I Don't Know Why

But this is one of the funniest things I have ever seen.

~*~

So, yes, I completed NaNo 2006!!  I can't believe it.  Third time lucky, I guess.  And no, I'm not putting it online because, well, it's kinda shit, really.  Which isn't to say it isn't salvageable, just that I personally don't find it very...interesting?  It did help me clarify some of the world-building issues/topics/history that I have in my...Universe.  I s'pose I should come up with a catchy title, like 'Buffyverse' or something.  Anyway.  I guess, if you're desperate to read it, I'd be happy to mail it to you (or just the first chapter, in case you find it dull as anyhow :P ). Oh, you want to know what it's about?  Um...er...well.  There's a farm, see, in Vermont, and growing, heh, heirloom apples and stuff, and, uh, there are aliens and extra-solar planets and space travel.

Yeah.

First year I've done NaNo without A Plan.  And, considering I got two days behind in the second week, yet managed to finish early, I'm really very pleased with myself.  Now, I've previously done NaNo by simply sitting down and writing.  For hours.  And not accomplishing very much.  This year, I downloaded a calendar and made it my desktop piccy, so I could see the daily word count I needed to do in order to finish. (it's 1667 words or more per day, btw, so it goes like this: 1667, 3334, 5001, etc)  Then, I read about this time challenge, in essence, a two hour block:

30 min: write like hell
10 min: break
30 min: write like hell
10 min: break
30 min: write like hell
10 min: break

My personal rule, don't count words until your break.  I was amazed, nay, stunned, by how much I accomplished in that time period.  What's great about this is that I discovered I didn't have to do the block all at once.  After the first time, I found I could do 30 minutes and then do something else, like wash dishes, yet still go back and write.

I was also able to shut off (mostly) that internal editor that said everything was crap, and Oh. My. God. you used 10 'but's in the same page and 'variety' twice in a single paragraph - the horror!  I said to myself, Self, I'm allowing you to write 'this is shit, this is shit, this is shit' repeatedly until Fiction Happens. 

Finally, I found The Right Music.  This has been a problem for me in the past, but then I got a hankering to listen to my main man from Japan, DJ Krush, and broke out all of his cd's (except the one I really wanted to listen to, natch), and popped them into the cd player.  I hadn't much cared for his last two efforts, Jaku and The Message At The Depths (Zen is a great 'all round' cd if you'd like to explore his work, and I highly recommend Ki-Oku if you love Miles Davis, with Toshinori Kondo on trumpet, and   Krush   if you love Hip/Trip Hop and Acid Jazz)(he is, btw, brilliant).  Yeah, my point is that I pretty much listened to nothing else while I was writing.

And boy, was I getting tired of it.  Now I'm pretty much listening to Underworld (of Trainspotting fame) as I try and finish some things.  Which brings me back to the Buffyverse and all things genre, because I'm trying to finish some XF Fanfic that I started years ago.  I've been reading over some of my old work and I have to say, I'm quite impressed!  Seriously, as a writer (or any hobbyist, artist, or musician -almost wrote 'magician'), I'm sure a lot of you look back at your earlier work and think to yourself, Hey, that kid's got potential!  But it isn't until you look at your work with a critical eye and see fewer and fewer flaws, and see things that make you laugh, and some that make you cry, that you realize that, really, you kick ass.

~*~

One of the 'treats' I used to continue with NaNo this year have been dvd's.  My local video store kicks ass, and has a 7 for 7 for $10 deal with their back catalogue,  which I soon must stop partaking of as I shouldn't be throwing money down the drain.  Anyhoo, I'm currently going through Millenium, because a) I love Lance Henriksen, and b) I never saw half the second series or any of the third series.  We have watched Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and S.A.C 2nd Gig (apart from the last 4 eps), Serial Experiments: Lain (razor, anyone?), Elfen Lied (blunt spoon, perhaps?), Vampire Hunter D (gorgeous), Blood:The Last Vampire (too short, too incomplete, wah), and some other stuff, which I can't recall at the moment.  I still really want Samurai Champloo, but will have to get it off of Ebay.  Ditto for Cowboy Bebop, which snuck up and bit me on the 'wow, amazing anime' part of my brain.  Yoko Kanno is genius for music.  Boy, don't let those big eyes and nudity and naughtiness of Elfen Lied deceive you, that is one damned harsh series.  It's just...there's a very dark core to it, and I don't mean that in a Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend kind of way, either (check out the plot keywords on that baby... I find the 4 and 5 star ratings quite icky).  There is no tentacle sex, for example.  It's just really harsh and not a little disturbing.  Good, but boy, I don't feel the need to ever watch it again.

~*~

So.  I've got a big weight thing going on.  As in, this is the most I've weighed, ever.  Guess I shouldn't have indulged this summer, eh.  The saddest part is that no thin person would even think twice about what I was eating. 

Like, y'know, bread.  How freakin' pathetic is that?  I didn't gain weight from binging on cake and ice cream, oh no, but eating bread.  Of course, not having my own kitchen didn't help, but for fuck's sake, I feel like I'm being punished all out of proportion to what I've done.

Over the past 3 weeks I've managed to lose and gain the same three pounds, go me.  Mr. Oro is having some seriously bothersome gastric issues, lots of gas, farting, belching, bloating, rumbling in the tummy.  Appendicitis and ulcers have been ruled out.  I think part of the problem is candidiasis, but...I dunno.  It's been going on for weeks.  Meat, potatoes, and most of the veggies he normally eats don't seem to be a problem, but wheat and wheat with sugar are.  He doesn't want to live without pasta or bread or cheese, yet at this time that's what seems to be helping the most.  He's trying to fast one day a week, and I'm trying to convince him to eat small meals more often, but it's difficult because he's simply not hungry all that often.

I am convinced that we will not get into The Other Clinic because I am too fat.  Which leaves me with one other clinic near by (only an hour!) to test, otherwise it's back to the old clinic.  Which reminds me, for Thanksgiving I got my period!!  After nearly three weeks of cramping after my HSG (and btw, Nurse Clam, when a patient calls you up about uterine pain and you recommend in a bright and cheery voice that she take a pregnancy test and call you back in the morning, and then when she calls back in the moring and you don't get back to her?  That makes the patient want to fucking kill you, mmkay?  Glad we got that sorted out) I was surprised and delighted by a smear o' the good stuff when using the toilet. 

Ah, good times.

~*~

Hokay, my last issue for this post concerns temperature.  As in, is it normal for one's fingers and toes to be so cold that it's painful to type when your house is 65F?  I invested in some fingerless gloves, which are, I might add, also keeping my wrists nice and toasty.  Right now it's 64 in here, I'm wearing wool socks, a silk camisole (cheap silk), a long sleeved shirt, a tee shirt, silk long underwear (also cheap), and a scarf around my neck, but am still cold.  I know my temperature runs low, but this really does seem a bit extreme.   Do I have poor circulation or something else?  I don't have any of the other hallmarks of poor circulation, though, and find that hard to believe...

I guess I can finish this post with a brief recap:

Good:

Winning NaNoWriMo
getting a period

Bad:

weight gain

Neutral:

waiting for the next pregnancy announcement...

Comments

[Cricket]

I am so impressed. You did it. I like seeing the method behind the madness. I know me. I would edit the same little paragraph to death and never progress.

Mr. O's problem sounds like gall bladder to me. His symptoms sound just like my exMIL. She kept takying stuff like Mylanta and it didn't work. After us having a baby and feeling him Mycelex with every bottle, we started feeding MIL anti-gas stuff like Gas-Ex and she did feel better, but it didn't fix things. She was fine after it was removed.

[Lut C.]

Farm + Outer Space = PIIIIIIIGS IIIIIIIN SPAAAAACE

There goes my chance of reading your work. ;-)

Struggling with weight problems is tough. Since our disaster, I've been eating too much good stuff. Not good. And I broke up with my nutritionist just before.

[Kelly]

Have you had your TSH level checked recently? Hypersensitivity to cold and weight gain are signs of hypothyroidism (I'm speaking from experience here). Also there seems to be an increased risk of hypothyroid with PCOS people. If you have had it checked, make sure you find out the TSH level - My Dr. told me for years I was fine with a TSH of 4.6. My RE however likes it under 3 for fertility. I've been on meds for almost a year now and have lost 50 lbs (I think the Metformin has helped with that too). Sorry if this is all repeating something you already knew - just wanted to share my experience.

[Pamplemousse]

64 in the house is too cold, even over here!!! We run at a steady 70. Turn up the thermostat and I second the thyroid stuff too. When did you last have your TSH checked??

[LMM]

Try niacin for the circulation - it used to be that I could hardly stand to dress myself in the winter my hands were so cold. The OTC Niacin was rec. by my doc and helped a lot. Just make sure you get the TIME RELEASE stuff or it'll give you a real hot flash.
Now, if you're also having white patches on your skin, make sure you get checked by a doc as that could be something completely different.

[virtual]

I've just been letting everything pass me by lately. Maybe tomorrow. Today was a complete loss, but that's how it is. Eh. Oh well.

[samurai]

There are too many, not enough handicapped parking spaces in our city

[feet]

Home schooling provides a better education, is worse for your child