An anecdote my brother recounted last night at the restaurant ...

My brother and my parents were having dinner the other night and my brother, who had come downstairs late per usual, had yet to grab a dinner roll and the stick of butter my mom left out to butter one if he wanted.

Mom: *gestures to the butter* "You'd better do something with that before it goes soft."
Bryan: "That's what she said."
Mom: *dies laughing*
Dad: *high-fives my brother*

... I don't know any of these people.

So ... yeah.

Who wants to read a bit of my NaNo?

( Sally's sort of my favoritest ever. )

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I'm currently at 11,248 words, which is obviously way behind where I'm supposed to be. That said, I have all day to write, I have the "Melancholia - The Sounds of Indie Sadness" station playing on my computer, and I have Cheetos and Pepsi enough to last me another couple of hours at least. The goal for today is to just get something down for all of the scenes I scribbled down over the past week or so, then print out what I have and get it assembled and outlined. I'm not trying for any specific word count right now, simply because if I don't reach it I'm going to be terribly disappointed, so I'm just going to stick with the "every extra word is one more word towards the goal" outlook.

The good thing -- if you want to look at it like that -- is that I probably won't be taking overtime the first couple of days this week simply because I refuse to take overtime where I know full well I'll simply end up on the phone. The first two or three days this week, my supervisor has pretty much assured all of us in my department that like it or not, we'll be on the phones all day long. I'm okay with it, really, even though my usual job requires me to make the occasional outbound call and that's it. We only need to take inbounds when it's busy, and tomorrow starts the annual enrollment period, so ... phones.

Of course, that means I'll get home at eight p.m. on Monday and Tuesday and I'll have four extra hours to write those days, which'll be nice, because I'll be pushing it to find writing time for the rest of the month. I'm really hoping that I can push and get 50k by the 28th, though. If I can pull that off, I can go to work on November 29th and 30th instead of using them as vacation days, then letting them pay me for the vacation time anyway.

Aaaand it's time to go write again. I'm not allowing myself to watch this week's SPN until I get to 20k or I finish adding all the bits I want to add to the story, whichever comes first.

*buckles down*

A few links

-- Excuse me, I need to take a moment to wallow happily in the schadenfreude.

-- The Bible was wrong. For evidence look to, well, the Bible.

Such is the conclusion of this stunning, provocative infographic, which maps contradictions in the Bible, from whether thou shalt not commit adultery down to the color of Jesus’s robes.

That graphic includes the line from Leviticus about how a man who lies with a man as with a woman should be put to death, which is apparently contradicted by 1 Kings 11-12, in which Asa does "what was right in the eyes of the Lord" and expels the sodomites/male shrine prostitutes from the land. So which is it, death or banishment?

-- George W. Bush misses "being pampered." You're an adult, Mr. Bush, so those were actually Depends, not Pampers.

-- You know how Katherine made that crack about watching Stefan at a Bon Jovi concert in 1987? (Well, I don't, because I still have to catch up on TVD episodes, but whatever.) Well, someone's made a Tumblr showing Katherine stalking Paul Wesley through all of his past roles, and it's goddamn awesome.

-- The Oxford English Dictionary is asking people to adopt a rarely-used word and use it in everyday conversation to bring it back into popularity.

So that worked out well.

Was supposed to spend the day writing, instead spent most of it cleaning my house. Of course, I did it because the mess was distracting me and now I'm not fixated on what else I could be doing instead of writing, but still.

That said, I found the holiday meme, so what the hell, why not?

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THE HOLIDAY WISH LIST MEME

1. Make a post to your LJ. The post should contain your list of ten holiday wishes. The wishes can be anything at all, from something simple and fandom-related to something really big. The important thing is, make sure these wishes are things you really, truly want.

2. Surf around your friends list to see who has posted their list. If you see a wish you can grant, and it's in your heart to do so, make someone's wish come true. You needn't spend money on these wishes unless you want to. The point isn't to put people out, it's to provide everyone a chance to be someone else's holiday elf--to spread the joy.

3. There are no rules with this project, no guarantees, and no strings attached. Just wish, and it might come true. Give, and you might receive. And you'll have the joy of knowing you made someone's holiday special.

( Two of these you already know, obviously, but still. )

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I know the list probably reads a bit twee, all things considered, but I really don't want anything blatantly superficial for myself other than a new netbook, and I don't really need one so much as one would come in handy for school. And as for wanting to be published ... well, hell, that's always my Christmas wish. And my birthday wish, and my New Year's wish, and my Arbor Day wish. It's that kind of wish.

As for the rest ... well, if I were going to be selfish about the whole thing, I'm just at a point in my life where I really don't care how dippy and bleeding-heart it may make me look to cynical internet fuckwits if I get starry-eyed about people trying to make the world a better place, and if the world is a better place my Lexapro-popping ass would be a lot less likely to freak out every so often.

But, yeah. Now you guys make wish lists. :D