Made it. My word processor says 50,384 words as of 9:15 tonight. When I dumped it into the validator routine at NaNoWriMo.org, though, it came out as 52,293. Evidently they're pretty generous about what they consider to be a "word." Anyway, it was enough to "win" the NaNo this year. It was not, by far, enough to complete the novel. That will be going on for some time yet.

I will have some excerpts for you tomorrow sometime, to more or less wrap up Francis' part of the story so you have some closure. The entire exposition of the complex plot will have to wait until I've rewritten and done a lot of editing, but I do intend to post it somewhere briefly for comments.

Thanks for all the encouragement, everyone. Hoof-claps to corelog too, for finishing NaNo on his first time out. I didn't make quota until my second attempt.

(Oh, and in the midst of getting 5200+ words written today, I managed to prepare dinner for guests, including turkey tetrazzini, home made focaccia, broccoli with hollandaise sauce, and home made lemon meringue pie. In return for being fed, they nicely hauled away a pickup load full of sheep poop that they wanted for their garden. So there is more to life than writing still.)

And tomorrow I don't have to think about NaNo for a while.

Toss a bag of these salt-and-pepper pistachios in his way. It might distract him long enough that you can get away in one piece. :)

Holy cats are these things tasty. While they're not hard to open they're still a bit fiddly and take time to de-shell; you can't just power through them. This is a very good quality to have in a snack food. They taste good enough to be more than worth the effort, too. Heck, they're even decently healthy as far as snacks go.



*pick* *crak!* *nomf* *toss* *pick* *crak!* *nomf* *toss*

The nation of Uganda has recently passed legislation decreeing the death penalty for gays.

more here

You will not be surprised to learn that the bill's sponsor was a member of "The Family", the secretive American Christian fundamentalist organization that is behind many of the antigay initiatives here and abroad. They would do that here in a second if they could.


They want us dead, they won't rest until we're being gassed in fucking ovens. End of story. These people are fucking monsters, monsters. That "national prayer breakfast" shit? All innocuous and benign? they still want gays dead. Dead. As in holocaust dead. That is our enemy.

I’ve always felt that civilised behaviour was generally on a knife-edge. I can remember feeling that at school assemblies when someone would get up there and start talking. I can just remember thinking, ‘Gosh, if a man on a length of wire, stark naked suddenly swung across the stage, what would happen?’ ‘What would happen if I ran up there and stuffed a banana in his face?’ – something like that. I could almost do it. I don’t know if there’s a sort of syndrome for that. But I just felt these people are all playing a certain game, terribly sort of straight and focused, but only inches away from insanity.
– Michael Palin*

Palin is discussing how Python's humor involved the absurd disrupting the mundane. The syndrome he describes - yearning to trangress just because - is felt by more people than British comedians and stunt artists like the Jackass crew. The mob knows this the urge as well, except their indulgence is less amusing.

vee_ecks recently posted a video of "a bunch of tea party fuckers booing down people at a hearing telling their dead daughter's nightmare health care story."

He observes:

...they don't even think it's valuable to pay extra respect to a widow or a sick little kid...Or somebody whose kid or dad died in a war or because the health care system in the US is fucked. Really, you howl and boo at those people, ever? That's appropriate? Seriously, you people are turning into a bunch of fucking animals...you know me and religion...but I would like to suggest that today's American conservative investigate Christianity, which is apparently a religion all about taking care of widows and orphans and sick people and comforting the wounded. And it's really good at making stupid beasts like you nicer. Or so I hear.

The tacit critique is most of these assholes consider themselves as Christian, using righteousness as justification for everything, including ignoring what that's supposed to mean.

I think, however, there's another aspect: Teabaggers as both struggling against and energized by an existential crisis.

( Have they thought beyond a fantasy about some shit going down and some shit working itself out and everything gets better except for the bad guys? Clearly not. )

[Alopex] So first there was this MFF thing that came and went like a whirlwind. Then there was Thanksgiving. Blotch had taken the scenic route through Wisconsin to arrive at our place on Tuesday, so we entertained them and their pups while also putting in a couple day's worth of work and getting ready for the big feast. Brer spent most of his spare time in the kitchen prepping and cooking, and I did my best to help keep dishes washed, the house ready for guests, and generally out of the way of the chef. Kyell and Kit flew in, Derrick dropped by, and Foxfeather and Mbala drove up just in time for the festivities to start. There was much munching and slurping and gulping and aside from the stuffing getting a little extra crisp around the edges, it was a wonderful meal.

Over the next several days, we had much sketchbooking, some Rockbanding, a bit of hiking, and much more drinking. Kyell and Blotch offered a signing special for online orders while they were here. And, finally, after much whirlwind of activities, our household is back down to two humans and two huskies. Laundry is tumbling away in the basement, huskies are eating dinner for two, and Brer and I are back at our computers, trying to catch up.


Thanks to all who joined us and who brought wonderful things to drink.

( A few more choice photos behind the cut... )

So we've been making more proper food lately. Tonight:

Chestnut Soup
Fricasee of Chicken (tomato and red wine vinegar sauce)
Sauteed brussels sprouts with Chestnuts

The chestnut soup was craazy good.

The rules are:

Convenience is the Enemy - we make it from scratch or we don't eat it.
We make Meals. A protein, starch and vegetable
We eat at a table with silverware and not shoveling it in front of the TV or computer
Clean up as you go

It's unlike every time we tend to eat except in restaurants. It's an interesting contrast.

I can't remember the last time a week started so abysmally and ended so delightfully.

Somewhere around Tuesday afternoon I was feeling so useless, so wretched and so ineffectual that I seriously considered walking out of work, going to the doctor and getting myself back on the antidepressants. It got into a vicious circle where the more stressed out I got, the less I was able to work, which stressed me out even further. Things reached a nadir on Tuesday evening when I found myself sitting at my desk at home, feeling positively sick with unfounded meaningless fear.

Then things started getting better and I realised that most of my problem was the combined stresses of overwork, illness, and being rung by the company at 2:30 am to do non-work on non-problems. I stopped doing the overwork, I recovered from the illness, I gave some other poor bastard the on-call phone, I slept ten hours a night for a few days, and the world magically swam back into focus as a tranquil and bearable place.

Then, at the perfect moment, a Party happened, full of people whom I think are entirely wonderful and some of whom, frankly, I love to bits.

Mischa had a good time too. Mischa's a party animal; he likes going around meeting people and soliciting love, which he gets in metric oodles from everybody. But by midnight I was exhausted and Mischa seemed inclined to retire too, so we curled up together on a cushion in a corner. My last conscious thoughts were that I loved my dog, and that I couldn't imagine anywhere else I'd rather be.

Actually there was a bit more of the week to go, but for morale purposes I choose to end it on that note.

Had a cozy little Thanksgiving; just me and the female parental unit. The stepdad was away at the farm, and it's a sad footnote that the house had a warmer feel with his absence. The man doesn't go a long way toward making his presence desirable.

Anyway, I whipped up a sweet potato pie for the event; a first for me, and it went over pretty well. The new Kitchenaid food grinder accessory proved useful for cranberry relish, though I miss the ancient cast-iron manual one, for no other reason than its menacingly wide hopper. You could grind your neighbor's Welsh Corgi into pâté with that thing. Err, or so I'd imagine...

The siren song of Black Friday drew me in, despite my resolute promises to the contrary. I crept into stores after the crowds had mostly had their way with them, got a board game and mostly stared at the smoldering shelves where the steeply discounted stuff had been swept away hours before. I don't know what possessed me to buy a Dyson; perhaps it was the steep discount on an apparently discontinued model, or the fact that they flew off the shelves so fast that I had trouble finding one, and, like a dust mote, I just got caught up in the air stream of its popularity. Whatever; I unpacked and plugged it in last night, and I don't regret a dime spent. There was a carpet under all that cat hair, and here it is again. Cool. This raises the number of vacuums in my possession to a total of ridiculous, for a variety of reasons. May be time for a garage sale...

A compelling story; man sneaks into Auchwitz.
"You wouldn't think anyone would think or do that, but that is how I was. I had red hair and a temperament to match. Nothing would stop me."

By stark contrast, this just made me laugh:

Michael posted his wishlist, a couple people have asked. I always feel a little odd doing this... except I always feel very grateful when I realize someone I want to get something for has a list posted, so I can use it. So...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/3QF8CKX35DJT7


In other news...

I'm afraid Michael and I are both coming down with a cold. And we just had a bunch of people over last night, during prime "you're contagious but don't even know you're sick yet" time.

*sigh*

Boggis and Bunce and Bean
One fat, one short, one lean
These horrible crooks
So different in looks
Were none the less equally mean.

...yes, it is a good movie, and there's no need to discuss details. Very fun. :)

Youtube Nostalgia of the Week



Americans probably won't get this, they were playing The Oregon Trail.

Also, even back in the 80s, Running Shoes cost a lot more than £15.

Stopped this while walking near my old place near the police station:



I was amused by the attempt to be more sophisticated about snitches, but then it occured to me - anti-papist bangers. I expect our alleys will soon be festooned with tags like "eukarist iz just a cracker".

We stayed an extra day to go to Washington on the Brazos, birthplace of the Republic of Texas, and I'm SO glad we did. I showed up for the tour but it was just me, so the ranger and I had a lovely conversation about the history instead. There's so much I didn't know.

For instance, I didn't know that the battle for the Alamo was going on at the same time as the Constitutional Convention. The whole issue had been brewing for quite awhile, with Santa Anna facing revolts all over Mexico and the Texians (as they were called) starting a revolt against his rule some six months earlier. Santa Anna's troops weren't in good condition -- they'd marched up (many conscripts were from central Mexico) and ran into a snowstorm in South Texas where many of them froze.

The Texians wanted to join the United States, but President Andrew Jackson declined to accept the offer (possibly to avoid a war between the US and Mexico?) When the delegates arrived, they elected officers for the convention... and then, the next morning they show up with a constitution. Scholars believe that one of the delegates arrived with a pre-written constitution which was modified slightly and then presented as an original document to the convention.

...and more. I didn't want the conversation to end, but also knew the ranger had other duties. It was an amazing and truly entertaining afternoon.

Today I'm writing, and doing Coyote.

The Maskwood

Finished this loose painting yesterday, based on a collaboration with themaskmaker; you can read my original synopsis (inspired by her story cards) and her response to it here at the Maskwood journal. I really love the loose quickness of the entire cycle: from the story cards to the story idea to the vignette to the painting. I think it has a mystery to it... much like the mystery of art and collaboration itself.

Leaving comments open here in case you want to ask themaskmaker about anything. :)

1. If you see a photographer in public, don't go up to them and ask/demand money for taking pictures. The next person who does this to me I'm going to consider to be a mugger and treat accordingly.
2. If you see a photographer in public, don't put your hand in front of or on the lens as they're trying to shoot, and whatever you do don't try to grab the camera from their hands. The next time someone does this to me I'm going to consider them an assailant and react accordingly.
3. If you see a photographer in public, don't demand that they give you the film from their camera, that's theft and coercion. The photos belong to the photographer; The law is very explicit about this.

For the last year or so, it's been becoming psychologically more and more difficult for me to take photos. Between the above sorts of things, and lots of people going "OMG!OMG! Don't take my picture!" whenever I'm anywhere nearby. It's just not fun anymore, it actually kinda hurts a little to even photograph now. I'm refusing to let this stop me, but photography has become an effort of willpower.

Twice this year¹, I've been physically assaulted. (Yes, reported to the police, people arrested.) So far I've fought my way out of these situations, with only a split lip, mild concussion, and lots of bruises. And I've had several other close calls. I'm really really starting to get a hair trigger in certain situations. Particularity if I sense I'm about to be violated in some way. For many years, I've just shrugged this sort of stuff off, which has always ended up badly for me — probably why I kept getting into abusive relationships. Really, I've got to take a stand to not let people get away with hurting me anymore.

---

¹ Edit: Twice in the past FOUR MONTHS.