The Errant Night

conversation / thought

Conversation

J: What’s this stuff all over the desk?
Me: (Quizzical look)
J: I guess it’s chocolate
Me: That’s optimistic.

Thought

I’ve become Daria.

etymology

the word inaugurate comes from the latin augurare, which means to take omens… literally, they would cut open an animal and look at its guts to figure out the future. the word also meant to wish or to hope for, which makes sense.

interestingly, the same root was used in the word augurale, which meant greeting. that’s a bit more of an intuitive leap, but it sort-of makes sense.

the french used the same root in the word inaugurer, which means to invest, which is a hopeful sort of thing to do.

i don’t really have a point to make here, but i just thought it was all very damn interesting. so, does this inauguration make you hopeful, or does it make you want to spill the guts of a chicken? food for thought.

The return of the Mac

You’re welcome, Jesse

The rise of the Mac

OK, so this isn’t meant as an endorsement of mac over PC, or the other way around. Just an observation.

I have not seen a PC laptop in the wild in a really long time. Macbooks, macbooks, everywhere….

NaNoWriMo, or, How I decided to say “screw it” to the huge backlog of things I *should* be doing, and chose to throw all of my non-working time into writing for a month.

If you don’t know about NaNoWriMo, you should. Now you’ve been given a link, so you have no excuse. Go ahead and read about it. I’ll wait.

Back? Informed? Good.

I’ve been wanting to write for a while. I’ve started writing before, and always stopped after just a few sessions. I let other things get in the way. I convinced myself that it was no good, or that, if it was good, it was too hard to keep writing that well. I always had some reason to stop, or I always found a way to forget about it.

I’d heard about NaNoWriMo before, but always too late. This year, I stumbled upon it again just in time–about one week before the month started. I decided it was finally time, and I signed up.

So far, it’s going well. I’m 2 days in, and have 5 days worth of writing done, which is good. I think it’ll be pretty important for me to get ahead on the weekends, as I’ll be working full-time during the week, and my pace may slow considerably then.

More importantly–to me, anyway–I’m finally writing. And getting more output than I ever have before. And enjoying myself in the process. And talking about it, and sharing it, and putting myself into it. I’m learning what it feels like to let the characters tell their story, and to do my best to get out of their way in doing it.

Part of me wants to jump in and say it’s all crap. This thing will never get published, and it’s a waste of my time to even do it. I don’t know yet if it’s crap or not, and I don’t know if it will ever get published (or if that’s even something I’d want to do). For now, I put that part aside and just write.

I’m at 8,754 words. Probably more than I’ve written in all my previous aborted attempts combined. I’m 18% of the way to my goal of 50,000. It is achievable. I can succeed. I like that.

Leonard Bernstein (one of my favorite people of all time) said:

To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time.

I get it. Yay for deadlines.

I’m going to go to bed now, and see if I can’t dream up my next plot twist.

NaNoWriMo

So, I’ve decided to participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this year. If you’re not familiar, it’s a whole bunch of people with a common goal of each writing a novel of at least 50,000 words, from start to finish, in the month of November. The important thing, they say, is to get quantity, not quality. You can edit it in December. :-p

So, in doing the math, I realized I’d have to write about 2,000 words every day, in order to make it happen.

Then I realized that I had no idea how long it would take to write 2,000 words. So, I decided to find out. Here’s my 2,227-word short-story, that I wrote in just under 2 hours.

Corollary Post

I’m so grateful to have a dishwasher–load two is going in this morning. Yikes.

We used a LOT of damn dishes.

I never thought I’d be one of *those* drunks

You know the ones, that wake up the next morning and say “How did THAT get there?” This morning I became one of them.

I woke up and started unloading my dishwasher and realized I completely forgot using SO MANY damn dishes.

What? It counts. Shut up.

friends don’t let friends use video cameras drunk.

Love

A friend of mine asked me to dig up some old emails. Looking through them, I found this little gem:

Love is not something that can be earned. It cannot be bought, bribed, blackmailed, coerced, pleaded for, or won. It can only be given, and given freely.

Love cannot die. It does not fade away, and it cannot be killed. It can only cease to be given. And even then, I’m not so sure it’s not there.

Love is never just love of another. True Love is also always Love of self.

Rejection of Love is not rejection of the Lover. Rejection of Love is rejection of self.

Love does not look any one way, or require any one behavior. It is not prohibitive, but unconditional.

Love can only exist between equals. So it’s a good thing that all humans are created equal. Any *perception* of inequality, however, equally distorts the perception of Love.

Love is infinite; it has no boundaries. When given, it is given to All. In this way, it is mysterious, as it infinitely and instantly surpasses the capability of the Lover to Love.

Love is not respect, nor condonance, nor commitment, nor esteem, nor generosity, nor codependency, nor independance. Love does not bind, nor connote, nor imply, nor express. Love just loves.

Love does not heal, but the act of Love sanctifies all wounds.

Love teaches Gratitude, which, in turn, teaches Love.

Love is an inherently Spiritual act, as it is one Spirit recognizing another.

To get Love, begin by saying “Thank you.” This does not cause others to Love you; it causes you to see the Love that is already yours to receive.

Love is an act of will; a siimple choice that changes Absolutely Everything.

Love is not about *doing* anything; it is about claiming what is yours.

You cannot Love tentatively, doubtfully, or half-heartedly; Love is unquestionably assertive. Love only happens when you open your eyes.

Only when every human learns to Love can we truly be Lovers. (i.e. To give up Nirvana until all have attained it is indeed no great sacrifice, as only when all take that vow can Nirvana exist.)

And now these three remain: Faith, Hope and Love. But the greatest of these is Love.