All NaNo's Eve

Halloween, shmalloween.  October 31st wasn't quite what it used to be this year.  The time many people associate with jack-o-lanterns, costume contests, haunted houses, and trick-or-treaters was, for me, in 2009, merely the remaining few hours before the start of NaNoWriMo.  That's (inter)National Novel Writing Month, for you non-wrimos out there.

So I'm about 1500 words into my novel.  It's got it all.  Explosions, ghosts, fast food, religious turmoil, political intrigue, terrorism, unresolved childhood trauma, even the Big Guy Himself.  Watch for it in pirated digital editions, coming soon.

But back to trick-or-treating for a non-NaNo-moment.  Nicole and I were walking around, reverse trick-or-treating (handing out fair trade chocolate and info cards to educate people on the advantages of fair trade and the horrors of child labor), and we hardly saw another soul out there.  We saw a few groups of kids hopping in and out of cars, but not one group simply strolling the streets.  Well, okay, one group of college kids that might have been trick or treating or might have been stumbling between parties. 

Instead of gleeful children-come-demons-and-ninja-turtles blithely wandering the sidewalks discussing strategic candy trade agreements, we saw nothing.  People at their doors begged us to take candy, even though we were not dressed for it, and then told us to "be careful out there" as though we were war photographers venturing in where no sane person would go.  At one of the houses we were greeted by Nicole's co-worker who also bid us "be careful" and her friend who asked in amazement, "so people trick-or-treat in LA?"

Yes, for the love of the dead rising and walking the earth, people fucking trick-or-treat in LA!  And everywhere else I've ever heard of!  These people in Albuquerque act like trick-or-treating is something their parents did in the 50's, when streets were safe, cigarettes didn't kill, cars didn't pollute, and their neighbors were as white as the milk delivered to their doorstep.  For a laid-back and friendly city, these people sure are afraid to leave their houses.  Once again, Albuquerque, you impress me with your weirdness and contradiction.  Well done!

October 2008 - every weekend an adventure

Weekend the first:  
"Basic skills" tests not generally causing my heart to palpitate, I was too relaxed the morning of the CBEST and almost missed the strictly enforced start time.  The test itself was the piece of cake I had ordered, though I didn't chew it enough before swallowing.  The essay prompts were infantile - "tell a story of a success in difficult circumstances" - but I realized too late that perhaps I shouldn't treat them as such.  Sitting there, at a desk in my old high school, taking a test containing questions more appropriate for elementary school, I wondered then how I could inflict that 'education' on other people, even if they were just children still.

That night, I made a killer picnic dinner and Megan and Nate and I went to the Iron and Wine and Swell Season concert at the Greek Theatre.  It was brilliant!

Weekend number two:
Nicole and I went to the beach in Hermosa and bonded in a completely nonsexual fashion, as she was still with Guy-who-does-yoga-and-refuses-to-speak-to-her-now.  Cold night, but warm thoughts. 

Weekend III:
People had somehow convinced me to attend SoCal DeCom, a mid-sized(?) burner party about eighty miles east of San Diego, in the desert, just above the Mexican border.  I got intoxicated, stayed up most of the night, couldn't sleep during the day because of the heat, went shooting with a bunch of burners who really like their guns, went on little walks, bonded more with Nicole, saw a jackrabbit or two, and wandered off alone the second night there because it felt like the right thing to do.

Possibly best of all, on the second morning, I walked up a nearby hill as the sun was rising, found a circular pit full of animal bones, some charred, some clean, and then I took off some clothes and lay down on the cold, hard dirt, and napped as the world warmed up around me. 

The Fourth Weekend:
Nothing noteworthy apparently.  Must have slept through the whole darn thing. 

Halloween:
Not a proper weekend, it being a Friday and all, but it's worth mentioning that my sister and I threw a joint party full of pumpkins, food, punch, dry ice, and hot tubbing.  Fun had by all!