Three Dreams

Well, last night's REM activity was one for the record books.

In my first dream, I was in a house, looking out the back door. I saw these lumps on the ground and didn't know what they were. Turns out they were dead baby hippos. I looked further out and there were a bunch of dead adult hippos lying all over the lawn. Then the house was under siege by some law enforcement agency (police/FBI/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I don't know) because they thought a man in the house had been poisoning all the local hippos. You know, since hippos are local to.....anywhere near me.


(Hippos. From somewhere else)

Next up was a dream where I was having Mad Monkey Love with Brian Urlacher of the Bears. Now anyone who knows me knows that Urlacher is not really my type


(Brian Urlacher. Not my type.)

However, he is a fantastic football player which I suppose has some kind of redeeming qualities to my psyche.

Or it could have something to do with the fact that in my next dream I was on a tour bus with Jim from The Office.

Who totally IS my type except for I never got to ask him if he would like to pokey my hokey because I woke up.


(Jim. Apparently my type but inaccessible.)

So it might all mean that I'm never going to get a guy I consider to be "my type" but will have to settle for Mad Monkey Love with someone who has other redeeming characteristics? Or that I will have to move closer to where hippos are. I really don't know, I'm not good at this kind of thing.

Of Smells and Men

Well, I officially fell way too far behind in National Novel Writing Month. I had about 32,000 words but it's so awful, I have ditched it and am going to revisit it in the new year. I picked a really difficult way to tell the story (1st person from many different people) and it's just flushing itself down the toilet hard. So be it, I had a good - well, ok - time trying.

I'm watching the Bears get kicked lightly by the Patriots. Put it this way - Fox Sports just replayed a montage of the Bears oopsies to the Benny Hill theme music. And Tom Brady broke a Brian Urlacher tackle - which is pretty much like being able to escape an oncoming speeding building. Well, it's not over yet I guess. I didn't have much hope for this one anyway.

So I had a pretty good Thanksgiving - the usual eating to the point of gastrointestinal distress, hanging out with friends and family, sleeping in late (I am NOT one of those jackalopes willing to set foot near a retail establishment on Black Friday) I got to see my quasinephew Alex and heard the new funniest thing a 2.5 yr old kid has ever said. Evidently his dad came home from work one day and Alex ran to hug him, and after a moment pulled back and said "You smell, Daddy." I can't believe he's speaking in complete, totally truthful sentences.

I have the vast majority of my holiday shopping done. Woohoo! Plus about halfway through the handmade projects I've planned. However, I haven't gotten my tree up yet, and my house is a disaster area. I might need to wrap this up and go clean right now actually. I think that's what I will do. Check all yer asses later.

Of National Novel Writing Month and Other Paltry Excuses for Not Blogging

Yes I've been gone for MONTHS. Eons, if you will. All 4 of my fans have bitched me out over this. Maybe there's 6 of you. It shouldn't be that hard to lose count with such a teeny number, but there you go, I never said I was good with math. Or with fingers.

I can't really explain just what drained the blogging spirit from me. It could have something to do with that spoiled brat of a cousin that I referred to before, whom I welcomed into my house and whom my parents did everything they could for, only to discover that she was the It Girl of the Ungrateful Entitlement Generation. And I had to spend 7 days carting her ass around Disney World. Earth-shattering trauma, no. Festering thorn in my side, yes. Thankfully she has left my household for good.

Maybe I had an unconscious desire not to jinx the flow of politics in this country, that flow consisting of a heretofore undreamed-of deluge of GOP good old boys shooting themselves in both feet. No, my Karl Rove voodoo doll didn't QUITE produce a "Money's on the dresser, Chocolate" moment but a veritable Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade of page diddling, mistress beating, and Jack Abramoff-ing was satisfying nonetheless.

Currently, I find myself buried in swill of my own making, brought on by National Novel Writing Month (see link in title) A crazy-ass, unrealistic, psychotic exercise, whose main goal is to produce a 50,000 word rough draft of a novel in 30 days. It is particularly good for "one day" novel writers like myself (as in "one day I'll write a novel") as a means of getting the lead out of my ass and just writing. Quantity is the goal, not quality. My evil Inner Editor has been beaten soundly and taken to the hospital, although the dumb twat still calls me from there with the occasional admonition and snorts of scorn and ridicule.

It has been interesting and sometimes even mildly gratifying to see how I can make myself move a story along if I try hard enough (granted, it moves in sporadic, brief, ugly bursts - rather like an unpredictable case of diarrhea). Conversely, it has been humbling to see what quantities and what depths of utter shit I have been able to produce so far. I have been able to keep pace for the most part (1,667 words per day in order to have 50,000 in 30 days) - you can see my progress in the little icon off to the right in the sidebar. To make things worse, I have stuck myself with a problematic, dark and mostly somber plot, which doesn't really suit my deadpan humor skillz at all. Although last night I DID manage to get in a dig about Meg Ryan and Sandra Bullock movies.

So I still may not be around much in the next month or so, with noveling and then holidaying right on the heels of that. But I do really really appreciate all six of you tuning in and giving me your support.

Toodles,
D