Its NaNoWriMo time!

One hour to go…..got your first line?

So my car broke down again…but this time…

So my car broke down again yesterday on the way to work…while I was talking on the phone with my grandma.  I slammed on my brakes to avoid running a yellow about to turn red, and I hear a pop, then my car starts to smoke.  Eek!  After the light turns green, I try to get it into a parking lot (it was a rather busy road – Peachtree Parkway) and I have to fight to get it to steer.  My prior experience tells me that something’s up with the serpentine belt.

I pop the hood, look under, and see that, well, part of that gray thing broke off, melted off more like it, and the belt wrapped around it.  That’s what I tell AAA on the phone as they dispatch a tow truck.  Triple A is the closest thing my mom has to a messiah figure in her life, and ordered I get it when I turned 25.  Glad I did!

Next up I call the boss, telling him clearly I will not be there in time, and may not even be in at all.  He later calls back, ordering me into work.  So I’m not entirely pleased with him at that point.

While I was waiting in the parking lot for AAA, I tried to look at this in a different light then the prior car troubles I’ve had.  I thought about what this was here to teach me.  I’ve learned, through listening to the Oprah Soul series on XM 156 that’s what she does when she has a crisis, and that was applauded by the Buddhist she had on with her.  So I thought, what could this be here to teach me.

Relying on my friends?  I started calling them up, sharing what happened.  I was worried that it would cost me a helluva lot of money, something that I couldn’t afford.  So I was hoping that some of my friends, if I asked for a loan, would grant it.  I called up a friend with two cars, who told me that I could borrow one….if I could drive a stick (nope!).  Lots of ears for me to vent to.  It was a nice feeling.

Humility?  I had the thought recently that my life is going great, and I was starting to pull myself up to a different level.  I was perfectly content, and even excited about how positive I feel and what the future holds.  Maybe this was happened to teach me to focus on the here and now, and that life’s just skating on thin ice…you never know what will cause you to break through.

Ego?  When my car started to smoke, I immediately worried what the other people thought, not worried for my car or how I would survive the workweek.  I was intrigued to notice that, and thought about that a lot.  When I was pushing the car towards the tow truck, I was doing fine by myself (Big Kinsi vs.  a Little Saturn….who’s gonna win?) but another guy jumped over to help anyways.  I thought for a brief second, “geesh, I got it” but then was overcome by gratitude.

The tow truck comes, with its female driver (I thought it was awesome.  You just don’t see a lot of female tow truck drivers) and she’ extremely nice and funny.  She said, as she looked under the hood, “Wow!  I’ve never seen that before.”  I replied, “well, glad to be unique.”  We tow it back to my suburb, about 15 miles away, to the tow shop close to me that I go to often.  I have to rent a car!  For the first time.  Midas promises me they’ll look at it today.  Enterprise comes and picks me up from the shop and we drive off to Enterprise.

I’m still in a somewhat shock-pensive stupor, and I find out they don’t have any smaller cars, and the cheapest in the area would be a pick-up truck.

See, I grew up in South Georgia.  I hate pick-up trucks and everything they stand for.  But, no choice, so I drove that F-150 megatruck back to work, and all around Atlanta (I had to travel a lot yesterday for work.)

A couple of more lessons popped into my head:

Humility part 2: I swore once I would never drive a pick up truck, yet here I am, driving one.  All of my friends found it pretty funny….some wanted a picture.  A big ol’ queen in a big ol’ pick up truck.  I had put myself above people who drove pick up trucks, who I apparently saw as inferior in some way because of what they drove.  I was shocked to discover that in myself…and I vowed to stop judging folks on the cars they drove.

Overwhelming Gratitude – I was overcome with gratitude, especially when the Midas guy called and told me I had two options.  The air compressor broke, so I could get air conditioning fixed and pay 800, or a different kind of belt with no AC for 85.  I’ll take the no ac option.  I got my car fixed for under a 100 dollars.  My friends were great, and so were my coworkers.  By the end of the night I just had a sense of overwhelming gratitude.

Sure, there were times yesterday when I was really irked.  When people asked how I was, I replied “horrible!”  So I’ve got a ways to go.  But maybe I am starting to become a little more spiritual in my life…and I think it’s worthwhile.  Last year I would have had a panic attack, this year I was much calmer, and now everything’s turned out fine (I returned the megatruck and picked up my lil’ Saturn this morning.)

Brainstorming a character leads to personal contentment?

So I’ve been brainstorming for my NaNoWriMo, getting characters together.  And I’ve discovered some interesting things about myself.

First off, I’ve discovered I do, indeed, have a favorite movie.  And it’s Ordinary People.  It’s wonderful.  I’m among the many who have major troubles ever defining a favorite something, instead opting for a few, or my favorite right now.  But I think I’ve decided that Ordinary People may indeed be the best movie ever.

But, this one is a bit more important.  I’ve discovered I’m pretty darn content with my life, and that I’ve actually had a lot of things I’ve done in the past that I’m pretty proud of.  I’ve lived a pretty full and satisifying life so far…something I was surprised to find.

I discovered that one of the kids at work supports a candidate for president…whose Georgia campaign I ran in 2004.  And we spent like, 30 minutes tonight talking about it tonight at work.  Both he and the other gal at my table were shocked to learn everything I did in college, including running a political campaign.  They were kinda surprised I did so much…and now I’m “just a tutor.”  He asked what was better for my resume…my current job or running a campaign.  I replied my current one (I think being a corporate trainer is a little bit higher on the corporate skill list than political campaigner).  I thought it was kinda funny my students saw me as rather boring before tonight, but, alas, I also realized that I have done a lot in my life in my relatively few years on Earth so far…and it was an interesting feeling of contentment I don’t feel very often.

It’s the most wonderful time of year – November and NaNoWriMo

Yay!  November is almost here.

Unlike last year at this time, when I wasn’t sure if I was going to do NaNoWriMo, ultimately deciding to on Halloween with no plot or character until 11:30 that night.  And I ended up writing 125k.  How about that.

I started NaNo three years ago, with a day long attempt.  I had a great idea that I completely thought out.  Then I started to write it…and got bored because I knew how it ended.  The next year I started 41 sunflowers, and ended in the 70k range.  I planned a week before hand, but I didn’t do enough character development.  It’s halfway done, sitting on my desktop, waiting to be finished.  One day I will.  Then last year’s masterpiece of fluff.  I had a blast writing it, and it’s no where near something publishable, but I had a *blast* and I *loved* writing it.   And that’s what NaNoWriMo is about to me – having fun, writing something you love (but hate sometimes), proving to yourself you can do it, and commiserating with a big group of people online.

Here’s my idea this year – Its a covenant group made up of 7 members.  There’s a revolving first person POV, one chapter for each character, through the course of 7 biweekly covenant groups in Oct-Dec.  Each character has to learn a lesson, and the moral of each chapter is one of the 7 principles.  (I’m big on structure like that.)  I first came up with the lessons-to-be-learned (and a couple of those principles were hard, like #4) and then I brainstormed how they build a web of interactions “off character” (the other characters are doing it when its not that character’s turn for the POV) so its more believable.  Now I’ve finally started to brainstorm the characters, trying to provide a little more consistency and depth to them that are usually lacking in my nanoattempts.  I’m allowing myself a page a character.

I’m really excited…hopefully not getting too excited too early.  And hopefully I won’t get too into it this week….I’m in charge of a major event at church next Sunday.  After which I will drop off the face of the earth for a month.  YAY!

So anyone else out there nanowrimo’ing?

Dumbledore’s Gay Part 2

So for those who don’t know, I work at an education center, and one of the kids brought this up today.  She was worried because he was harry’s role model.
I was incredulous.

So I’m gay but not out at work (conservative area…don’t want to deal with the drama).  I spoke up this time though.  “What?  Does this make him any less of a role model for Harry”

“Well….no…”

If anything, maybe this’ll help.  I know first hand there are parents who won’t let their children read Harry Potter because of the devil worshiping soundbite (some of the kids at work have told me such…and with the paranoia around Halloween (some of my kids are worried for me because I decorated for Halloween, and that I “believe in it”)  this will get her more flack and more calls to have the book banned in school.

But, it’s not like it’s really clear in the books.  Dumbledore doesn’t hit on Harry, for example.  I thought Lupin was gay until Tonks entered the picture, and I still think Dean and Seamus have a thing going, but in the long run it shouldn’t add to the whole banning picture.  I think it would have to be more explicit that that.

I’ve already started buying my Halloween costume (I’m going to be Harry…it’s work appropriate) but now I’m wishing I had gone for my other idea and been Dumbledore.

Breaking! Dumbledore’s gay!

JK Rowling outed Dumbledore tonight.  Wowza!   

I knew I should have been Dumbledore for Halloween this year!

A different kind of yellow haze

I wrote in the spring about the yellow that was taking over metro Atlanta – the pollen was everywhere, and there was no rain to wash it all away.    The lack of rain’s continued…we’re even making national news over it (The main lakes have a 3 month supply in them unless something changes).  Its to the point where if rain is in the forecast…it’s front page news (its been on ajc.com for 3 days about a chance of rain for today.)

I’ve been noticing on the way to work that there’s a yellow sheen again, but this time it’s not pollen.  It’s mostly from dead grass, but there’s just something in the air that’s causing general yuckiness…and it’s this lack of rain.  Maybe 2007 should be known as the Great Yellow Drought of Atlanta.  If we’re not a desert by then

Part of the problem apparently comes form the US Army Corps of Engineers, who manage the big lakes that Metro Atlanta gets its water from.  Georgia’s about to sue them, again, and some conservative pundits are advocating we  forcibly take over control of the two lakes, so we can stop sending twice as much water downstream as whats pouring in.  Although I doubt we’ll start another Civil War over lake levels, it’s interesting to note how angry people are starting to get.   Right now its just no outdoor watering with calls to voluntairly conserve water in the home.  I think the restrictions are going to move to rationing before this is over.

And I don’t know about anyone else in Metro Atlanta, but when I see green grass I get a little angry.  At this point the grass should be dead…unless people are sneaking watering.  I have a feeling others are getting angry too – I’m starting to see a lot more signs like “Irrigated by private lake.”  It’s even to the point where a church I passed by on the way to work yesterday had a sign “Irrigated by well water.”  Even the churches are praying for rain, and proclaiming they aren’t violatin’ the watering ban.

Well, back to the weather channel to check if we’re going to get more rain.  It’s an interesting twist when people are ecstatic, instead of depressed, when the rain comes.