Words

Oh hey, how’s it going?
Me? Not much, why?

Oh, I forgot:

I’ve been coasting by these last few days, feeling much like a famished person in a dark, cold desert, seeing fire and water everywhere but not ever quite reaching refreshment or warmth. You see, for the last three days, I’ve been typing away tying to make the numbers on my spreadsheet tell me that I will have to type 3,000 words or less to meet the 50k goal on Wednesday… Now, I’m no math whiz, and more importantly I have no brain power left after writing thousands of words each night, but… each night, I hit around 2700 or 2800 and the spreadsheet then says I have less than 3000 words to write the next day to meet my goal… I don’t really understand. Maybe by Dec 3rd or 4th it’ll hit my recuperated brain and I’ll come back here and edit this post to remove all proof of my sheer idiocy. Hey, wanna see my spreadsheet?

You guessed it, kids, it’s time for another Wordle!

Aren’t you excited to see some other words starting to grow in usage outside of “Just around one”?

Good.

So, great Thanksgiving! Wrapped it up in this cool Inn on Old Orchard Beach, the Atlantic Birches Inn, owned by some family of family. It was pretty sweet digs– guarded by THESE chaps:

Friendly! Anyhoo, after gorging myself Thanksgiving day, I just didn’t have enough of the tasty veggie side dishes, and I made this delectable goodness!

Photos cannot begin to describe to you just how amazing it tasted to eat these quartered brussel sprouts, sliced carrots and garlic. Just mixed with a wee hint of oil and roasted til browned… Mmmm-mmm! This will become a staple in my life. Except for days like today when damned Market Basket is out of damned brussel sprouts! Gah! (Don’t judge my frozen Banquet fried chicken. I live a busy life with NaNoWriMo!)

So, that about brings me up to date until TODAY! TODAY was super fun! I took a jaunt down to Lowell to see my great friend and former colleague, Bartley, in Disney’s Phineas and Ferb Live! tour. I went down with a friend and we left early enough to swing by the Kerouac Commemorative on the way between the parking garage and the arena!

This excerpt from On The Road really rekindled that love for his style– the stream of conscious flow of his words and imagery. It inspired me in my novel motivation!

This shot shows a bit of the genius of the design of this commemorative. The reflections match the background so closely that it gave the effect of the huge slabs of granite being somehow transparent! It was really cool. Also, the little park has a ton of benches, for reflecting, writing… what have you. I like it a bunch.

Along our stroll to the arena which took us WAY around to some of the more … exciting … parts of Lowell, we ran across this:

which excited me perhaps an inordinate amount. SERIFS! On a BUILDING! Held on by THOSE BAR THINGIES! It was very retro. I liked it a bunch. The building was for the Lowell Sun, the town’s long standing paper!

We also passed this:

I have a ton of awesome and lovely and hilarious and touching and scary and poignant pictures to share from the last few days, but for NOW:

I’m sad that my various camera-to-computer apparati are all at home, with no way of uploading my mahhvelous phone pics from yesterday and today to the interwebs whilst procrastinating my Writer’s Cafe time away! I’m at a word count of 30,851, with a par of 36,666 to hit today.

I have a great pic of the Hilton Garden Inn spread at the library right now. It’s epic! Let’s pretend this is it:

Okay, that’s totally ripped off of the web, but it’s pretty fantastic for real.

Also, Lexie’s was amazing last night. I also have a photo or two showing that the secret about Lexie’s is totally out now. Let’s pretend this is it:

Also, the City Council meeting last night was pretty kick-ass as well. Let’s pretend THIS is last night’s City Council meeting:

Oh, wrong again. Aren’t I so silly? My favorite quote from last night’s City Council meeting was from the ever-lovable City Attorney Sullivan. “No, we don’t propose to purchase any land that we already own.” It was in response to a question clarifying which section of land the Manager was proposing to negotiate the purchase of. The Councilor who asked had just indicated a parcel of land that is already the City’s property. Can’t get anything past our City guys! Seriously, though, City Manager Bohenko does nothing but impress every time he speaks. It’s so clear that he is right on top of everything and is great at his job. I have yet to see him stumped by any question– and the Council is made up of nine very unique individuals who all have very different focuses and different things they are concerned about and want to be held accountable for. I love to see this city’s democracy at work. And I’m also sad to see Ferrini go. I like him. He’s very Mayoral. And this from the woman who jokes about BEING the Mayor of Portsmouth. He’s a good egg. It’ll be interesting to see the change in dynamic when the new Council is sworn in! (It’s still unclear who will take the 9th seat, as the residency of one Jack Thorsen is up for investigation by the same City Attorney quoted at the top of this paragraph).

For real though, I’ll add the real pics later this evening.

I had NOTHING on my plate today but upping my word count. I put in just over 2,000. Sigh. Some days it’s just a struggle. On the upside, I did catch up on Glee, Up All Night, The Office, Revenge and Whitney. Judge away all you want. My Hulu Queue is an open book.

Here’s my Coffee Mug art for the day: