buying a car alarm for a 15yo POS. So I just protect myself as best I can by not tempting them and not rewarding them.

Maybe they'll get bored and discouraged and give up? *hoping really hard!!!*

Sigh.

I really doubt it. But a girl can dream...

Eye of the Beholder

It amazes me sometimes what people find humorous.

Apparently, nastiness and cruelty and humor at the expense of others is funny to some people. It's even encouraged by some.

Rape, too is fodder for jokes of all sorts.

And violence. Let's not forget violence. That's a laugh riot.

Balls

The other day, Rational mentioned Planters' Cheese Balls.

Do you remember those? They came in a can and were half salty processed cheese, half crunchy puffed corn, half msg, and half pure crack cocaine.

I loved those things. They were evil.

But thinking of them got me thinking of the first time I ever ate them. My brother, sister and I had been dumped at the neighbors' house. For the first time in our young lives we were spending the night at the home of someone not related to us WITHOUT our parents.

I don't remember much about these neighbors. I was nine years old at the time and my attention was on other things: the novelty of sleeping in a waterbed, sitting on the floor in a strange livingroom watching Godzilla movies and eating Cheese Balls and (for once) NOT fighting with David or Jo.

What I've never thought about before now is WHY we were dumped at our neighbors' house. I have a vauge memory of Mom and Dad dropping us off one afternoon with our jammies and nothing else. And then they were gone.

Only now do I realize the significance of that odd sleepover. The year I was nine was the year my grandmother died. I know that she suffered multiple heart attacks over the course of several months (I remember her once showing me the staples STAPLES in her chest)

So, what I remember as a novel little mini-adventure was probably just one of many hellish nights my mother spent worrying whether her own mother would live or die and then making the ultimate decision to pull the plug on all hope of her mother ever waking up again.