November 2002

So It Begins

This weekend, I really enjoyed myself! Saturday day was the You Did It LARP where only seven people showed. So, we aborted the LARP and all of us when out to dinner. Then, Ted ran a short downtime session for a few of us where Holly's fear stimulus got stomped on in a major way. She'll be having nightmares for weeks. *laugh* Ted is a great GM. I enjoyed the twisted little scene he pulled.

Then, Yony and I planned a small bonfire for Saturday night on the Great Highway beach. It's the only beach that I know of that allows bonfires. We started out with just Yony, me, GregE, David and Jaffa. I swear, these guys totally got into it and over did things in a great way. I was thinking some music and a few toasted marshmellows... oh, and a bit of alcohol and that would be that.

No dice. We had hot chocolate with a camp thingy that heated water for it, a home made cobbler that they cooked in the bonfire in a dutch oven thing and we even had a metal table to set things on. It was really cool. Inkubus Sukkubus was the chosen music for the evening and I think it was well suited for the mini-celebration of Halloween/All Saint's day that this bonfire was.

While the guys did the manly thing of building the fire, I left to talk with the ocean and complete my Ritual of Release. That time I spent speaking with the Mother Goddess and Father Spirit was well worth it. It was like a glass of water being emptied, cleansed, then slowly refilled. I don't know how long I was there, drinking in the energy. It was so worth it. Not all my fears, pains and jealousies were banished but... a lot of weight was lifted from my shoulders allowing me to relax.

And relax, I did. Woo-boy, did I. Officially, alcohol is not allowed on the beach, but I wasn't going to let some petty rule stop me. Besides, I had Yony and Greg to look after me should something go awry. It's awesome to have those people you completely trust to care for you when you aren't at your best. I indulged in my rare once every 6-9 month inebriation-fest that I indulge in from time to time to remind myself why I don't normally do so. Let me tell you, the headache I had the next morning was a good incentive not to do it again soon.

Later in the evening, Robert, Albert and Rosy showed up. That was a lot of fun. I only knew Albert and Rosy from LiveJournal. It was neat meeting them in the flesh and chatting with him. Albert is so adorable. 18 and as fresh-faced as they come. It was cool to talk with him and, of course, embarrass him. *laugh* I don't think he minded at all.

Everything broke up about 3am. Yony and I stumbled in the door a little before 4am. I was asleep on the couch almost immediately and slept hard for 5 hours. Yony's roommate, Costa, is so cool. He completely took it in stride to find me asleep on the couch. When I finally woke up, he tried to be a good host by offering breakfast. I politely declined but I did accept the aspirin for my headache. Yony stumbled out of his bedroom when he heard Costa and I speaking but he wasn't really conscious. So, we sent him back to bed and I headed out to shower and recover enough to go out to see The Ring with Greg.

I drugged myself to the gills before the movie and it worked. Greg and I had a really good time. The American version of The Ring is much, much more creepy and scary than the Japanese version. Honestly. Rich was right in that. However, I think the Japanese had a better origin story for the horror that was going on. On the other hand, the American version was a lot more contemplative and investigative. I think the presentation was better. Fortunately for me, this movie doesn't have the stick-to-it-ness that other horror films have. So, I didn't have a problem sleeping Sunday night.

An interesting turn of pace has happened between my Mom and I. We have started discussing religion in a nonconfrontational manner. Based on a question in the LiveJournal community, SecularSpirit, I emailed my Mom to ask about rituals we did when I was a child. Back then, we didn't go to church and neither parent was openly religious. Yet, we still had grace before dinner and bedtime prayers. I was curious about this and asked why we did this.

The result so far has been an interesting discussion about my parents past and the conflicts in religion between my Mom and Dad. Mom was Southern Baptist. Dad was disillusioned Roman Catholic. Now, both are born again Christian. Mom has expressed a great disagreement with the Roman Catholic church. I've asked about that now. Next up, I'm going to ask her about her opinion of Judaism since I'm interested in investigating it since what I know of it resonates with me. In a round about way, I'm feeling the waters to see just how much argument I'm going to get into with my parents over it if Judaism really resonates with me.

It has begun. The NaNoWriMo novel dare. I have set myself a goal of averaging about 2000 words a day. So far, so good. Everything is flowing well and I haven't run into any major snags - yet. I'm cautiously optimistic at this point. I give daily updates on my progress on my LJ if anyone is really anxious to know. This is where I am so far.

01 Nov: 2425
02 Nov: 1630
03 Nov: 2053
04 Nov: 2101

TOTAL: 8209 - right on schedule. See you all in a week!

NOVEMBER'S JOURNAL SPOTLIGHT: Neil Gaiman's Journal by of course, the incredibly talented Neil Gaiman. He is on my top five list of favorite authors. I find his journal to be personable, real and amusing. For such a skilled author, he is sure is down to earth. I like that. In honor of the NaNoWriMo novel dare, my favorite quote from Mr. Gaiman. "... Then again, I've not written a novel since I started this journal, 18 months ago, just an awful lot of shorter stuff. When I do start the next book, whichever one it decides to be, towards the end of the year, I may well start posting daily word counts and the 'had a good writing day'/'had a bad writing day' stuff that life writing a novel tends to become. (When writing a novel that's pretty much entirely what life turns into: "House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day." "Got call this morning to say I'd got Nobel Prize for literature. Wrote less than 300 words (285) probably unusable, so lousy day." And so forth.)..."

Tarot Card for the Day: Nine of Swords

Obsessive People

It lives in the shadowed places of our souls entirely given over to the night. -John Baily

Obsessions can be scary things. Not the obsessions about weight or being debt free or even having purple hair. I'm taking about the obsessions that some people get when the focus on someone else.

This is actually really hard to write for me. I'm struggling with how to put what I'm feeling into words.

Three times in my life, I have been stalked. The first time was in 1994 while I was waitressing. Someone started calling me and sending me threatening letters that ranged from "I love you, you're mine." to "Don't you fuck with me bitch!" I remember just how awful I felt having to tell the police officer who came to my boyfriend's house to get my statement and to collect the evidence. How embarrassed and exposed I felt as I had to tell him what was said to me on the phone.

It was the second case of stalking in Livermore and it got the entire police department in a buzz. I was followed home from work by uncover officers who searched for the truck that followed me one night. My father hid in the front yard with a blunt weapon, ready to jump whoever was threatening his little girl. My boyfriend was the first suspect (because "that's usually how it goes") but was proven innocent. After about 10 days of this, all of the letters and calls stopped. The case was closed and unsolved. Whoever did it is still out there. [I have a mild urge to contact the Livermore police department and ask to look at the case file out of morbid curiosity. I think I'll ignore the urge.]

Then, in 1999, I hooked up with a guy I met over the internet. In my defense, I broke it off with him on the second time I met him. Mostly because I didn't have the energy to do it the first time. I was just really glad to be away from him then. However, once I broke it off, he began to stalk me in email and online. I got two threatening phone calls. The first of which amounted to "You remember when I told you I was a Rosicrucian? I lied. I'm a high priest of Satan and I'm going to send my worshippers after you for dumping me, you betraying bitch." The second one was more of the same plus him badly intoning Latin for a 'spell.' That went on for a few months. It made me drop off line for a while and out of the BDSM scene because I couldn't trust my instincts.

Now... Now I have a third stalker. An anti-fan of mine from Marrach. This is a woman from Florida. About a year or so ago, she got it in her head that I was an awful, evil, corrupt individual who was using Marrach for personal gain. She brought up false charges against me to Skotos management who listened to her as she did /not/ talk about the charges she brought against me and cross examined me about a perceived wrong from the -year- before.

When Skotos management interrupted her, explained that they had looked into that original complaint the year before and found it false and would she please get on with this current set of charges against me, she flipped out. She accused Skotos management of being corrupt and protecting me from justice. Skotos management knew that she was harassing me in ICQ'd and in game and stomped on her, telling her back off and reminding her of the TOS agreement. She backed off from directly attacking me. Instead, she had friends inform me of what she was saying and to start cross examining me on all of the perceived wrongs.

Her harassment of me is one of the main reason I left Marrach as a Storyplotter. Her harassment of me is what got her banned from the game. (Apparently, she wouldn't stop posting crap about me on the forums that deliberately broke the TOS agreement of the game.) I have not spoken to her in over eight months. I have not been a Storyplotter in almost seven months.

In the past eight months, she has contacted some of my friends with cryptic messages referring to me as well as contacted me directly three times. I have ignored every contact. Including the one I got yesterday that said "Hi! Long time no see. How are you? Are you still playing Marrach? :o)"

When I mentioned that she had contacted me again to one of the current Storyplotters, I was very strongly told NOT to respond to her. Apparently, she is currently on an MSN forum talking about how corrupt and evil the Storyhosts and Storyplotters are on Marrach - using me as an example. Apparently, her examples and descriptions of me are quite uncomplimentary. All I can think now is "Why? It's been over half a year since I've been a storyplotter and longer than that since I've spoken to her. Why is she persisting? Why am I the focus of her obsessive hate? What did I do to deserve this?"

Right now, I'm really glad she lives in Florida and I live in California. I don't think she's going to jump in a car and come after me. But, based on the last two stalking incidents, I'm not 100% sure. I don't know what someone who is still obsessing about a GAME so long after she's been banned and still obsessing about a person who hasn't been involved in the management of the game for over half a year will actually do.

Does this sort of thing happen to other people and I don't know it because no one is talking about it? Or, is there just something special about me that makes strangers decide I'm their angel/anti-Christ? I just don't understand. It makes no sense to me at all.

I'm struggling with this situation not because I'm worried (too much) about this woman in Florida. I think she is a sad, sad person with a pathetic life to be still obsessing about this. But, more over, I'm struggling with it because I want to try to make sure it doesn't happen again. Next time, I might not be so lucky. It might not end with phone calls, emails and police reports. It might end in a much more horrible manner. I just don't want to go through this again. I don't want there to be an "again" to worry about. I've been far too lucky with these situations to date. I don't want my luck to run out.

(I'll write about the NaNoWriMo dare next time. I just wanted to get this off my chest.)

Weirdness

There are good things going on for me right now in the writing arena. First, I've talked to the editor of Campaign magazine and discovered that the Hucked Tankard Tales have been picked up for all of 2003. I'm pretty darned happy about that. They really like me and they are getting good feedback on my stories. Also, Games Unplugged has officially picked me up as one of the their stable of reviewers. That's pretty neat, too.

The novel writing is going well, too. No far, no major snags. Though, I'm getting through all of the story bits I have in my head and I'm not quite sure how I'm going to wrap things up. Also, I need to do some scenes from the male protagonist's POV and not just from the female protagonist's POV.

The one main thing I've learned about novel writing so far is that it doesn't have to be done all at one time in one huge chunk each day. I take littler bites. Just 300 words here. 500 there. 200 there. Before I know it, I've made my 2000 words for the day, often going above it. It's much easier for me to write and think in those terms. One bite at a time.

04 Nov: 2101
05 Nov: 2800
06 Nov: 3001
07 Nov: 2005
08 Nov: 4000
09 Nov: 0
10 Nov: 2985
11 Nov: 3062
Total as of today: 26,062

I'm now just over fifty percent done with the dare and very confident of finishing the 50,000 words. I just don't think I'm going to finish the story in that 50,000 words. I already know there's a lot I have to go back and do, add and describe but all that will come in the editing phase.

Das kittens are proving to be quite the handful. Scully has started attacking me for petting the other two. I think she is trying to protect them from me. Yony spent about an hour and a half with me on Sunday petting the kittens. Skinner was definitely the most approachable (though, the stinkiest - someone peed on one of my coats). He just pretty much went to sleep on Yony and only got upset in transport.

Mulder was more interesting. He didn't hiss at me but when Yony went to take him from me, he freaked out and I ended up with all of his pointy ends dug into my chest. Oh, ow! I had to sit and calm Mulder for about ten minutes before he would unclench from my busom. I have a nice array of kitten scratches on my bust now. But, the transfer to Yony wasn't too bad and pretty quickly, Mulder calmed down and enjoyed the petting.

When Yony wanted to see Scully, I let him come to the back and get her himself. Actually, it was really quite impressive. He did get swat at but after about 10-15 minutes of stare down and slow motions, she reluctantly let him pick her up. She spent the next 10 minutes growling at every motion and occasionally hissing. But, she did relax, slowly. She didn't even protest too much when we transferred her to my lap. But, it was pretty clear, she reacts much better to males than females. Just like Skinner and Mulder were calmer with me than Yony.

However, when I went to take her back to the kitten area, she turned once more into the grumpy kitten that I know and love and promptly slashed both of my hands and took a chunk out of my right wrist - which is now looking like an ineffective, spastic person tried to commit suicide and failed. *ow* Ah, well. At least, I know there's hope. I'm just going to see if I can get an extra week with them. I think that will help.

There's some weirdness going on with me right now. I'm not sure what to think of it. It started about four maybe five days ago. I was listening to Inkubus Sukkubus. I don't know what song I was listening to, but it mentioned the phrases "the burning times" and "burning at the stake." Every time I hear the word "burn" or "burning" I get the creepiest feeling washing over me. It starts at the top of my head and rushes down my neck into my spine.

It happens every single time I hear that word. In songs, on TV or in general conversation. It's gotten to the point that, sometimes, the sensation ends up feeling like someone is squeezing the inside of my lower spine. It's hard to describe just what I'm feeling... these odd sensations. Just thinking about it is making me tense up and I don't know why. It just feels like something bad is coming. Really bad. Maybe burning/fire is the just a metaphor but I don't know. This is a freaky thing to go through.

Maybe I'm just reacting to my anti-fan. Maybe I'm just nervous about the government being all Republican - the last time we had that, it was the McCarthy era and we all know how much fun that was.

NOVEMBER'S JOURNAL SPOTLIGHT: Neil Gaiman's Journal by, of course, the incredibly talented Neil Gaiman. He is on my top five list of favorite authors. I find his journal to be personable, real and amusing. For such a skilled author, he is sure is down to earth. I like that. In honor of the NaNoWriMo novel dare, my favorite quote from Mr. Gaiman. "... Then again, I've not written a novel since I started this journal, 18 months ago, just an awful lot of shorter stuff. When I do start the next book, whichever one it decides to be, towards the end of the year, I may well start posting daily word counts and the 'had a good writing day'/'had a bad writing day' stuff that life writing a novel tends to become. (When writing a novel that's pretty much entirely what life turns into: "House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day." "Got call this morning to say I'd got Nobel Prize for literature. Wrote less than 300 words (285) probably unusable, so lousy day." And so forth.)..."

Tarot Card for the Day: King of Wands, Inverted

Status Update

Status: Fried...
Number of days consectutively worked: 14 - I would just like to say... "Groo."
House: An utter disaster area. *sigh*
Number of pounds gained back: 5 - Vending machines are not a dieter's friend.
Number of movies/events missed due to work: 4 - *pout*
Number of words written in the last 7 days: 20,000+ - Go me! *faceplant*

I had the strangest dream last night. One that is really sticking with me. I woke up feeling like someone had downloaded their entire adult life into my head. It has me itching to write their story.

I remember the opening scene. It was of a young woman in a mountain tunnel fleeing a raid from a neighboring tribe. I got the impression that all of her people lived in this mountain and were very low tech but intelligent with a complex belief system. The scene was just of her running like a gazelle, being pursued.

Then, I was bombarded with a series of images and concepts - Her captured by the rival tribe. Her sold to merchants who turned out to be from off world. Her sold as a feral pleasure slave to offworlders. Her realizing that her world was the usual hunting grounds for slavers and that they would never stop. Her escaping and joining a slave rebellion. Her meeting a man from her tribe. Them in a desparate battle to free their people from this slaver threat. The realization that it could not be done.

Finally, I was shifted back into 'real time'. She and the man were deep within their native mountain of their home world. Both were bruised and bloodied. Their offworlder clothing in rags. He wrapped a dirty braided rope around his wrist and hers, binding them together in their people's custom of marriage. "I love you. From this world into the next."

She clasped his hand in hers, squeezing it and repeated. "From this world until the next." She touched buttons on the large device next to her. "Our people will never be slaves ever again." The timer began counting down from ten. The two of them began to kiss tenderly. For an instant, they were silhouetted by a blinding pure white light then, they were vaporized in the nuclear explosion that decimated the entire mountain range and could be seen from space.

That is where the dream faded away... with the image of these two people kissing who thought it better to kill their entire race rather than have them subjected to the horrors of the slavers. Too many questions come to mind. Why not attack the HQ of the slavers? Why did they feel it necessary to kill their people to save them? Was it part of their religious belief system?

I really want to explore and write this story up. But, it leaves me feeling very sad because the end story is not a happy one. It is one of great sacrifice and sorrow.

I have my iBook laptop now! She is Princess or The Princess. I took her to Dana street yesterday after working. I'm still getting used to all her bells and whistles but she does everything I want her to do and it makes me very happy. They are going to be seeing me more often there now that I have her. Bohemian Princess Author, here I come!

Writing on Regresser's Evolution is going very, very well. I'm in the home stretch of both the novel and the Dare. Less than five thousand words to go. I'm really proud of myself for working so hard on this novel and dare and for getting as far as I have already. It's going to be fantastic to have the first draft of a -manuscript- to edit and add to.

11 Nov: 3062
12 Nov: 3508
13 Nov: 2430
14 Nov: 4030
15 Nov: 1295
16 Nov: 3325
17 Nov: 2351
18 Nov: 2100

Total to date: 45,101! *CHEER*

NOVEMBER'S JOURNAL SPOTLIGHT: Neil Gaiman's Journal by, of course, the incredibly talented Neil Gaiman. He is on my top five list of favorite authors. I find his journal to be personable, real and amusing. For such a skilled author, he is sure is down to earth. I like that. In honor of the NaNoWriMo novel dare, my favorite quote from Mr. Gaiman. "... Then again, I've not written a novel since I started this journal, 18 months ago, just an awful lot of shorter stuff. When I do start the next book, whichever one it decides to be, towards the end of the year, I may well start posting daily word counts and the 'had a good writing day'/'had a bad writing day' stuff that life writing a novel tends to become. (When writing a novel that's pretty much entirely what life turns into: "House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day." "Got call this morning to say I'd got Nobel Prize for literature. Wrote less than 300 words (285) probably unusable, so lousy day." And so forth.)..."

Tarot Card for the Day: Page of Pentacles

Word Count: 50104

I have completed the NaNoWriMo Novel Dare! I'm ecstatically happy about this! It turns out that I averaged 2500 words a day for the twenty days. Not bad. Not bad at all, I say. I would love to do that sort of thing while NOT working a nine to five job. Regresser's Evolution is sitting at just over 50,000 words and is almost all dialogue. There's an awful lot of description and scene set up that needs to be added. Also, even as I sit here, I am thinking of other scenes that need to be added to help with the crunchy bits of the story. Still, I'm not going to do ANYTHING with it until early December. It needs to stew and I need to recover some.

However, this isn't stopping the insane author in me from chewing over that dream I recently had as my "next" novel. So far, in my mind, I've dubbed it "Breaking the Chains" but I already know that this is just a temp title. The real title is going to be their religious word for "Thwarting Bad Destiny". The book, I've decided, is going to be written mostly in 1st person POV or 3rd person from the female protagonist's POV. Religion is going to figure in strongly, so I'm going to have to create their relgion first.

I've been thinking about this. What sorts of rituals will I need for a culture that is based on primitive technology but intelligent people? I'm thinking Birth, Adulthood, Marriage and Death as the main rituals. I've already decided that Destiny, Fate and the Afterlife are also going to play heavily into it. On Yony's recommendation, I need to find the GURPS Religion book. Apparently, in it is all you really need to know to create your own religion for a campaign setting. That should work just as well for this novel.

Oh, yes... I did get my article done for Games Unplugged on the new Masters of Dragonlance Art book. I rather liked it. There are a lot of memories tied up in looking at Dragonlance Cover art. I'm especially fond of Stanwick's "Twins" work based on Raistlin and Caramon.

Something that came up from LiveJournal... What's in a name? A lot to me. Growing up, I was known as "Missy." Not because of Melissa or anything like that. It stemmed from a nickname I got as an infant. I don't know, to this day, why I was named Jennifer Lynn then had my family calling me Missy. When I asked my mom, all she said was "Simple. I loved the name Jennifer Lynn but it never suited you while Missy did. That's why you were always Missy to us."

Back then, Missy is who I was. I wasn't Jennifer. I sure as hell wasn't Jenny. Sure, there was always a little confusion in school on the first day when my name was called but very quickly, my teachers understood that I only answered to Missy because I was never called Jennifer.

However, when I started college, I made the conscious decision to be Jennifer. I was in AFROTC. I wanted to be seen as grown up and mature. I didn't want to be Cadet Missy Brozek. "Missy" didn't cut it for me anymore. I wanted to be Cadet Jennifer Brozek. It sounded better on the ears and it fit this change in my life from child to adult. I was Jennifer or Jenn... never Jenny.

There were a couple of years in college when my family would continue to call me Missy, when they phoned or when I was at home, because that's who I was to them. It was a painful awkward time. Jennifer away from home. Missy at home. It really heightened the contrast of who I was when I was away versus who I was when I was home.

Finally, I insisted that I be called Jennifer or Jenn. It was my name. It was what they named me. That was what I wanted to be called. They all now make the effort to remember it but there are slip ups. Heck, sometimes, even I pause when signing emails to my parents. Part of me wants to type "Missy" and part of me insists on "Jennifer."

Since my body decided it didn't want to put up with the nonsense that I've been putting it through for the whole month of November, it put me to sleep for eleven hours last night. I finally took this as a sign and emailed into work that I was going to work at home today. I need the rest and I don't need to catch the local virus that's going around the office right now.

Because of this, I got to go have lunch with Cynthia. We had great time. We really did. Much to our mutual relief, something that we each have been feeling towards another person we both know, we ended up discovering that we weren't only ones. [I know that last statement is confusing but... I know what I'm talking about.] We've both been feeling pretty crappy thinking that we were being mean/uncharitable because of feeling so uncomfortable around this person when they haven't -done- anything bad. They just -feel- really wrong to both of us.

I really hope I get to spend more time with Cynthia and Will. It's really nice that they live in Fremont and I don't have to drive all over the place to get to see them or them to drive all over to come see me. Plus, we have lots in common and I love be able to show people around town.

NOVEMBER'S JOURNAL SPOTLIGHT: Neil Gaiman's Journal by, of course, the incredibly talented Neil Gaiman. He is on my top five list of favorite authors. I find his journal to be personable, real and amusing. For such a skilled author, he is sure is down to earth. I like that. In honor of the NaNoWriMo novel dare, my favorite quote from Mr. Gaiman. "... Then again, I've not written a novel since I started this journal, 18 months ago, just an awful lot of shorter stuff. When I do start the next book, whichever one it decides to be, towards the end of the year, I may well start posting daily word counts and the 'had a good writing day'/'had a bad writing day' stuff that life writing a novel tends to become. (When writing a novel that's pretty much entirely what life turns into: "House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day." "Got call this morning to say I'd got Nobel Prize for literature. Wrote less than 300 words (285) probably unusable, so lousy day." And so forth.)..."

Tarot Card for the Day: Two of Wands

Happily Purring

On Friday, while I was at work, I got a call from Sydney. Seems she had six bottle fed kittens that had graduated to solid food and were ready for a foster home. Was I interested? Six?? Oh, um... holy Toledo... Then, she mentioned I didn't need to take all six. *whew* So, I chose to take three of them. I picked them up Sunday. My goodness, are they cute! Just a handful each, maybe seven weeks old. All ears and eyes. Also, although they are from the same litter, they are all completely different in look and personality.

First, we have Ivanova. I can't tell if it is a he or she. I'm beginning to think he but he still has Ivanova's no nonsense attitude. Fierce little one. Loves to wrassle with the hand monster. Orange and white striped with big blue eyes. Just absolutely adorable. Then, we have Garibaldi. He, I'm pretty sure is a he, and is the most aggressive but cautious of the three of them. He likes to clamber all over me and to chew on my finger. He's a black and gray striped long hair tabby with blue-gray eyes. He's also the biggest of the bunch. Finally, we have Talia. The shyest and sweetest of the three of them. She is reserved and playful and loves to be held by me. She will cling to me like there's no tomorrow. It's hard to late go of her. She's a beautiful calico kitty with green eyes.

I brought them home and gave them bathes. I'm not very good at it. They squirm a lot. Afterwards, we spent a long time sitting in the big fluffy towel drying off. These kittens are wonderful! They purr on contact. They play. They explore. They wrassle. Now... if I can just make sure they learn how to use the litter box. They know how. I'm just not sure they are big enough to get into it. I've stuck an old college physics book down for them to clamber on. Hopefully, I won't have any kitten messes to deal with tonight.

On the writing front, I think I finally have an idea for the final story in the Doll series. Not a moment too soon. I have less than a week to write and polish it. Then, I have to decide if I'm going to keep on writing with the same character in a new series as a full submissive in the House. We'll see. Actually, I have an erotica piece called Hall of Mirrors that I really want to get to. It's an erotica holiday ghost story that I thought up last year around Christmas time.

NaNoWriMo really awoke the writer in me. I've already started on the prep for the next novel I will be writing while Regresser's Evolution is stewing. This new one, I'm currently calling Breaking the Chains, based on my dream Sacrifice, is going to be written fully in first person or 3rd person from the female protagonist's point of view. I spent some time with my friend Monte working out the religion of the story since it's going to play a major role in how my female lead acts and reacts. Now... if I could just get her to tell me her name, we'd be in business.

I really would like to shift my schedule to a half-time QA, half-time author. It is a wonderful dream of mine. Maybe, someday.

I will be spending Thanksgiving with my co-worker Hans' family this year. Hans' parents are professors at Stanford, so they have a tradition of taking in 'orphans' on holidays and celebrations. It sounds like it is going to be a very good time since I'll know a number of the other 'orphans' who will be there like Rosy and Yonatan. Of course, Hans and his cutie-pie brother, Albert, will be there. I'm sure there will be other orphans I know but I haven't heard who else will be there... not to mention the whole Andersen clan.

I'll be making my Mom's sweet potato pie from scratch as a contribution. I've never made it before. So, I'm a little nervous. The recipe doesn't look too hard. I just need to get all of the ingredients. I'm also pondering bringing some homemade fudge. I found the recipe in the cookbook Mom gave me last year. It looks pretty easy, too.

Hmmm. I know I'm going to be doing all the cooking on Wednesday night but it now occurs to me that I really should do the grocery shopping before then because the day before Thanksgiving, the stores are going to be a zoo.

NOVEMBER'S JOURNAL SPOTLIGHT: Neil Gaiman's Journal by, of course, the incredibly talented Neil Gaiman. He is on my top five list of favorite authors. I find his journal to be personable, real and amusing. For such a skilled author, he is sure is down to earth. I like that. In honor of the NaNoWriMo novel dare, my favorite quote from Mr. Gaiman. "... Then again, I've not written a novel since I started this journal, 18 months ago, just an awful lot of shorter stuff. When I do start the next book, whichever one it decides to be, towards the end of the year, I may well start posting daily word counts and the 'had a good writing day'/'had a bad writing day' stuff that life writing a novel tends to become. (When writing a novel that's pretty much entirely what life turns into: "House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day." "Got call this morning to say I'd got Nobel Prize for literature. Wrote less than 300 words (285) probably unusable, so lousy day." And so forth.)..."

Tarot Card for the Day: The Fool

Turkey Day

Thanksgiving Day was eminently satisfactory. There was some minor personal drama that I really don't need to go on about here and now. So, I won't because the goodness of the rest of the day over shadows it.

The day started out with me working on Doll #5 - The Closet. I'll admit this story, while in my head, is having a really hard time finding its' way to the page. I'm coming down to the wire on this particular deadline. I knew writing this story in November was going to be tough. I just didn't know how tough. However, any day that can start out with erotica and kittens can't be all bad.

Thinking of kittens, Yony came over to play with my feisty little trio and help me clip their front claws. That was actually a pretty painless process with two people doing it. My skin is much happier now. Talia, of course, wrapped Yony around her little paw without even trying. She played with him, pounced on him and purred on contact. As did Ivanova - who decided to go take a nap in the middle of all the excitement because I had Yony over during naptime and she just didn't care anymore. Garibaldi made a valiant effort to stay awake but was amusing in his efforts to keep his eyes open.

A couple hours later, after Yony had gone home to change and pretty up his cake, I had a true sitcom moment. It was about 5 minutes before I needed to leave to meet up with Yony again to carpool to the place of the feast. I did my hair in a half up-half down and put ringlets in the bottom half. I was wearing my long-sleeved burgundy velvet shirt. I looked in the mirror and I looked -good-. It was a "Cat" moment (from Red Dwarf). "I look goooood!" *pause* "I still look goooood!"

Then, I looked down as Talia mewed at me. "Momma! Pick me up and play with me!" She was so cute, I couldn't help myself. I scooped her up and set her on my shoulder where she purred like mad and attacked my ringlets... That's when I noticed the wetness of her paws and the odorific smell wafting from them. ACK!! I pulled her away from me. She clung on to the velvet for dear life. By the time I got the kitten detached and held at arms length, the damage had been done. Apparently, my dear mess maker had been playing in her water and food (and possibly litter) and had just tracked some lovely, smelly paw prints over my shirt and into my hair.

Oh, whatamess! The shirt was destroyed. My hair gunked in *stuff*. I needed to leave and Talia was saving her life by waving her paws around doing her best cute kitten impression. She even mewed at me. The kitten got set down. My hair was cleaned and recurled, though not in those perfect ringlets. The shirt was changed out of and into a different velvet shirt and I made it out the door in about ten, panicked minutes.

Thus, Yony and I arrived ten minutes late to our destination but we were still the first ones there. It was a little awkward at first but our hosts did a good job of welcoming us. The evening was a good one. The conversation and food was plentiful. The mac-and-cheese was divine! As was the turkey. Oh, my. I had never tasted something so yummy. The desserts were spectacular! My homemade coconut sweet tater pie turned out better than I had hoped it would. Yony's rolada was better than the first time he made it. Hans' pumpkin pie was stunning. It was a wonderful spread.

We ended the evening at Hans' place with Albert, Rosy, Hans, Jeff, Lynne, Robert and I all watching the Muppet show on DVD while drinking various bits of excellent alcohol. I had a finger of Drambuie. That was definitely enough. Several hours and six episodes of the Muppets later and I was still feeling very good.

All in all, it was an excellent day spent with good friends, good food and good entertainment. There's not much more that I can be thankful for than that. I hope everyone else had an excellent Thanksgiving day.

NOVEMBER'S JOURNAL SPOTLIGHT: Neil Gaiman's Journal by, of course, the incredibly talented Neil Gaiman. He is on my top five list of favorite authors. I find his journal to be personable, real and amusing. For such a skilled author, he is sure is down to earth. I like that. In honor of the NaNoWriMo novel dare, my favorite quote from Mr. Gaiman. "... Then again, I've not written a novel since I started this journal, 18 months ago, just an awful lot of shorter stuff. When I do start the next book, whichever one it decides to be, towards the end of the year, I may well start posting daily word counts and the 'had a good writing day'/'had a bad writing day' stuff that life writing a novel tends to become. (When writing a novel that's pretty much entirely what life turns into: "House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day." "Got call this morning to say I'd got Nobel Prize for literature. Wrote less than 300 words (285) probably unusable, so lousy day." And so forth.)..."

Tarot Card for the Day: High Priestess, Inverted