ONE YEAR!!!!!?

Can you believe it? A year ago M and I made our first posts. I, for one, have to say thank you to the Typosphere for embracing us. For me, at least, it's so great to feel a part of a community outside my little world.

This year has been a year of up and downs. We've had some awesome memes (cowcasts and the Rhinos), and some sad times (my truck getting wrecked right after discovering Parry's office supplies.)   But it's been a very good year. I'm thankful for that.

A

In which I fall in love with a Lamy Safari

I held off on buying one until the day I found a shop I where I could try it in person. Sure, all you in the typosphere have raved about your Safaris, but I was skeptical. But, the good thing is that you all were right. I tried the Safari, and a week or two later (can't remember exactly), I went and bought my pink one.

Well, it's taken me a while to really tell if I like it or not. Sure, there are quirks that I still done love, like the fact that it's not happy writing in an upright position or that the grip forces me to use that proper position like my teachers taught. But overall, wow. It hangs out in my bag, occaisionally being inverted, and it hasn't yet leaked or gotten messy. It writes well on a plane or on the ground, and doesn't feather (although I'm not thrilled with it in a Moleskine... or maybe it is just the ink.) But yeah. It's awesome. I'm now one of those people who carries a fountain pen with them everywhere, just to be cool like that.

That's all for now. :)

Woot Procrastination

Yup. I have a precis of a paper due in the morning and I haven't started. I haven't even done the research. Woot!

Yay for being a procrastinator.

And sad news in that November is almost over. I need to get the SCSS fixed so I can at least type a page and say that I'm something of a Brigadier.

Okay, rambling is over. Sometime soon, I'm going to do my NaNoWriMo writeup and then we'll go from there...

Thanksgiving Weekend

There was a time when I'd spend Thansgiving writing my butt off for NaNoWriMo. This year, like a few of the years past, I don't know if I'll be doing that. Unlike most of my comrades, I hit 50K and then I stopped this year.

So, what will I be spending my Thanksgiving weekend doing?
The following, and in this order:
A research project on the various high altitude adaptions of global populations
A project examining the effects of the young male population in modern china, and the propensity for revolution
And finally, a project detailing water rights and issues surrounding them and food security in Utah and beyond.

They're due in that order, starting Dec. 7 and one a week after that. And there is a thesis I wrote... yeah, it really needs to be done, and my application for a masters program--my backup if I don't get into medical school this year.

So I just want to let you know that I may not be around for a while, you know? Trying to get all of this done may well drive me crazy, but that's okay. :)

Cheers.

A

Virginia Bird

According to my mother I get my ability to read and write, really read and write, from her mother and her mother before her.  As a little girl I uncovered snippets of information about this long-lost lady of my past, Nana.  The color blue.  Roses.  The most beautiful name:  Virginia Bird.  Dancing in nightgowns.  A love of ellipses.  Colts.  A twin sister.  Homemade bread.  The color of winter wheat.  Bright lipstick.  Bolivia.  Lymphoma.  And impossibly tiny cursive handwriting.  I put away her descriptive legacy for a rainy day, and remained oblivious.  It rained this weekend and I stretched and dragged it out again and began the months long process.  I pored over those crisp and gracious letters and transcribed until my back and neck shouted complaints, but oh, what a story I found:

She finished college with six children in tow.  She spent a night in a truck bed on a ferry floating the Amazon river.  She thought it beautiful, not inconvenient.  She was a world away when her mother died, and she knew.  She called my mother, her surprise, her seventh, Janie.  She wrote about my birth and held me even though it hurt.  She left not long after.  She was a Rodeo Queen.  She forgot her wedding dress and made everyone an hour late.  They honeymooned camping on horseback in Yellowstone.  She sang opera, beautifully.  She wrote letters to her stubborn sons in all caps.  She served on the school board.  She ran away to the library, twice, when she just couldn't stand her kids for one more minute.  Each time she returned bearing picture books.  She did cartwheels in a dress at age 58.  She was lovely.  She was lively.

And I know what I need to write now.

Holy hell what a day.

Okay, it's been a little over a day. And it involved 12,310 words. But I FINISHED! I matched my time from way back in 2007. 17 days. Yay. Finishing like this means I get to check out this consignment shop I've been eyeing...

Wow. What a feeling.

Okay, going to watch my rhino play with his new wings. And to get a real rhino for pictures today!

In which I lose faith in local stationary shops

I went to the stationary shop I always go to to get my letterpress thank you cards. Yeah. Fail. They didn't have them. And the staff were rude today. I'd already gone to one other today, and they didn't have any I liked either. I was even ready to go with just plain cards, not my favorite:


Sadly, I have not found any I like yet. Going to have to figure something else out. :P Going to start looking for other places to shop.

0 word day

You read it. 0 words. Zero. Cero. Trippy, no?

Stuck

Day 10 update.

I'm stuck. I outlined in October and now I can't look at it without getting nervous. that's not a good thing. See, Clemens, your side isn't always better. In the course of today, I've gone from two ideas to do four, the latest involving a merry band of woodland ninjas facing a sock shortage who decide to become pirates. Whoo.

Eight hundred words until I hit 30k. Then I sleep.

The Hump

Eight days in and I crossed 25k. I can do this.
Now, to sleep... perchance to dream... oh wonderful world of new ideas.

Two Things

1.  Best Friend + engagement ring = psychotic phone calls, all sorts of tears, and one serious sucker punch to my well-prepared-yet-still-wussy gut

2.  all you Nanowrimo crazies?  CARRY ON!  YOU MAKE ME PROUD!  (may I have time next year to actually join your ranks)

Everybody! Everybody!

It's November! It's November!

Time to Write! Time to Write!

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!!!!!!!!