One of Those Days

Waking up today was a bit rough. I'd had a long night on a sleep number bed (yuck) and fighting with the heating system in my room which seemed to regard being set for 70 degrees as instructions to continue pumping over-heated air into my room all night. My alarm went off and I was so deep in sleep that I was completely disoriented. Yet, I got myself up and out of bed, only to notice that the sun was coming up. Fayetteville is surprisingly pretty at sun-up.

I was putting on my clothes, giddy at the bright pink dress I was planning on wearing, when there was a knock at the door. Standing there was my sweet and diminutive presenter, near tears.

"Is your hot water out?"

"I haven't checked... What's wrong?"

"Oh..." she said, lip quivering. "I went to iron my suit and when I opened the closet, the iron fell out and hit me in the head." She lifted up her bangs to show a growing red lump on her forehead. "Do you have any Tylenol or Advil?"

I rushed to my first aid ziplock to find her something all the while thinking, how is she going to do the whole seminar if she has a concussion? Should I take her to the ER? I doled out some Advil and told her she should just rest for a bit before going down to the room, but she had no intention of doing that. I told her I'd be about 10-15 minutes, as I was only half dressed.

Upon arriving down at the meeting room, I saw my presenter looking forlorn and talking to the banquet staff person. Another day, another failed room set up. The room looked nothing like what it should have looked like and the next 10 minutes was a constant shuffling of tables and seting up, in which I managed to jam my finger against my tech case, jarring my fingernail in just the right way to cause intense pain. Finishing up the set up, we heard the speakers and just about broke down, as they sounded about as bad as I've ever heard.

I went out to set up the reg table and heard a massive crash behind me. The hotel staff had dropped a big stack of glasses, shattering them. The vacuums came out as the first participant arrived, half an hour early.

Now, the hallway is so cold that I can hardly stand it so I'll be spending the day in the back of the meeting room which is a tolerable temperature.

The good news is that my paperwork is done, I've got my to-do list, and best of all, it turns out that Fayetteville is cute enough to go wander around in. Plus, I have it on a good recommendation for a restaurant not far from where I am (thanks Lisa!). I'm in my 47th state. I get to have Memphis BBQ for dinner. I'm going to be in Vegas in two days.

AND there's an awesome thrift store here. Cheap Thrills. I got a purse and a necklace that scream VEGAS!! Things are looking up.

Breaking the Girl

Seattle never ceases to remind me why I want to come back. Over the last week it was amazingly gorgeous and after spending lots of time with friends and family I just can't wait to be based back there, to have my own apartment, and just actually live somewhere... and have the energy to do things while I'm there. I managed to do a few fun things: a spa day, the Stranger's Valentines Bash, some serious shopping, a haircut, my taxes (yay return!), and some food dates with various people, but all in all I really just slept, read, and disconnected for the entirety of last week. It was glorious.

I have never wanted to stay home quite this badly. But I'll manage this week as I pick up Oklahoma and Arkansas (46 & 47 respectively on the quest for 50), and then it's off to Vegas for the weekend with some other PM's. It's a three-week stint and a three-dress wardrobe for me this time, but I'll manage as long as I can find a laundry somewhere towards the end of next week.

Boredom apparently is my middle name, but it's time for me to hunker down and take care of myself for a few weeks (excepting the Vegas 36 hours of course!!). Don't expect exciting blog posts from Fayetteville, AR.

Circadian Rhythms

Life moves in cycles. A high energy week gives birth to lots of blog posts, creating new hobbies like "perfectionist packing," and coming up with exciting activities along the road. Those weeks usually give way to great weekends, then onwards to horrifically exhausted weeks. This is one of those weeks.

NOLA was a blast (and maybe I'll manage some real content on it in a day or so), but this week I'm crashing at 9:30pm and crawling out of bed at 6:45am. We have two crappy hotels this week too, which makes life just all the more depressing after the FABULOUS Westin in NOLA (yay hotwire!). My presenter has made it known that she likes finding fun things along the way, but there's just no way I want to "find" anything for her. Two reasons: 1. Pure exhaustion on my part and 2. She's about as interesting as a doorknob and has made some vaguely racist/classist comments. Basically, coming off of last week were I had a real connection with my presenter and had an amazing time, I'm just not interested in putting in any more time and effort with this lady than I have to. So it's time to get dinner alone, curl up with a good book, and recoup some of my introvert energies.

P.S. Yay for Tom Robbins and the ubiquity of book stores on the road. I'm only 10 pages into "Jitterbug Perfume" and I'm already amused.

Hitting the BER Wall

Five more months...

It's a long time when you think about it. The problem that one runs into with working a crazy schedule like mine is complete and utter burn out. Sleep deprivation kicks in, time zone changes start wearing on you, and the sight of one more pathetic hotel breakfast buffet turns your stomach. I was ready to get back on the road again after the holidays, but for whatever reason, I didn't ever manage to adjust to the central time zone. Six hours of sleep a night was a good day, and soon enough I was living on caffeine. I can manage this lifestyle for a week, but that's the limit. I need to find a way to make it through to the end while being able to enjoy myself still.

The worst part of all of it though is the pressure of weekends. When I'm home, I want to do everything. I want to go to yoga, I need to get my laundry done, I want to see friends, I want to get my hair cut by my favorite stylist, I need to repack, I want to repack oh so perfectly, I want to go out and have a beer for a friend's birthday. But instead I tend to mess it up--the haircut appointment, arriving too late for a class, falling asleep suddenly (for once) at the most inopportune moment after flopping down on my bed for 5 minutes.

Having two lives is ridiculous, yet that's what I've got. I have on-the-road me, who simply lives out of a suitcase and deals with the same routine day to day, splashing in some fun little excitements as much as I can along the way. Then there is at-home me, who really just wants to relax, but has all of the minutia of a real life to deal with: opening mail, doing laundry, running errands, renewing car tabs, seeing people I don't get to see regularly any more... etc. etc.

It's almost more exhausting being home than being on the road. This wouldn't be the case if I didn't have to fly trans-continental every single time I came home. But even when I fly to Chicago or Texas, I end up leaving before 11:30am on Sunday. Luckily, this next weekend I'm in New Orleans, and while that doesn't sound like a restful weekend to some... it's going to be full of long, sleeping-in-all-day mornings since we have three whole days to play and a swanky hotel to live it up in. AND I'm not going to lose three hours and gain them back again. I might swap one hour back and forth, but that's nothing. This is why stayovers are crucial to my life, and yet a hindrance to it. The following weekend, I get to pray that my car passes an emission test so that the tabs can be renewed, since this is the only time I can get to it.

It's an interesting life, and one that you have to be prepared to plan ahead for. Luckily, I'm looking forward to finishing up in May and starting out anew on a path to figure out what will come my way.

It's a Love/Hate Relationship

I love my job when everything just flows: my packing is just right, I have a direct flight and get to talk to a fun person, and the routine becomes a comfortable and reliable rhythm in my life.

I hate my job when every other aspect of my real life gets submerged: haircut appointments become hard to manage, doctors appointments are impossible to get to before February, and the simplest basic scheduling issues on a weekend become semi-catastrophic because I'm only in town 36hours.

...but I'm going to great places soon enough: Allentown, DC, NOLA... And I'll be back to a normal life by July. Gotta enjoy the crazy while it's here.

Before the Boarding Door Closes

Thoughts before boarding in O'Hare:

• Today was not the day to mess with me. I have a short fuse after being super exhausted (which no amount of sleeping 12 hours a day seems to fix), and having a lack of hot water in the morning and a heating system in my hotel banquet room on the fritz (for the second day, after they insisted it was working) definitely did not help. Don't ignore my 50th plea to fix the thermostat. Don't take 15 minutes to get to my request every time I ask while you insist you must lock me out of being able to touch the damn thing. Don't get defensive when I point out that a 30 second adjustment is all I'm asking for. Because you will pay for it with a verbal tounge-lashing resulting in me getting my way.
• I don't throw the hissy very often, but turns out it works. Like gangbusters.
• I still don't really get Chicago.
• I still don't get how people SUCK at going through security. Really, you had 15 minutes in line and you're just NOW emptying your pockets? Put it in your laptop bag, your coat pocket, a pocket on your rolling bag. Take out your laptop and hold it so you can put it straight in the bin. Untie your shoes if you're not wearing slip ons already. Take off your coat. Pull out your liquid ziplock. If there's no line, take your time... but with a 15+ minute line, you owe it to everyone else to figure it the hell out.
• Did I mention I'm grouchy today?
• Grouch Grouch Grouch Grouch Grouch Grouch Grouch Grouch
• Why won't people who clearly have been removed from my life stay removed? Not helping my grouchy day, buddy.
• They should have left this place an orchard.
• I'M COMING HOME FOR TWO WHOLE WEEKS IN TWO DAYS OH THANK GOD FOR CHRISTMAS BREAK I AM SO HAPPY!!!!!!!

A Historical Jaunt in Hartford

From time to time I get a presenter who urges me to go out and do something during the mid-day segment of the seminar. For the most part, this means I go work out, take a nap, or walk around the surrounding area so that I can stay close to the action in case things take a turn. However, the Hartford Hilton was taking great care of us (turned out, there wasn't much going on yesterday and performance reviews were coming up for the staff making them really energized to help us) and there were some things in town that I wanted to check out. The state capital building in Hartford is probably one of the most beautiful that I've seen throughout this journey, and I wanted to be able to actually take a picture of it. Also, Samuel Clemens' family home is located in Hartford (the site where he penned Huck Finn and most of his other popular books), and my english major soul was demanding that I go.

With all that in mind, I made sure to wear something appropriate that morning:

(Camera resting on a park bench by the capital building in Hartford...)

Wednesday's Outfit:

• white and purple long-sleeve v-neck t's, Target ($5 each!!)
• grey cardi, Old Navy
• black pencil skirt, Ann Taylor
• black belt, thrifted
• grey and black herringbone tights, target
• black flats, Mee Too via DSW
• shell earings, Hawaii souvenir

The layers and heavy tights kept me warm while very comfortable and didn't make me look so dressed up that I'd feel extremely out of place at a museum. The flats allowed me to walk around the park surrounding the capital building a bit, and wander through the Mark Twain museum as long as I could. I love my new tights by the way... I have another pair to show off soon as well. I didn't pack any dress pants this stretch on the road because a) they take up too much space, and b) they get baggy-saggy really fast and stop looking nice. So I made a target run on Monday to get tights to add to my wardrobe, and of course found 30 other things to get as well... Thus the new tops.

Yay tights!

More Photos:

The capital building was gorgeous in the filtered sunlight of the day. The photo doesn't even come close to doing it justice.

Larry and I posing in front of the Mark Twain house (which happens to be across a lawn from Harriet Beecher Stowe's house... American lit of the mid-1800's evidently has a stronghold in Hartford, who knew?!)

I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside the Mark Twain house, but it was spectacular. The woodwoork, the stenciling, the furniture, the mantelpiece, the conservatory/"jungle", the billiards room where Sam Clemens wrote so many of his greatest works... and everything done up and decorated for christmas. It made me feel a bit voyeristic, but this was a guy who would have LOVED the attention we give celebrities nowadays, so I consoled myself with that fact as I stood mesmerized by everything in the house.

Of course, the consequence of having so much fun yesterday is that I am exhausted today. A nap it is!

Breaking from the Break

{Written in the Atlanta airport yesterday, and posted when I finally got internet access.}

As it turns out, flying cross-country is actually more relaxing than my breaks in town. It’s like being forced to read, sleep, and relax for 4-5 hours. Sure the airports are hell (Atlanta is pretty ridiculous today especially) but when you factor in the numbers of “events” I cram into a week, especially one involving Easter, it’s a bit much. I went over to Pullman to visit my sister with my mom for Mom’s weekend then had multiple lunch and dinner dates, a work meeting, and rock band sessions and even a couple of parties to fill the rest of the week… Sheesh. I drove almost 750 miles in my car over the course of the week I think... but crisscrossing the state and having friends both north and south of the city will do that.

I have to say, I like living restricted to what I have in my suitcase and carry-on bag, my room has so much superfluous crap in it everything just explodes out and all over when I’m home, since I try on about 4 outfits before leaving the house. It’s also nice to be fully allowed and encouraged to wear the same outfit every day on the job. I’ve tried packing a larger suitcase for multiple different reasons, but unless I have a 3+ week stint on the road one of these days, I don’t think it makes sense to pack that much, since 2 weeks in the same clothes doesn’t end up getting that stinky. This week is great, since my suitcase is set to get much lighter after this weekend when I deliver Maureen’s wedding gift. I’m planning a shopping trip post-weekend, the only question remaining is whether I’ll stock up on nutritious foodstuffs, or outfits from Target.

I almost missed flying over that week... quick, somebody snap me out of that! Ahh... Thanks Delta, delay my flight and make me remember why there's no place like home.

Busy Busy Busy Bee

So I've been definitely feeling less than exciting lately, at least as far as this blog goes. I've gone to Niagara Falls, hung out with great folks (both co-workers and old friends), and visited NYC for a night of crazy fun all since whenever I last posted. I've completed knitting my first pair of socks, finally finished reading another "classic" I'd never been assigned, and this week am in the process of picking up states 35-38. All this while working 11/12 days and experiencing some fun airplane delays and border-crossing dramas. Luckily, I'm fine, everything is still rolling smoothly, and I'm still luckier than most when it comes to travel. I think it really comes down to the fact that sometimes I stretch myself too thin.

How many hobbies do I have? How many projects am I working on while planning fun jaunts around various towns? How many friends am I trying to keep up with via texting, facebook, email, IM, and scarce phone conversations? How come I'm still confused why I'm tired?

Penny for Your Thoughts

Six cents worth:

1. Who knew central Pennsylvania was so beautiful?

2. Is it really a compliment when your presenter says he likes that "you drive fast but not carelessly"?

3. I've acclimated. Fifteen degrees is no longer cold.

4. It's amazing how magnificant my own bed seems once I've been on the road more than a week, even though the hotel beds are sometimes so much better appointed.

5. McDonnalds coffee is not much cheaper and definitely not better than Starbucks coffee. And when I ordered, the girl couldn't fathom someone ordering a latte without a flavor.

6. Driving sometimes requires caffine. Sleeping requires a lack of caffine. This is how one becomes sleep deprived.

Immunity and Impunity

Turns out my cold might have been a flu, but after coping with feeling horrible from Thursday through Monday, I managed to beat whatever was keeping me down by Tuesday night, just in time for the fun to begin. Working with a bug keeping you at about 25% of your capacity is pretty wretched though, especially when you have no other option. I had to register people and do all of the AV set-up and tear down, regardless of how sick I was. It was something I knew going in, but I didn't realize that I'd be getting a flu over the course of the year. Flying on Sunday turned out okay since I got to talk my way into the Economy Plus section of the United flights I was on. Turns out threatening to need "constant access to the bathroom" due to a flu gets you some kind of respect. Might have to try that again later on. :)

The good part of my job is that I can just sleep all morning once the morning announcement is out of the way. So if I do it to start off the day at 8:30, I can sleep at least until 1pm if not 2pm. That's how I managed to get better, no thanks to my presenter refusing to offer to do a day's worth of driving... At least he cut me some slack and let me go sleep rather than insisting I be out front all day. He's actually really laid back, as was my presenter last week, so I have been very lucky in that. It's nice to be able to sleep through your work day, even if you have to get up and drive 2-3 hours after the seminar.

Since I'm driving, I was able to snag a side trip to the state of Delaware (as seen above). We were going from DC to Cherry Hill and I got off the turnpike for a mile to get to the University of Delaware so that we could take a picture. So that's another state checked off the list! I've also had same cities with other program managers this week so I've had fun hanging out and getting good food with different people my age. We have a great instant camaraderie on the road since we all know what the other one is going through. We gab about presenters and other program managers and just generally have a chance to relate to someone who is not hotel staff or a teacher. Teachers... ugh.

This weekend, I'll pick up another state and travel to Vegas for the first time with a whole crew of present and former program managers! Should be a barrel of laughs and debauchery... I'm so excited!! :)

The Days Get Longer

Here’s a clearing house post, to make up for the fact that last week, while I had a great presenter I was stuck in a part of the country that made me want to beat myself over the head. No offense to the better parts of the Midwest, but I have to say that Indiana, Toledo in Ohio, and Michigan definitely qualify for “fly-over state” status. Anyways, I’ll give you a run down of things I’ve been thinking about:

Job Satisfaction

At some point in every job I’ve ever had I’ve lost interest. Maybe I have career ADD. I’m good at pushing through for defined periods of time though, something that has helped me with any class I’ve ever taken. Luckily, this job is extremely defined. Two more weeks and I’ll have the first real Christmas break I’ve had in a long time. Maybe that’ll help me wake up at 6am and actually almost care about what I’m doing.

Because in fact, waking up at 6am has become a process of dread. Every day I know I will face people who will not be satisfied… people who rudely refuse to fill out evaluation forms with only 4 questions, people who are insulted that you cannot solve all of the problems that they themselves should have checked on, participants who rudely insinuate that I’m insane to be doing this job, hotel staff that either move like molasses or go so far over the top to be nice that they cant get anything done for all their graciousness. There are plenty of folks who are nice, but it’s hard sometimes to put up with all of the crap that gets thrown my way… especially when I’m in places like Detroit or Toledo where there’s nothing to be done outside the seminar.

Luckily, this week I should be able to go traipsing through Phillidelphia and drive down to the lovely little part of Long Island that another PM and I found last time I was there. Then there’s Chicago… and man am I looking forward to that. It’s going to be great fun to wander around town with KAL, just being low-key but seeing a great city. That’s what I love about this job, and what I just can’t do in Toledo or Detroit—getting out and investigating cities. Detroit’s hotel did have a water park, but considering it had only one slide and I was the only guest in the entire park, it was just awkward.

The Future

It’s the thought of indefinite periods of time spent working a single job that grabs me by the throat and throttle the will to work out of me. That’s what happened with my last lab job… and what I fear will happen once this job is over. I don’t know much more now what I want to do than I knew before. All I know is that I don’t want to spend an exorbitant amount of money on grad school unless I know that it will be worth it. Debt has always scared me and I’d managed to avoid credit cards entirely until now (but those reimbursement checks cover all of that anyways), but to pick up debt in this economy without a clear method of paying it off scares me.

The state of the economy also scares me. What does one do when things are heading towards a depression and there’s no clear career path to head down? I think I need to start working towards a position that can become a career, because I need to be able to build into a promote-able position… but not knowing which direction to go in bogs me down.

In fact, I want to make a plea of anyone who actually reads this. Sometimes people outside of the situation have the clearest sight of the situation. If you don’t mind, I’m extremely curious what any of you see me doing as a career. Please leave a comment… Do you see me in a suit running business meetings? Do you see me back in a lab coat? Do you see me with a reporter’s notebook? Anything would be helpful.

NaNoWriMo

No, I did not finish. I got 60% done, and then realized I needed to rewrite a section of over 800 words as well as write all of the sections that I had not really thought out. Once I got bogged down in feeling sick and not wanting to eat, writing completely lost its excitement and I fell far enough behind that I couldn’t manage to continue. I’m going to try to get the story finished, and the plan is to push for Christmas. It’s horribly terrible in my opinion, and I’m at the point where I hate every word of it, but I wanted to do this, so I’m going to finish it. That’s what I do, complete assignments.

Christmas

As far as Christmas goes, I’m really not feeling it at all this year. Considering I don’t really feel a spiritual connection to the holiday, don’t really feel excited about spending it with family, and pretty much hate the present aspect, I wonder how I make it through every year. Many of my friends are going to leave town around the holidays too, which makes me sad since I finally have time to spend with them.

However, I don’t think I’m a scrooge anymore since I don’t mind that other people enjoy Christmas and I’m happy to try to make their holidays more fun. While I exempt myself from the cousin gift exchanges because I don’t want it to become my aunt buying me a present and my mom buying my cousin a present, I do like to give gifts. I just don’t like feeling forced to do it all at once along with the rest of the world and honestly I really appreciate giving little thoughtful things more than big all-out extravaganzas. Plus, I’m trying to get better at accepting gifts with excitement.

One thing I think I’ve realized is to ask for different things, no matter how much it feels odd to request things out of someone else’s generosity. I don’t want clothes (unless you’re getting me silly socks, underwear, or Christmas pj’s just for fun), but I like getting accessories, especially scarves and mittens and the like (anyone who hasn’t heard of it should check out Etsy.com for fabulous homemade things. If shipping doesn’t work out in time, I’m always a fan of getting a photo of what is headed my way). I’d love a stash of books to take on my flights, or CD’s/iTunes gift cards to entertain me. I’ve already got a decent book list in my archives on this blog, but as for CD’s, I’ll try to fill in a list at some point (although new bands I might like are always appreciated, I’m into slightly folksy music lately a la The Submarines and The Weepies). I also told Mom that I want stuff I hate buying for myself: makeup, perfume, gift cards for treatments like pedicures, haircuts, facials, or massages. Also, no matter how picky I am about coffee now, I’d still love the international coffee currency (ie a Starbucks card).
______________________________________

So that’s that for now. I’m somewhere over the Dakotas on my way to Philly right now, connecting to Manchester, NH (if only it was England!!). I’m hoping to beg the Shuttle driver into driving me to town since I’m going to be lacking a car. Hopefully more posts will happen this week as I can feel the weight of crappy Midwest hotels and grouchy participants lifting. But expect a nice ranty post about the Newark Holiday Inn… ugh.

Southern (and Midwestern) Hospitality

It may be an outdated concept, but I definitely have been enjoying my couch surfing in the last two weeks. Let me start back a bit, with my stay in Green Bay with KN and her family.

First off, going to Green Bay was surprisingly fun! There were five of us PM's in total, which probably made for much more exciting times than had it just been one of us. We stayed with KN's parents and then met her whole family... a couple aunts, her grandparents, and a brand new baby cousin. Everyone was so adorably wonderful, just like KN herself (we know now where all those fabulous quirks come from!). We ate way too much, drank quite a bit, and enjoyed wandering around Lambeau and taking in the sights. It was all terribly fun while being completely relaxing, which helped since I had a very stressful plane ride immediately following.

On my connecting flight to Pittsburg from Detroit, NWA pissed me off. They never announced that the flight was running late, until 10 minutes after the time it should have left by. Then they refused to tell us how long it would be before we had a plane, and once the plane arrived and we boarded, we sat on the tarmac for over an hour and twenty minutes with deicing and "resolving weight and balance issues" by buring off fuel. It was depressing and horrible being trapped in a plane that long, especially since I wouldn't have needed to eat if the plane had simply taken off, or been deiced... the extra hour on the ground pushed me into really hungry, cranky Ari territory.

And then I had a week with a presenter that slowly sucked the life out of me. He was overly nervous about everything, even his physical appearance was full of nerves. He constantly twitched and fidgeted, constantly prattled on and on about stupid stuff, and was obsessed with stupid things (his hair had to be properly hairsprayed into place and he changed from his black wool dress pants to his black cotton dress pants for traveling so that the wool pants would "hang nice"). A perfectionist beyond belief, he had me packing up all of his displays into very carefully labled boxes which were diagramed so that everything could be put in them perfectly. When he introduced me in the morning to make my announcement he made a bunch of awkward, semi offensive jokes about the company I work for (and he works for...) and then kinda made fun of me as well. His personality was just icing on the cake: he was such an overt attention seeker that his presentation was more about making jokes and showing off than actually explaining the things he was trying to teach. I guess that's what happens when his teaching carreer was only default to his original dream of being a famous actor. A self-absorbed LA'er to the core... the only question he ever asked about me was literally in the last taxi ride as we were pulling into the airport drive.

Luckily, I had a weekend of fun ahead of me, so I made it through working with him with only a few problems (primarily a serious lack of desire for food after too many bad hotel dinners, even when I went all out and tried to have a nice chicken dinner it was dry and gross). Hanging out with MJW & Fiancee was really enjoyable. We slept in late, went to the art museum in ATL to check out a really cool Chinese exhibit, went coat and dress shopping, and headed out dancing later in the night. I haven't had so much fun at a club in a long time... although the prices definitely were right up there at the astronomical level and I ended up getting booze spilt all over my clothes. Luckily, one plastic bag later I can keep those clothes seperate from the mildly clean stuff I need for work.

The best news of all is that I'm going home tomorrow! Laundry and family dinners await, although turkey and all the fixings does not appeal to me yet... I have a car for these two days so I'll be going out to eat at places that are actually decent. Last night I had blackened mahi mahi that was spectacular... along with butter beans and corn and followed by Key Lime pie. I intend to wander around a bit and find somewhere equally tasty for lunch, then enjoy Richmond at dinnertime!

As far as NaNo goes... I'm not going to win. I haven't gotten any further after a lot of stress last week with food and the presenter, and then I enjoyed Atlanta at the expense of my writing time. I'd have to crank out over 20,000 words in this next week, and I just don't feel that I have the energy to do that. Hopefully I can get at least within 10,000 and then polish the story off in the next week or so. I want to print myself a lulu.com copy of the book so that I can say I wrote a novel. It's been an interesting experience thus far, and I'm impressed with how my story has changed over the years (it started as a dream when I was 17) and even throughout the month of writing it. There's a big chunk left to go, mostly back in the beginning, and it's a hard chunk. I have to somehow make a character more believable as well as develop further a bunch of characters in the early stages of the novel before the plot takes over and tests them.

It's not all horrible, although it's definitely not great. I don't think I'd ever attempt to publish this... it's more of an excercise that shows me that I can write a novel, and that I can let this story go. Once it's all tucked away in completion, I'll be able to bring more characters into fullness. I've used this strategy before, writing away something and finding myself finally able to let go of it. Who knows if I could ever actually get published or write a novel worth reading, but as long as I can put this one aside I can move forward right?

Oh yes, for all who are interested: I'm right back to drinking soda, although at a far lower level than I had expected. I'm definitely more interested in iced tea or coffee than diet coke. Perhaps giving it up for that long did make a difference.

Closing In

Closing in on 25,000 words--halfway. I had to take a break due to an exciting weekend in Green Bay and the threat of an impending cold. I'm feeling better and writing again, although I'm intrigued by one thing:

I do some really messed up things to my characters.

I finished beating the crap out of my main character and now I'm forcing one character to accidentally kill his brother. How do I come up with this crap? :P

The Seasons

So I had a week of summer two weeks ago, then a week of fall in New England last week, and this week the trees are bare and I got my first snow flurry! It's fun having things change like that as I pass through.

Some days I don't take a lot of photos because I'm simply trapped in the hotel room or on the way to the airport. It's sad not getting a good idea of a city, but at the same time, I can't do and see everything. My exhaustion this week proves it.

I think I have hit the lull point of the new-job process, where I'm not quite 100% at the job, but it's familiar enough that I relax into it... and make a lot of mistakes. At least it's generally okay to make mistakes in life. I still feel bad when things go funky though.

I had an amazing conversation with my Kelly temp today, a man who grew up in Nigeria and moved to the US and then Canada. It's fun meeting people along the way and suddenly finding myself in deep philosophical conversations.

This weekend I need to do nothing on a grand scale.