mootmom's Journal

Fun-to-watch science silent-movie videos.
And now for this year's token post. :-)

http://www.frogwatcher.com/doctor/

And just because I happen to be related to one of the two "Doctor Doctor" duo is no reason for me to feature these so prominently. I swear. Well... I don't actually swear, I just sort of hope you'll think that. Even if it's not really true.

But they ARE fun little videos! (And if you feel like signing in to metacafe and rating them positively, the duo wouldn't mind that in the least.)

OK, resurrection time.
Oh look, it's a meme.
"Go to Wikipedia and look up your birth day (excluding the year). List three neat events, two births and one death in your journal, including the year."

Easy! I have one of the coolest birthdays ever.

Events:
1775 - Two lanterns were hung from the steeple of the Old North Church in Boston, Massachusetts. Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott ride to warn of impending arrests of Samuel Adams and John Hancock and seizure of weapons. Only Prescott finishes the ride.
1906 - An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.8, destroys much of San Francisco, California.
1934 - The first washateria opens in Fort Worth, Texas.

Births (other than my own!):
1480 - Lucrezia Borgia, Florentine ruler and daughter of Pope Alexander VI (d. 1519)
1857 - Clarence Darrow, American attorney (d. 1938)
1882 - Leopold Stokowski, Polish conductor (d. 1977)
1954 - Rick Moranis, Canadian comedian (Whoa, I was born the same *day* as DARK HELMET!)

Deaths:
1955 - Albert Einstein, German-born Jewish physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1879)
2002 - Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian explorer (b. 1914)
2003 - Edgar F. ("Ted") Codd, English computer scientist (b. 1923)

(So sue me 'cause I listed 4 births and 3 deaths. They were too cool to pass up.)

And so it starts!
I've been delinquent in updating much of anything here, mostly because life's been overwhelming of late... but in a mostly good, and manageable, way. Today is a big day, though: the kitchen people are here, and they are starting to take apart our old kitchen and completely demolish it! This will be a looooong couple-plus months, but I am so looking forward to the result. Let's hope we all survive being packed into a smaller space without our normal routines and locations for the duration.

Further details and links to Yahoo! photo albums can be found at my weblog: http://mootmom.editthispage.com . Good thoughts and positive wishes appreciated...

Depleting the savings.
I just started a post here about how all the things we had to pay for lately were depleting the bank account. And then... I wiped it out. It suddenly occurred to me that with so many friends here were struggling with their jobs and financial situations, it would be inconsiderate to discuss my own, when it involves some measure of being able to finance some expensive things (new car; new kitchen; saving for college for two teenagers). I've often found it curious how my parents react to money and saving/spending it, but as children of the depression, their experience with being able to afford daily life and have their families survive at all was colored by the presence or absence of literally pennies. Their approach to their finances is something I can never fully understand; I can watch it, and intellectually realize why they're reacting in certain ways, but deep down inside, where the reactions form and are realized, I will never really know their anguish and fear. At least, I hope I will never know it, and I hope you are spared as well.

Suffice it to say that I have a quite serviceable and well-loved 2001 Toyota Prius that I am no longer using. No one has responded yet to my craigslist posting (is it crass or inappropriate for me to include the link here? Search on 2001 Prius Aqua in the cars+trucks section if you want to find it). I figure it's a pretty bad time to sell a car, but what the heck, I don't get to pick when my new car arrives.

Today I'm wondering how far it is to Hayward; I'm off work for the rest of the year (oh yeah, YAY, wheeeee!!!) and am taking a morning trip to point at some slabs of granite (for that other cash-sink project called "Completely Replacing the 30-Year-Old Kitchen in January"). Time to start taking the "before" photos, methinks.

Writing? What's that?

What goes around, comes around.
I just discovered tonight why my older son has been growing out his luscious soft white-blond wavy hair (which is getting quite lovely-long now): he plans to turn it into... dreadlocks.

Y'know, it's always something. I'm trying not to say, "Oh, man, don't do that to your lovely hair!" but then that would sound too much like something my mother would have said. And at least it's... distinctive. Just think: blond dreadlocks on a 6'4" white kid at a mostly-Asian private high school. Well... I guess weirder things have happened. And it's not as if, as a 6'4" blond boy, he doesn't stand out at his school already anyway... and in more ways than one.

So should I get him a Knotty Boy kit for Christmas? Or would that sound too much like I was encouraging him? (Hey, I know! If I sound as if I'm encouraging him, maybe he'll decide it's uncool after all and give up on the idea? Ha!)

Orphan characters, abandoned "novel"
Since I've been using this livejournal to muse about NaNoWriMo and writing, I'll continue to do so. Which is probably why I hadn't written anything in a couple weeks: I was toasted from NaNo this year. My poor story... it's probably not even 2/3 done, and I have tossed it aside unceremoniously. I *like* most of the story line and some of what I've already written, but it's not pulling me back. I looked it all over about a week ago, trying to pull out a roughly 2,000-word chunk I could hone into a short piece for critiquing and a submission at the end of Jan. But I couldn't find a single chunk I wanted to pull, which was kind of depressing. Coupled with the complete lack of feedback I got from the 3 people who'd read my 2002 NaNoNovel, which I'd rather liked, in its own quirky and amateurish way, left me really pretty down the whole month of Nov. this year (dunno if y'all could tell or not, but my heart wasn't in it at all this year, I just went through the motions).

And now my poor characters won't ever have their stories told! And poor Mr. Poe will forever be thought a drunkard who committed unwitting suicide! Maybe it's just that I didn't care very much about my characters this year. Can one write convincingly and eagerly about characters one doesn't care much about?

At least I have an idea for next year's NaNo already. And a story I wrote last winter that I might hone for the Jan. submission.

Cruising...
After Day: 23/30, I had
Word count: 45,298/50,000.

Sunday was a good writing day: I always get a lot written at OVC. I've pretty much finished up with the scenes in 1849, though... and those were the most fun to write. Maybe NaNo '04 should be a period piece, since I'm having so much fun living in the past.

Monday, on the other hand, was a wash. So the new count is:
After Day: 24/30, I had
Word count: 45,298/50,000.

Looks strangely familiar, huh... but I spent my entire first vacation day running around doing errands and visiting with *twelve* teachers (six for each kid) at Teacher Conference Day. Funny: every single one says the same sort of thing about each kid. They are nothing if not consistent. (Anyone who knows Philip want to guess what they say about him? "I LOVE having him in the class, he brings such spirit and creativity and energy, and he is SO SMART and loves to participate! Too bad he never finishes his homework and forgets to hand it in on time." (sigh) )

Tomorrow (Tues.) whould be an interesting day off:
6:30am - yoga.
8:30am - WeightWatchers pre-T'giving Nov. weigh-in (blech: it ain't gonna be pretty).
9:15am - shower off the sweat from yoga and change into normal clothes (see how I'm going directly to the weigh-in while wearing exercise almost-clothing? heh heh).
10:00am - take boys to Post Office to renew passports (already have photos, old passports which expire in 10 days, and application forms pre-filled-in: can you say, "This woman used to be a Girl Scout!"?)
11:00am - head, with zero/one/two boys, to Something-or-other Bean to meet

kr8vkat for a mini-write-in.
-- NOTHING ELSE SCHEDULED UNTIL...
7:00pm - write-in at Books Inc. in Mountain View. With any luck, I might even cross over there (otherwise it's likely to happen Wed. afternoon at OVC).

I'm guessing no one will be at Coffee Society on Thurs./Thanksgiving... in part because I'm guessing CS will be closed. Keep goin', everyone!!

November is sliding past.
Heading into the home stretch now.
After Day: 22/30,
I have a Word count: 40,541/50,000.

I am not worrying about crossing over now, although it's going far slower than it did last year. I finally gave in and wrote down about 10 scenes I need to write on little notecards and am plucking them out of the pile randomly and going to write those scenes. I am really enjoying some of this and I think it has potential as a story others might want to read, so I'll try to stick with it even after November. For the present, I'm planning to take Gandalf to OVC around 1 today (earlier than I usually go on a Sunday), have some saladic lunch and caffeine treat, and then write write write. I want to try to get to 45K today, although that may be wishful thinking.

What I'm really looking forward to is the rest of the month. I don't go back to work again until Dec. 1 (the consequences of having use-it-or-lose-it vacation and a 20 year tenure) so I can actually RELAX some this coming week and write whenever I'm moved to do so. I have all the foods necessary for a ridiculously delicious feast on Thursday, and have made Mama Stamberg's Cranberry Relish (recipe here: I use extra horseradish for ever more tanginess, and revel in its shocking pinkness) so there's not much planning left to do. I'll cook the wild rice on Wed. night, assemble the stuffing and put the bird in the oven before 8:30 Thurs. morning, go to yoga to start the day off right, and then come home and watch what we used to call "The Macy's Day Parade" (one of the few things, with the Rose Bowl Parade and Six Feet Under, that I can be counted on to watch on TV), sip some wine, and forget about my WeightWatchers points for a day. (Reminder to self: get the November weigh-in out of the way on TUESDAY!!) Once Christine gets here for dinner, we're likely to retire with our laptops and do some NaNo'ing in the den... unless the fire or the hot tub are too warm and attractive (with the bevy of males that will be assembling at both locations...)

In other news, I haven't said anything to the object of my yummy dream the other night, so I guess I won't. It was fun to entertain the possibilities, though. :) And it's fun treating all my fellow NaNo'ers with a little extra love and attention, and letting those of them who've read about The Dream here wonder whether it might in fact have been them. (Note: It might. :) )

Crazy life.
OK, so I had one of "those" dreams involving a fellow NaNo'er last night. Or perhaps it was early this morning. It was quite intense and really, really pleasant. And a complete surprise, not something I'd fantasized while awake, but now that I think about it... I want to do it again. :-) Now I'm wondering whether I'll act all funny the next time I run into said NaNo'er.

It's probably impolitic to ask someone flat-out whether they're as good a kisser as you dreamed they would be, huh. Especially when the asker is married, huh.

And away we go!
Day: 17/30 is over now.
Word count: 33,381/50,000 which is none too shabby. (Truthfully? I'm relieved!)

I crossed the mythical 33,000 mark last night and Chris is right: it's kind of freeing. The scenes are starting to roll, although it's way way way from being done. I'm looking forward to "writing alone with others" tonight for a change -- it's been almost a week since I did that! I had hoped to make a visit to the new MLK Library at SJSU tonight, but Rich won't be there and doesn't think anyone else will, so I'll head to MtnView. Anyone going to be there the days before T'giving? Whoa! That reminds me: I have to get a turkey!!

Hey

gallifreyan, looks as if you broke the friends list? And in a very creative way, too, I might add!

Whoa! How'd I do that?!
Day: 16/30
Word count: 30,021/50,000

(I did originally type "Word cunt" up there, but I didn't feel that would be quite the appropriately respectful nickname, so I fixed it."

Spent most of the day feeling totally out of it again. Wanting to sleep. Getting other thing done, cooking, shopping, cleaning, ANYthing other than write. I forced myself to start typing out all the facts I knew that were relevant to my storyline. My thought was that I might see some patterns or interactions between the facts that would enable me to feel I could go ahead cleanly. I did the typing, but still didn't see anything coming clear. At least I added 280 words today. (Bleh.)

Finally got my act in gear and headed out to the midpoint party, at which many people were cheerfully interacting and others were politely interacting in between times when they were writing like mad. I spent 20 minutes with

mortaine talking over details for her plotline where she was stuck, and I think I may have helped her think through some sticky points. I got home, intent on forcing myself to write a few hundred more words; after deciding, "OK, time to just pick a scene and start writing; let's pick the first scene in old Baltimore in 1849," I launched into it... and in three hours, wrote almost 4,200 words.

And best of all, I think I might have stumbled across a motivator for some of my characters to be doing in the present the things I'd had them doing -- that motivator was sorely missing from my mental outline of the plot. I'm still not 100% sure of it, but it's getting closer.

So although it seemed like a really stupid idea at the time, to go off merrily writing nothing at all, without a good idea how the plot points were going to tie together at this critical stage, I think it will ultimately turn into something good. And heavens above, I'm past 30,000 words! Remarkable. Can she maintain the momentum, folks? Think good thoughts and cross those fingers and toes...

That's it.
I think I'm avoiding writing. All I want to do is sleep.

Slowly, slowly.
Day: 14/30
Word count: 25,828/50,000

Everything is going more slowly than I'd like. I've never been very patient, especially not with myself, and never very comfortable with my impatience either. One of those life challenges I am continually working on. And especially with my writing this month (or lack of it lately).

I have written very little in the last two days. I had such grand plans for today, but it was not to be. Instead, I got up at 4:30am and helped pack up ingredients for Greg's eventual lunchtime sandwiches (with a few surprises thrown into the bag) and dropped him off at 5:30am at a friend's house so they could be driven to the Jim Russell Driving School in Sonoma. They took a "highway survival" course and I wanted him to have the nutritional fuel to really enjoy it and do well. I did get to yoga again finally, then took Philip to an elementary school in East San Jose for training so he can teach groups of little kids to do public service announcements related to health issues. And I crossed about half the "must do" things off our weekend list (Charlie is just back from 2 weeks away on business).

But I didn't write.

I realized something weird this morning. I was thinking about all those wonderful, witty, warm, and wacky two-dozen South Bay people who showed up to write and commune together on Thurs. night at Coffee Society, and a sobering thought occurred to me: I was the only one there who had any kids. THE ONLY ONE. Not the only one who had any kids with me (and Philip *was* there, but he hardly counts, since he considers himself part of the group anyway, at least as adjunct faculty), but the only one who had any kids. (Well, unless someone has non-custodial offspring about whom they never speak.) Someone mentioned to me that she couldn't imagine what it must be like to have kids, and today I figured that perhaps that's one of the things that keeps me feeling as if I don't fully belong with this bunch. Is it a problem somehow that I *do* have offspring? That I can't bring myself to never speak of them? I don't think it's simply that I'm old enough to be mother to half of them. I wonder if there are any good places to get personality transplants these days; for sure, I'm not giving up the kids, they're just too wonderful for words (except during times when I want to rip their stupid-ass heads off their shoulders).

Or maybe I'm just imagining that a barrier exists where none really does. It wouldn't be the first time.

I hope it's not all downhill.
OK, so first things first.
Day: 13/30
Word count: 25,111/50,000

So OK, when you're over the hill, you pick up speed. (Not As Funny when quoted to someone about to turn 50...) I'm rather hoping, though, that the only way I pick up speed here is to get back on track. The story is there: it's just hiding in bits amongst the word count.

The story is shaping up. It is taking a L--O--N--G time to get from Point A to Point B, never mind to Point P where it'll end up having to get. It might be because, this time, I want to do an excellent job on the plot... eventually. A good mystery requires that. NaNovember has shown me that I really do want to do a good job on this story, and that I am highly likely to stick with it until it's a real story this time. But I can see very clearly that this will take time... and crafting... and far more focused effort than NaNoWriMo will allow me. So, this month, I do word count. Word count. Word count. I do not worry about how all the intricate parts fit together to weave the whole. I write. I put my characters in their environment and even if I end up cutting out what I write this month, I'll be getting to know them better, and watching how they interact and think about things, and I will have a better sense of it all, which I can use after November to *really* write this thing.

Now, THAT is a revelation worth celebrating, I just decided. So I'll try to write another 2,000 words today as a gift to my future novel.

Is that all there is??
Yesterday (Sunday) was
Day: 09/30 and resulted in
Word count: 20,189/50,000 Darn, forgot to end on a 1.

I spent a long time Sat. doing researchy things and scoping out what I thought I would have happening with my plot points, so I could just race through the rest of the writing from now on. But it seems I still don't really, truly, 100% know how these loose ends are going to tie together. How will the map in the mural figure in? Will it pinpoint some location in the steam tunnels? Will the chest be there? Why are Mrs. Brooks and her offspring skulking around down there, and why did the previous resident shoot at them? (And was that previous resident in fact Mr. Ian Woon?) I've got the business about the 1840s all sewn up in my head (not yet written, but all thought out), but I can't figure out how the "present day" (e.g. 1970s) details fit into that! In fact, what is the actual overall point of the story?? Is it finding the artifacts? Asserting what happened to Edgar in 1849? Glossing right over Harry's supposition about infrasound? Bringing someone to justice? Leaving everyone hanging on an unresolved "maybe yes, maybe no" unsatisfying plot question? What is the point of this story which I want to leave with my potential readers??

OMG, that's really the kicker, isn't it?! Ooops. Now I'm in danger of losing steam and enthusiasm if I suddenly decide I don't have a point at all here. I'm liking the story and I see possibilities for it, but why the heck am I writing it in the first place?? Sigh. And here I thought I was doing pretty well...

And Chris's pep talk didn't really help me this morning. I should have this plot stuff figured out by now, since my story is becoming so plot-driven.

Catching up to last year!
Day: 08/30
Word count: 17,801/50,000

So, what in the world was I worrying about yesterday?! It's only 7:45pm on Day 8, and although I may do some more writing later (no guarantee), I now see that I completely skipped writing on Day 8 last year, ending the day with 17,828 words in 2002! So I am essentially precisely where I was last year. (I have this urge to write a 30-word sentence to push me over last year's total, mwah hah hah!) I've got 90% of the plot and storyline scoped out, either mentally or in little notes to myself in a file, although there are still a few twists and surprises I have to weave in seamlessly. (I'm just saying that to make you think I'm so skillful, you know. :) ) Tomorrow will be a morning visit to The Matrix Revolutions with the younger teen and his chums, and an afternoon write-in! Can't wait for it, yay!

I didn't get to see the lunar eclipse tonight, it was pouring rain. But I suspect it really did happen, even though I didn't see it. I'll take their word for it... this time, anyway.

I hope my NaNo friends are having a wonderful time at their writing retreat house. I miss being with them, and indulging myself and my muse. But I also enjoyed spending time with my family today, too. We make our trade-offs and we find the joy in the moment. The mantra for today.

Not as far along as I was last year after week one.
So tonight ends Week 1 of NaNoWriMo 2003. Like many people I've heard grumbling this week, I am not as far along as I expected I would be (but I am not behind, at least). I went and checked tonight, and after Day 7, I am almost 2,500 words behind where I was last year after Day 7. I guess I got into the story much more fluidly last year; it didn't have as precise a plot, after all, and I got to write some suggestive smut scenes: maybe that makes the words flow faster?

Right, so, statistics before going much further. (Who am I kidding, before collapsing into bed!):

Day: 07/30
Word Count: 15,351/50,000

Charlie got home tonight, Greg saw The Matrix Revolutions (which he did not like: he said "they got it wrong" (or maybe it was "they f*cked it up") and doesn't even want the free ticket to see it again on Sun. morning that I got at work. (Wow. It must REALLY be bad. Or maybe he's got the Teenager-Who-Wants-To-Sleep-Late disease.)

Tomorrow: skip yoga in order to get flu shots for everyone. (With people already getting sick, it's almost past time, so off we'll traipse.) I may have to atone for my skippage by running a few miles; we shall see if the rain stays at bay.

more later, I can't even type anymore,
D

Waiting for the dryer load to finish...
... so I can wear my nifty neato new Simon & Garfunkel baseball shirt to work today, so I might as well update my word count from last night.
Day: 06/30
Word count: 13,391/50,000 (I'm back to ending with 1.)

It's coming together. I can sense my story and how to work the parts in. Someone at last night's write-in kindly asked me about my plot this year and I started to tell him, and by the time I was wrapping it up, there wree four other people standing there listening. (!!) And they actually said they thought it sounded neat. Now, whether I am the person able to tell that neat story is another question, but I think it totally pulled me out of my doldrums to have several experienced writer-people standing around me telling me it sounded really cool. Maybe they were just being nice, but... they WERE nice! :-) Now I have to write it, I don't want to let them down. I still feel somewhat inadequate to the task, though, and I hope I don't put so much pressure on myself that I crack and do a stinky job of it after all.

I am also a bit depressed about other things in life right now. On a NaNo-related note, several weeks ago I had to back out of the writing retreat this weekend since Charlie's schedule turned into oatmeal before our very eyes. I gave my seat to another, who is clearly really excited about going. As excited as I was... and now I have to sit and listen to everyone planning, and enthusing, and getting excited about the weekend which I am unable to participate in. It's taken a lot of steam out of me to calmly listen and try to ignore or accept stoically all the planning going on around me; this was something I really, really wanted to do for myself, and with some very good people. I needed it. I craved it. And I don't get to do it. But I have to politely listen to them doing it. It's a grown up thing, I guess: I chose to do the responsible thing and stay home with my kids when my husband had to be away on business, and I chose to be home the one day-and-night out of two weeks when said husband will also be home in between trips. So I've arranged my weekend for others, rather than for myself, and I'm still coming to terms with how often in my life I've done that. I am a giver, a grateful martyr, almost always willing to do what I need to do to bring happiness to others, which in turn is usually satisfying for me.

But it still makes me want to cry sometimes.

And I feel petty even thinking about it, much less talking about it with anyone...

A wonderful Wednesday. (I love that word!)
(yesterday was)Day: 05/30
Words: 11,318/50,000

Yesterday didn't go quite as I planned it, but that's life. Sealing out wild rodents while keeping track of my own and keeping them clean and not smelly took up too much of the morning so I didn't get to morning yoga. Pout, pout.

But the NaNo Write-in at OVC went REALLY well! It was an all-chick write-in: there were seven of us and we all made some good progress! (Nice to meet Keiko and skateadams finally! And so sorry you were "sick", marcopolo...) I've found myself over 1/5 of the way through my word count and nowhere near even beginning to advance my so-called plot (which does firm up daily, I'll grant you). I've gotten onto a tangent (which started from a dare posted on the Dares thread in the NaNo forums) and I've got to wrap it up today and get back to the story. It's been fun to write, but it's not relevant to what I want to do -- I may just drop it for now and remember that I can come back to it later and finish it off, if I need more words (ha ha ha!) and would find it entertaining. It will almost definitely be excised from the final product. Tonight is Coffee Society: yay! I hope to bring philiphool if he's finished enough of his homework.

And although I will write more later about this in my weblog, I had a fantastic time at the Simon and Garfunkel concert last night. The music was better than ever: Paul Simon has been one of the geniuses of 20th Century songwriting, and it seems all too clear that he hasn't been accorded the recognition for that which he richly deserves. As the Merc reviewer described it, they seemed less like two "Old Friends" than like a divorced couple meeting at a mutual child's wedding and forced to be nice to each other. No wait, I take that back -- Artie was lovey and huggy and clearly happy to be there, and his voice soared with love and glee. You could count the times Paul smiled on one hand: they stood out by their uniqueness. Paul seemed bitter, unwilling to give up whatever he still carried around with him from their painful split(s) years ago. I even saw Paul brush off Artie's genuinely affectionate hug or arm-over-shoulder at least twice, seeming to be annoyed by it. Both have lost some hair: Paul's silky black mop has thinned noticeably (no baseball cap this time), but surprisingly, Artie still has that albino afro -- it just starts a lot further back on his head now.

I just realized that I'll probably repeat much of this in my weblog, so I'll stop here. Apologies to anyone who ends up reading it twice.

Day: 04/30
Words: 8,911/50,000
So I ended on a '1' again. I did that on purpose.

I figured out yesterday what "that thing" was going to be, and spent a while last night describing it and trying to work in its significance to two of my clueless characters without stomping all over my unsuspecting readers with boring explanatory paragraphs disguised as dialog. (Ha ha ha ha ha! "Readers," she says! Ha ha ha ha ha! Oh. Sorry. That made me laugh, for some reason.) BUT, I do now see a direction in which the story can go. No guarantee that it will make for an interesting story at the end of the day, but hey, I'm writing and it's all good. Right?

Last night's write-in was a lot of fun. I only just barely managed to get in my word count, but I attribute that to having to read some background material (Poe's "The Gold Bug") and good music twinkling on the intercom (hmmm, that's not the right word for the music they pipe into bookstore cafes, is it?). I was "singing" along with too many classical pieces, then my hands wanted to play along from memory and I got all nostalgic about my mother's old piano. Thanks, composer and

gallifreyan, for indulging me. (That electronic keyboard may be a good idea after all, Rob...)

So, today is a special day all around!! The boys are already off to school, Charlie is in (or nearly in?) Helsinki by now, and I took the day off! (Every Wed. in Nov., actually.) My plan is to clean the rat cage first thing, do some writing, go to yoga at 9:15, shower and eat a little, head to OVC for afternoon writing, pick the boys up at 4:30 for orthodontia, pick up sushi on the way home, eat and change, and head to downtown SJ for... Simon and Garfunkel! I am so jazzed, the set list sounds so fantastic. And the Everly Bros. are just icing on that rich musical cake. (Urk. Can you tell it's writing month?) I am SO looking forward to today!