Well the other day she posted something mid-morning on a weekday,  Something about suspecting she had not done very well on a pop quiz she had just taken at school.  My first thought was  not anything sympathetic like “that sucks” or “that’s too bad” or even an encouraging thought like “better luck next time”.

No.  my first reaction was “why are you posting to FB during school?!?”  At least I managed to keep that to myself and not post it.

So, I think I must be getting old.  Sigh.

So American Idol started this week.  I love American Idol.  I know, I know, it is cheezy and silly and sensible people probably have better things to do.  But I am not a sensible person.

I didn’t have to work today so I watched all three hours of Idol from this week.  I do so love the auditions.  Good or bad, I really admire anybody who has the cojones to stand up there in front of the judges and a gazillion television viewers and belt it out.  I could never do it.  And I think I may have said that before, but it is worth repeating.

I saw this play in London way back when.  It was probably 1994 or 1995.  It was without a doubt the scariest thing I have ever seen.  I still remember jumping out of my seat at various times during the show.  And then when the show was over we had to walk through Covent Garden in the dark to get back to the tube and home.  Yikes.

I have also read the book, and it was not nearly as frightening as the play.  But this movie looks like it will scare me half out of my mind.  Even the trailer is giving me goosebumps.

I think I better go to a matinee.  That way it will still be light out when I leave the cinema.

It is a mitten.  A complicated two-color stranded work mitten.  And it is a disaster.  You can’t see it in the picture but the color work is a mess.  All bumpy and puckery and generally not very nice.  And I hear many of these problems can be solved with blocking but there is one other massive problem.  It doesn’t fit.

The thumb hole hits me in a weird place and I can tell it would be misery to wear them.  So now I have to frog it and think of something else to do.  But I am having a hard time.

I keep trying the mitten on.  I guess I am thinking that somehow the thumb hole will have magically repositioned itself since the last time I tried it on.  And I don’t know why this is bothering me so much.  The whole project was kind of an experiment anyway, because I wanted to knit something with two colors.  So, mission accomplished.  Now I just have to frog the stupid thing.

In case you are wondering what frogging is, it is pulling the needles out and unravelling the whole thing right down to nothing.  It is called frogging because you are ripping the stitches back.  (Rip-it, rip-it.  Get it?)  Because it is two colors of yarn frogging will be an especially large pain in the ass (sorry mom).  But it has to be done.  Maybe I will do it after work tonight.  After I have had a glass of wine or two.  Unless somebody wants to come over and do it for me.

Ugh.

Now it is time to make some New Year’s resolutions.  There may not be any point to this, since it is 2012 and as the C-Man has pointed out the Apocalypse is scheduled for later this year.  But just in case the Mayan’s are wrong here goes:

1. Stop procrastinating.  (And yet here I am making my resolutions a week late).
2. Stop beating myself up.  It doesn’t accomplish anything.  I need to concentrate on looking forward.
3. Eat less junk food.  (Did I mention I just bought a full size bag of Blazing Buffalo Ranch Doritos?)
4. Knit a gauge swatch every single time.  (You fellow knitters know what I’m talking about.)
5. Blog more.  This has not been a good year for blogging.  I will try to do better.

But, I digress.  I went away for Thanksgiving week.  T had the kids and they were all going over the river and through the woods to visit his parents, and the idea of spending the holiday without them was kind of heartbreaking, so I decided to pretend it wasn’t happening, and I went away for a week.

I returned this afternoon and when I opened the door to my apartment I was greeted with a smell that can only be described as disgusting.  My first thought was “shit” (sorry mom) “I must have forgotten to take out the garbage before I left.  Stupidhead”  I crept into the kitchen to face the stinky music only to discover the garbage can was empty.

I shuddered and opened the fridge, thinking I must have forgotten to pour out the milk.  Nope.  No milk, and also no cold air in the fridge.  It was dead.   And judging by the stench It had been dead for quite some time.  The thing was exactly room temperature.

Oh.  My.  God.  The hamburgers!  I opened the freezer and was greeted with a scene of terrible carnage.  The burgers were defrosted and the plastic bag was all full of red bloody burger juice.  The frozen chicken breasts were soggy and smelly, and all the frozen veggies were nothing but warm bags of mush.  I chucked it all in the trash and quickly got it out of the house.  Then I opened some windows and chucked everything in the fridge too.  Eggs, cheese, moldy condiments, the whole nine yards.

I called the landlord and there is good news and bad news.  The good news is, it looks like I will probably get a new fridge.  The bad news is, not until Monday.  This is not so bad because I have to work most of tomorrow anyway.  And then I pick up the kids tomorrow evening, so I will be having dinner at T’s.  I just have to remember not to bring home any leftovers.

That is the name of one of the forum topics at nanowrimo.org.  And oh, it is so very very true.

Things are not going well this year.  I don’t know why not.  Maybe too much has happened this year.  Maybe I shouldn’t have even bothered trying to write a novel.  Heaven knows this one is really really bad.  I mean even worse than the other two.

I am also way way behind.  My word count is only just over 13,000 words.  That is way below par.  And when you are trying to write a novel in a month, being below par is a bad thing.

So, I don’t really know what to do.  I just feel like nothing is happening in this stupid book.  And it is not supposed to be a book about nothing.  I thought it was going to be a romance but it doesn’t seem to want to be that either.

I suppose I could start over.  Come up with something completely different while conveniently hanging onto the 13,454 words I have already written.  I know, that sounds like cheating but it isn’t.  Remember, one of the first rules of The Nano is NEVER DELETE!  Yes, I know I was yelling.  I meant to do that.

Maybe my main character could go on an axe murdering rampage, or decide to become a man, or give up all her worldly possessions and move to a small town in Oklahoma.  I really have no idea.

Sigh.  Maybe I am not going to win this year.  That kind of sucks.

And despite the fact that this puts me a whole day behind schedule, I am not even all that panicky about it.  I will make it up.

Tomorrow the Peskies and I are going up to Minneapolis for a day of reckless retail abandon.  We will go to the Mall of America.  We will go to Ikea.  We will eat bad junky food and stay in a hotel.  It will be tons of fun.  And tomorrow night after I make the children turn off the TV in the hotel room, I can play catch-up.  No problem.

Unfortunately, this year my idea is even thinner and sketchier than usual.  I am kind of making this up as I go along.  I mean, I suppose all fiction writers make it up as they go along, but this year I am really flying by the seat of my pants.  Or, as they say on some of the Nano forums, “pantsing it”.  I am still not even sure what my main character’s names are, never mind what they are doing.

The good news is, you only have to write 1600-ish words a day.  And really, that is not that hard.  You just have to remember a couple tricks.  First, describe absolutely everything.  Second, never ever wever use contractions.   Also, always say “he said” or “she said” after your character says something.  It seriously breaks up the flow, but it pads your word count and you can always take them out in December.  And finally, never delete anything.

So watch this space to see what happens.  You can keep track of my word count over there on the right.