R’s brother is in Fallujah. (The link goes to a snippet of a story at time.com, featuring his platoon.)

Please join me in thinking good thoughts for him, his family and his platoon. May they come home safely.

For the two or three of you who are reading, you’ll notice that I haven’t posted the latest 2,000 words yet. They’ll be there soon. 😉

If I can average about 2,500 words a day (hahaha) for the rest of the month, I could actually finish this thing. Can she do it? Stay tuned… 😉

Because I love wasting time.

I’ve seen this before, but Stephanie sent it to me today. So here ya go:

Which John Cusack Are You?

I’ve actually never *seen* Bullets Over Broadway. Guess I should, huh?

Yep, still plugging away. I didn’t get much done this weekend because I went to Cleveland for my friend Jen’s baby shower. The good news is, once I get through today and tomorrow getting crap done at work, I will have a LOT of free time at work. 🙂

Remember what I was saying last week, about having little hope about my divided country being put back together?

It seems like every day I get more and more discouraged.

There have always been radicals on both ends of the ideological spectrum. Quite frankly, extreme radicalism has always frightened me.

Maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m just not seeing it, but it feels like the bottom is falling out from underneath the middle ground.

I’ve always considered myself a middle-of-the-road kinda gal…I’ve always seen the value of cooperation. No, we’re not going to agree on everything, but in order for progress to be made, we need to find the middle, seek the happy medium, encourage cooperation between politicians on both sides of the divide.

Lately, though, my reaction to what I perceive as excessive extremism from the right is a shift further left.

As evidence, I give you these two pieces which are making the rounds on various blogs.

Fuck the South

A Modest Proposal

The former is a bitter, angry diatribe expressing frustration over Kerry’s loss. The latter suggests that the red states kick out the blue states. I don’t see anyone taking “Fuck the South” too terribly seriously. I do, however, fear that Thompson’s “Modest Proposal” might be.

The further question on that is, did he mean it to be? I’m not sure. I forwarded the link to R, and he responded with the question “do you think it’s possible that this is a very clever liberal wakeup call?”

Hmm. Good question. I don’t know what the answer is.

Back to the point I was originally trying to make…my biggest fear is that this loss of the middle, this ever-growing extremism on either side, could be permanently damaging.

And Electablog agrees with me:

We expect extremism from the valleys of deep red and deep blue. We also expect that extremism to be scorned by the rest of us who supposedly live along the purple mountains of moderate majesty. We got a lot of extremism. We didn’t get much scorn…
The medium, we are told, is the message. Well, in American politics, for most of us, the message should be medium. But it’s not. And the American middle sold its own soul for the privilege of being silent in an anything to win era. The sane center is shrinking while the margins are just a little less marginalized.

Wow, does THAT feel good. 🙂

Whee!

Thanks again for the generous outpouring of support. I can’t tell you how much it means to me. Again, anyone interested in reading a bunch of truly horrible prose can email me or post a comment, and I’ll send the link.

It’s a relationship story. The main character, Kate, goes through a bad breakup and decides to plunge back into the dating scene. (Sound familiar? 😉 ) Like I said before, I see it as much more a series of short stories than a “novel” per se.

I had an interview this morning, which I feel relatively positive about. It was for a public relations job, not a teaching job, but you know…whatever. 😉

I was also quite surprised at work with a small bonus check for all my hard work, and the offer of an extra comp day. I think they know I want (need) out, and are trying extra hard to make me feel appreciated. Still, it was nice.

Okay, I’ve wasted too much of my workday not doing work already…Ta ta!

Yes, it’s a little pathetic, but I am forcing myself to NOT give up. Listening to the little voice that says “you’ll never make it” is just counterproductive.

I have to look at it this way…this is the most I’ve written, not to mention the most regularly I’ve written, in a VERY long time. And I’m going to keep plugging away. I’m going to finish this story.

As I said, I tend to write in about 700-word bursts. The thing is, I tend to do that fairly easily. I just need to do MORE of them.

Will I be listed among the NaNo winners this year? Perhaps not, but I have to think of that as a secondary goal now.

Encourage me. Do not let me give up. 😉

So yeah, I did manage to write a bit yesterday. I’m still behind, but I’m trying not to let that get me down. 😉

Had a busy weekend…Friday night, I started the second session of my cheerleading class. I have 13 girls signed up this time around! Actually, I found that it went more smoothly with a slightly larger group than with the very small one. I had one mom offer her help, as she was a cheerleader for 14 years. AND she was a Buffalo Jill. Sigh. She just looks like one of them. Tiny, blonde, and perky. The perfect suburban mom. Blah. The little girl’s name is McKenzy (yeah, it’s spelled like that), and she’s a nice kid, although probably a little overzealous. She already knows how to do a herky. (That’s a jump. Although when I was an instructor, we were instructed to call it by its real name, which I can’t remember.) I’ve also got permission to order some teaching materials. I’m in desperate need of new material. So, yay.

After that, I brought R to a work party, so that was interesting. He spent a good chunk of time talking with one of my coworkers who is an uber-fan of an obscure progressive rock band that he happens to know. Heh.

Continued my film education with The Fisher King, which I had not previously seen. I loved it. R has a very good record so far…he hasn’t shown me anything I haven’t liked. 🙂

I wasted a whole bunch of time yesterday. Seriously. I have no idea where it went.

Jen and I did get a chance to spend a bit of time with Susan yesterday…we met her for coffee/hot chocolate on her way out of town. And she asked us both to be in her wedding. I can’t even begin to say how touched and honored I am. I was just talking about the fact that I had never been in a friend’s wedding. My motto seemed to be never a bridesmaid. 😉 I know how happy she is, and I will be so happy to stand up for her on her big day. I love you, Suse!

Now, what am I supposed to be doing? Oh. Yeah. Working…

I saw this map on a coworker’s door and laughed out loud. A quick google search led me to Matthew Yglesias’s blog. Enjoy!