1. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother's & father's middle names)
Loretta John

2. NASCAR NAME: (first name of your mother's dad, father's dad )
Harold Rex (hmm, I like that)

3. STAR WARS NAME: (the first 2 letters of your last name, first 4 letters of your first name)
Smalic

4.DETECTIVE NAME: (fav color, fav animal)
Red Spider

5. SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you live)
(I refuse to reveal my middle name)

6. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd fav color, fav alcoholic drink, add "THE" to the beginning)
The Blue Rum and Coke (Is it just me, or would this almost never work?)

7. FLY NAME: (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name)
Alth

8. GANGSTA NAME: (fav ice cream flavor, fav cookie):
Cookies & Cream Snickerdoodle

9. ROCK STAR NAME: (current pet's name, current street name)
Bubba Christensen

10. PORN NAME: (1st pet, street you grew up on)
Pumpkin Putney

Down with a nasty cold these past few days.  Wonder if I can get away with blaming my lack of NaNo progress on that?

Tonight was an odd experience.  After Virginia was called for Obama (by CNN) I figured that was it; with the Pacific states (minus Alaska) he'd have it, and all that was left was the acceptance speech.  I wanted to be around other people to celebrate, and I was in a jubilant mood, so I went down to the local tavern for a drink.

What I forgot was that, I live in a (red) rural town, albeit on the edge of a major (blue) metropolitan area.  So while all the people my age or younger both voted, and voted for Obama, the people that were at the bar were older and more conservative.  So I was with a bunch of Republicans crying in their beer while I felt like celebrating.

I ended up at one point sitting next to a woman I know who I'll call Jane to protect her identity.  Jane is a 35-40ish woman who recently joined the armed forces so that she could pass her GI bill education benefits on to her kids.  Sad that this was the best way she could think of to help her family, but I respect her for serving our country.  Jane felt disenfranchised because Obama won, and I said, "well these things go back and forth," in an effort to be gracious and to empathize with her, since I'd felt so disenfranchised when Bush was elected twice.  Then, Jane was talking about what she'd heard of Obama, and her fears that he might be a Muslim plant to subvert the nation and her fear that the US would "lose its sovereignty" by participating in the UN.  I kept silent, again in an effort to be nice.

Then Jane expressed her opinion that Palin was "great" and a "very intelligent woman" and I tuned out. 
 
Eventually all the McCain-Palin supporters went home and the 7 of us left in the bar were able to be happy that Obama won without fear of offending anyone.

After all, one of the rarely-invoked rules of bars is you don't talk politics or religion.  There's a good reason for that.

I missed McCain's capitulation and Obama's acceptance speeches; luckily I had them recording on my DVR so now I can go watch them.

words today: 1399
words total: 2580

I refuse to let this discourage me.  At this pace (although I suspect writing regularly will eventually make it easier to write more each day) I would still have 25,000 words at the end of the month, which is way better than 0 words.

The writing in longhand thing does seem to be working.  The only potential problem is that I tend to edit as I transcribe.  I'm pretty happy with it considering it's a rough draft.

Excerpt:

It wasn't that she didn't want to talk to her brother, Rialla reflected, blowing smoke rings in her sanctuary.  It was that she didn't want him to see her, really see her before she left home.

She lounged on a pile of plump cushions in her secret tower room, her refuge.  When she'd first discovered it years ago, it had merely been another secret room, down another secret passage in a palace that held many such places.  But over time she had made it more her own.

[snip]
...it was a good thing she had such a simple enjoyment of secrets, because she needed this place now.  The woody scent of the zura tree resin she was smoking would not be an appropriate perfume for a princess's suite.  It was considered bad enough that, in the words of her aunt Siriae, her personal study looked like a zura den.  It wouldn't do at all for it to smell like one.

The combination of the zura smoke and her safety from well-meaning but nagging advisors combined to release the tension and pain from Rialla's head and neck.  Here, she could be alone long enough to think, or rather to escape from her constant thought and worry long enough to relax and hope a solution would come to her.

1087 so far today, for a grand total of 2268.  Wrote that out longhand in a notebook, which seemed to help me avoid pausing to look things up or get distracted by teh intarwebs.  Downside is, my hand got tired.  But now I've transcribed what I wrote, and the hand seems recovered, so I'm going back in for another session.

I always thought I was more of a libertarian, but I guess not.

You are a Social Liberal (75% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (18% permissive) You are best described as a: Socialist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also : The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Yes, still procrastinating.  But I am going to start writing now.

NaNo and web trawling

I really ought to set a limit on my morning web wankery, or I will never get anything done on my NaNo (as I didn't yesterday).  Yesterday I spent 3-4 hours on the web (I've become addicted to fivethirtyeight.com, among other sites), then went to the library and grocery store, then walked over to a friend/neighbor's house.  When I came home, I was a bit inebriated, which is never as conducive to writing as I believe it will be beforehand.  So, no writing yesterday.

TV

I have given up on Fringe.  I had high hopes for it, since I love LOST, the other Abrams show.  I should have considered myself warned when I realized how derivative the premise is: I mean, it's pretty much X-files with an overtone of terrorism to make it fit current fears.

Guess what?  It's derivative.  But even that alone wouldn't have been enough to turn me away.  It has a great cast who play interesting characters.  The problem is the writing: the characters are forced to do things that are inconsistent, and the dialogue is often cringeworthy.

The Ex List got canceled, to which I have a mixed reaction.  I was annoyed that the show so often depicted the main character changing her persona and life to fit the guy she was dating that week.  I was also pretty sure that the best-guy-buddy-who-has-a-girlfriend was going to end up being The One, so it was kinda predictable.  But I liked the group of characters who were the heroine's friends, and it was funny, and I held out hope that Bella would get a backbone and stop turning into a swooning idiot for every guy that came along.  Anyhow, now I won't be stuck slogging through the drivel in hopes of a payoff.

Still watching: My Own Worst Enemy (improved greatly in the last episode), Heroes (doesn't have that sense of urgency and wonder that the first season had, but I'm sticking with it for now), CSI NY and CSI (Lady Heather is coming back again?  Oh well, at least the show has a semi-positive depiciton of some kinky relationships, which is more than most shows), House (the twists in the ongoing characters' lives are never what I expect), and my reality staples--Survivor, The Amazing Race, and Celebrity Rehab.  Top Chef is coming back soon, too.

Politics

It still amazes me that McCain and party are advertising in my ultra-blue media market.  And that they're still harping on Rev. Wright in their ads.

I worry that I am getting overly optimistic because of fivethirtyeight's coverage, which may be slanted blue.

I hope the "cell phone effect" is less chimeral than "the Bradley effect."

Other Randomness

I had a dream that QEII of Great Britain died, Prince Charles ascended to the throne, and immediately called for the abolishment of the monarchy's few remaining vestiges of power.

I am obviously making this post longer in order to procrastinate on my NaNovel.  So I'm stopping here.

There's a great piece on Barack Obama in the 10/22 issue of TIME magazine.

My favorite bit comes at the end (emphasis added by me):

Today's the first day.  At 1181 words so far, one scene completed.  That's not quite up to the daily goal of 1667 yet, but I'll write more later today.

A fun scene, even if it's a bit clunky.  Wondering if third person focused is really my best bet, but first person will reveal too much too soon.  Anyway, it's normal to have doubts and wonder if I'm Doing It Wrong.  The point of NaNo is to ignore those doubts and write anyway.

Also came up with a working title for the novel-- "Augur"