( Previous books )

20. Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris -- Book six in the Sookie Stackhouse series. Still enjoying these.

21. The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett -- I love this guy's style. Very funny.

22. Twilight by Stephanie Meyer -- Yeesh...people think this book is actually good? I picked it up to see why everyone was complaining about it. Yeah...it's bad. It took me a year to read it. I'm at my in-laws' house and we're talking about the Twilight novels now. Oh my God...Bella and Edward had a baby? And they did what with it? Now I'm going to have to read more of the novels just to mock the freak show...

Dear Whoever You Are:

Thank you so much for not letting me in today. I really liked how you camped out right by my bumper so that I couldn't change lanes. Also, working on the computer while going 70 miles per hour? What a wonderful idea! I'll have to try not paying attention to the road sometime too. It sounds like a lot of fun.

No Love,
nekosensei

Seriously. I had three people in a row not let me into the middle lane today. What's up with all the jack-tards drivers this afternoon?

Okay, you guys are going to think I'm cracked, but last night, I had a very weird dream that actually made me question whether it was all in my imagination or whether I was honest to goodness talking to a friend that had died several years ago. The person in question was a co-worker who had died in her early forties from cancer. A bunch of us were going to sit down in a small movie theater to watch a show. I turned around and saw said person sitting behind me. She smiled. I debated talking to her because she was dead and she shouldn't be sitting there, but I decided to strike up a conversation anyway. Oh...between my friend and I, there was also this pale looking lady with blonde hair. She's not important now, but she will do something "interesting" later. I said, "hey, long time no see." My friend responded in kind. I told her that I missed her. She said, "I missed you too." Then, I asked her how things "were going up there" and what was it like. She paused, and gestured. It was kind of hard to interpret, but it sounded like either she was having a hard time putting it into words. Something in her expression also made me think that it wasn't necessarily better "up there" but different. Around the time this was happening, the pale looking lady that was sitting in between us started poking at me, trying to derail the conversation. I told her to leave me alone and then ignored her. My friend kept on talking. Some of it she had to mime, yet I could still hear her voice inside my head. It was something to the effect that there was less material stuff, but it was a place full of love. She was about to say more when the pale-faced woman went ape-shit and attacked me. She bit me a couple of times and started throwing up this black stuff up on me. My friend had to pull her off of me. Somebody had to call security to have her removed.

I wanted to finish talking to her some more, but I was distracted obviously. I was also starting to worry where the hell my purse went. And then, doomsey woke me up by coming into the room to get his stuff ready to take a shower. He mumbled something about one of the speakers on his computer shorting out overnight. o_O. I got up, set food out for the cats, and opened up my Facebook page to check on my Farm on Farmville. There was an ad for Audrey Niffenegger's new book-- which I want to read!-- called Her Fearful Symmetry. It's about a woman's afterlife. O_O!

I've dreamt about this co-worker before, and even that dream was a little weird. She also wanted to have a little chit-chat with me, but I was too busy running from something or other to talk to her. I told her something to the effect of, "it's great seeing you, and I really want to talk to you, but I gotta run from that monster back there that's chasing me. See you later!"

Huh...

NaNo Stats: 50,069 out of 50,000. I wrote a joke "rocks fall, everyone dies" kind of ending for now. Later, I'll go back and finish the novel. I have a lot more story to tell about these bozos, but my hands are killing me. I'm getting a lot of pain and stiffness. I need to take a break, and then finish the story at a less break-neck pace.

Hey peeps! Aside from the picture of the day, I haven't done any updates on LJ lately. There hasn't been much to say because I've been so busy doing NaNo this month. (It's been eating up all my free time! Halp!) I do have to say that NaNo is going very well. I'm currently at 41,697 words out of 50,000. Barring anything bad happening, *knocks on wood* I should be able to reach 50,000 words by November 30th easily. I still think I'm going to have more story to write when I reach 50,000, so I think I'll take for a couple of weeks (I've been having some issues with my hand), and do some more work on it in late December, early January.

According to an email from the Chicago NaNo group earlier this month, each year they have a theme. They request that people doing NaNo include the theme in their novels. This year, it was chickens because during the midnight Halloween write-in, someone dressed up as Colonel Sanders and ran up and down the street with a bucket of KFC under one arm. I needed a college prank for my two friends to talk about, and I needed my main character, Ebenezer, to get in trouble for it. (Simon always gets Ebenezer in trouble!) Chickens was as good an excuse as any.

( No actual chickens were harmed in the writing of this NaNo novel! )

Too bad I have a role-playing thing on December 5th and can't make the wrap up party. I would definitely submit it.

I was out taking my picture of the day, and got really lucky. Behold!

* Remember, Remember, the Fifth of November. Sorry...just had to do that.

* I now have 8,834 words out of 50,000 for NaNoWriMo. Yay! I'm also discovering that going back over the stuff I'd written the day before and making changes helps me get in gear to write new material. Anybody else doing NaNo feel the same way?

* Today, I'm thinking of taking a short break from writing and doing a short field trip for my picture of the day. It depends upon how much work I get done this morning.

* I guess that last bullet point means I better get cracking, huh?

* I haven't been able to keep up with LJ or Twitter so much because I've been pretty busy with NaNoWriMo. If anything happens that you'd like me to know about, feel free to point me to an entry and I'll read it.

* So far, I've got 6,859 words out of 50,000. Originally, I had planned to write the story from the point of view of only one of my characters, Ebenezer, but today, I experimented with having part of it told by a second character, Simon. I'm not too sure how I feel about it though, and I think I might end up taking the sections told from Simon's perspective out. Besides, Simon is kind of random, and I get the feeling that it would be funnier for the reader (Hah hah hah! Like anyone's going to read this!) to not know what he's thinking ahead of time when he springs shit on Ebenezer. I'm also not terribly broken up about taking those parts out because it'll only knock a couple of hundred words off my total. I've been writing like gangbusters anyway, and I'm a little bit ahead of where I need to be at this point.

* If there's anybody else I missed out there who is doing NaNoWriMo and who I haven't friended on nanowrimo.org, let me know and I'll add you.

* I'm really happy that I decided to write a comedy instead of some more serious ideas that I've had rattling around in my brain for awhile. I think it turned out to be a far more manageable project for NaNo.

*Oh hey! Look at the time! It's late! Time for bed, people!

That is all!

( Previous books )

18. The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White -- Does this count? I've never read it before, and I figured that it would come in handy for NaNoWriMo. Writing-wise, it's a very nice, worth while book, and I think I will utilize it a lot next month...literally!

And yes, I did that on purpose.

19. Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris -- The fifth of the Sookie Stackhouse books. I'm still loving this series. My mother-in-law read the first three books and is also enjoying them, so I think I'll loan her books four and five later this week.

* Don't start imitating wolf howls when you're anywhere near emygination's dog, Lucy. She will start licking your face........a lot.

* doomsey and I went out with Sam, Gracie, and their daughter Claire to a new all you can eat sushi restaurant called Yummy Gourmet on Saturday afternoon. Their sushi was slightly better than Sushi Para's and they had much better service. It's also a bigger restaurant and can accommodate more people.

* Saturday evening, doomsey and I saw The Watchmen. Speaking of movies, one of these days I should watch Repo: the Genetic Opera. I've been meaning to see that one for a long time.

* This afternoon, I had a *horrible* asthma attack right before I had to leave for work. I was in a rush to get things done before I left, and I think I did too much running up and downstairs. It ended with me having to take my rescue inhaler. I *hate* taking it because it's a stimulant, and I get very jittery afterward. Then, when the "high" wears off, I feel very drained. On the bright side, at least I'm not drinking caffeine anymore. What I hated the worst was having to take my inhaler after drinking a soda. I would get extremely jittery, so much so that I would hardly be able to write.

* Obnoxious paperwork is obnoxious.

* Will it never stop raining? My pictures of the day last week were boring because it pretty much rained the whole damn week, and I couldn't get outside to take pictures of the fall foliage.

* I thought I had more to say, but I guess not.

( Previous books )

17. Finding George Orwell in Burma by Emma Larkin -- I grabbed this one from the book discussion section at my library. The author, who published this novel under a pseudonym, uses her interests in George Orwell and British architecture as a cover to travel around Burma and observe what life is like for the people living under the military regime. She visits Mandalay, a small village in the Delta, Rangoon, Moulmein, and Katha in order to research her book. In this work, she draws comparisons between George Orwell's career as a policeman in the British colony of Burma, Orwell's novels and short stories, and present day Burma under military dictatorship.

I just got back from the vet. The vet did the ultrasound, checked her blood pressure, and concluded that both were normal. The only changes she saw on her kidneys were related to age. She did say that cats often have decreasing kidney function when they're older, and that it is something that needs to be monitored every three to six months. She also told me that cats can live quite a few years with this.

So...in summary, her values are wonky, but not wonky enough that she needs any medication or subcutaneous fluids at the moment. THANK GOD!!! Kitty cat has to go back every three months or so for now in order to have her kidney levels checked. I also should keep an eye out for any signs that she's got a secondary infection attacking her kidneys (aka loss of appetite, vomiting, and an increase in the amount of pee in the litter box).

My vet also commented about how good cosettemonster was at her office. My sister-in-law has been telling everybody there about how much of a bitch she is, but the techs say that she's really sweet with them. She doesn't bite and she doesn't try to run away either. Maybe it's more a matter that she doesn't like emygination that much. And it wouldn't be the first time that she's taken a disliking to someone. My sister told me that cosettemonster tried to kill her not long after I brought her home; she scratched her across the neck. She claims that my cat never did like her that much. Weird.

Yesterday, my vet was also commenting about how both of my cats are the polar opposite. arwenmonster is a hell beast and needs to be handled with welding gloves. She screams, bites, and claws. Cosette, on the other hand, is a sweet-heart and is very cooperative at the vet's office.

And emygination, if you're reading this, stop dissing my cat at work! :)

I just called the vet. cosettemonster's kidney values are a little wonky. She said that they're not too horrible, but it still looks like she's got the start of kidney problems. She asked me to make another appointment, and I set one up for 4:00pm today. She's going to check her blood pressure to make sure it's not that destroying her kidneys. She's also going to do an ultrasound to see if she has any stones.

Great...just great. :P

Ganked from bottledgoose

( Which tarot card are you? )

Hey everybody! I regisered as nekosensei on NaNoWriMo's website. Is there anybody else out there participating in NaNoWriMo who wants to come join me?