Today’s Random Babbling

Today’s Asshole Award goes to the driver who nearly hit me while I occupied the center of the crosswalk in front of Clinton Street Theater. That would be illegal in the state of Oregon even without a crosswalk.

On a more cheerful note, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) continues, and I have reached 46,750 words so far. The goal is to complete 50,000 words in the month of November. I’m not worried about completing this goal, but the catch is that much of the novel is still in outline form. I anticipate this will be at least a three hundred page novel.

Here’s an excerpt:

Locking the deadlock, I sensed something other than my cat waiting in the stretch of hallway behind me. I turned around and faced my great-great grandfather glaring at me, hands on hips. He was short and thin and had a tan complexion, balding black and grey hair, large black eyes, and a sharp nose and chin. He wore a white kurta and a dhoti and a pair of granny glasses. I saw through him, since he was a ghost.

I hoped that when I moved to Portland the ghosts of my ancestors would have stayed behind in St. Louis, but unfortunately they followed me across half the United States and frequently drifted around my apartment.

Also, I highly recommend the film Last Call at the Oasis, about the global water crisis. It’s already started. Visit takepart.com/lastcall. Also, before I was nearly run over, someone handed me a flier for a screening of a film called An Inconvenient Tooth (at the Mission Theater on Tuesday November 20th at 7:30 pm, if you happen to live in Portland). The flier is damp from rain.

National Moron Behind the Wheel Day

Yes, today, November 13, 2012, is officially National Moron Behind the Wheel Day (NMBWD).

When the highway ramp has the prominently displayed and bright red “Form Two Lanes”  sign on, that means that–gasp!–the traffic is supposed to form two lanes. It does not mean form one line. Nor does it mean that when the one driver who actually knows how to drive in the state of Oregon makes a slow and cautious attempt to squeeze in next to your (gratuitously large and gas-guzzling) vehicle, that this is your cue to nearly sideswipe that vehicle and suddenly go forward and occupy the very center of the ramp. No, it means form two lanes.  Furthermore, it means that when the above-mentioned driver is attempting to follow the rules and drive next to you, move over.

And one more thing: don’t drive (particularly in lighter traffic) as though your car is a butt-sniffing dog.

Remember: Form two lanes.

Election Day Dreams

I woke from a dream in which a young man is meeting a young woman (alone on a grassy knoll) and notices a big blood stain on her white cuff. He asks about it, and she matter-of-factly explains it’s the blood of her dead boyfriend. She wears the bloody shirt as a memento. He wore a brown leather or pleather jacket over a similar white Oxford shirt, and next he holds up his arm and shows her a bloodstain on his cuff, not as visible thanks to the jacket. He explains just as calmly that this is the blood of the person he just killed. They’re so blasé throughout the whole dream.

 

Earlier, I had a dream in which Mitt Romney was using a large hypodermic needle to inject poison into his political opponent’s ankles while they slept.

Day 4 of NaNoWriMo

This is National Novel Writing Month, and from about 11:15 to almost 5 pm I worked on my novel at a lovely old house (duplex, really) with several other writers working on novels…and with a huge fluffy black cat. The cat was very friendly and walked up to everyone demanding attention. I even picked him up, and he lay in my arms purring. But I digress. I wrote 3,000 words in one day! The goal is about 1600 a day, so I nearly doubled it.

I drove straight from the writing house to In Other Words because I lead the Feminist Discussion Group on the first Sunday of every month. I got rather distracted in the back room. I am wagging my tail, panting and drooling over the two big stacks of donated books. They’re from Jean M. Ward, a retired professor from Lewis & Clark College. We definitely need to use “Donated by” book plates.

Beginning to Read A Casual Vacancy

I’ve read the first thirty-five pages of A Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling, and so far it’s been a bit of an ordeal. It has many characters, so many I’ve started making a list, and I don’t connect with any of them. A part of me is surprised that her first adult novel isn’t fantasy fiction; instead it’s mainstream fiction about an English town full of malicious conflict. On the other hand, if you’re an extremely popular author who made a fortune off movie rights, then you can afford to write in whatever genre you feel like.

Meanwhile, in Portland

Today I wrote fifteen pages of my NaNoWriMo ( http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/dashboard) novel… and later voted at a ballot party in a pub.