25,320

This month is NaNoWriMo. I've spent many nights writing until 4am, suffering for it the next day. Some days I didn't write at all, which I felt very guilty about, but not guilty enough to actually do something about it. I am the Queen of all procrastinators. "Put off today what you can do tomorrow" is my motto. So, of course I'm not at the word count I should be at. Today, I should reach 31,673 words. There's no way I'll get even close unless the writing fairy sprinkles her magical word dust on me. But, I'm not down, I'm not out. Last night, at around 3am, I passed the halfway point. That's right, I'm now at 25,320 words. Over the hump. I celebrated by eating half of a cake. Probably not the best thing to do that late at night (or early in the morning, depending on how you look at it.) It's all downhill from here.

Here's an excerpt (unpolished and up until this point, not even reread)

Three hours later Melissa groggily opened her eyes and prayed to the goddess of java to deliver her from her caffeine withdrawal. This time, coffee beat the Jacuzzi as Melissa opted for a quick shower to wash of the grime of international travel. Deciding the day was too nice to stay in her hotel and feeling just a bit adventurous, she rummaged through her carry on for the travel-size Portuguese-English glossary/phrase book and picked up her purse, wallet already full of Brazilian Reals. She remembered a promising sidewalk café about a half a block away and made her way towards it in full on addict mode.

The café was right where she remembered it, but on closer inspection it much more than promising, it was heaven. The cases close to the counter were filled with the most delectable looking pastries and sweets and the smell of good, strong espresso wafted out onto the sidewalk, begging her to get her fix. After ogling the pastries, Melissa selected a chocolate croissant and a double espresso and sat down at an outside table. The sidewalk was shaded by huge fichus tree, about 100 times bigger than any fichus Melissa had ever seen. After the waiter brought her the goods and taking the edge off the caffeine headache that was starting to set in, she started checking out the other patrons sharing her chocolate/caffeine vice. Nobody caught her eye until it reached the counter, where Mr. Tall, dark and handsome was having a “discussion” with what appeared to be the owner of the café. Wavy black hair that brushed his collar, faded red t-shirt, broken in blue jeans hanging on his hips, brown leather sandals all added up to puddle-making material. The things I would do to him…uh uh, dangerous territory. His arms were gesticulating madly, finally pointing towards a painting that Melissa hadn’t noticed before.

Well, I've got to get back to writing. I've got a lot of catching up to do and there's only 11 days, 13 hours, 18 minutes and 52 seconds left. 51, 50, 49...

I know pronounce you Dick and Larry

I don't think I've mentioned that I *love* John Stewart.

"Oh my god, the White House is taking the United States pass/fail." Truer words were never spoken.

Prison Thriller

I'm not sure whether to laugh, enjoy or be very, very afraid.

Boston Legal - Guantanamo Rant

At least somebody is talking about this, getting this into the conversation of the general public. The few times I've watched this show I've really enjoyed it. Now I think I'll have to take a new look at this show. Very well done and more like this please.

SNL - Chris Rock Open

Too fucking hilarious. a retarded one...

Dear Mr. President on Jimmy Kimmel Live 4/10/07

Pink proves herself to be the heiress to the Indigo Girls, Joan Baez and all the other powerful woman who weren't afraid or ashamed to let their voices be heard. She does all Americans proud.

What Rio de Janeiro is really like.

You may not believe it, but in Rio we have crocodiles wandering the streets!

These are actual pictures I took while crossing the small bridge (over the fetid river of slime) on way to the beach, about 6 blocks from our apartment.

Thanks, Gene Weingarten..

I needed a laugh today.

I don't which part was my favorite, picturing Laura Bush in an "I'm With Stupid", the horoscope, ode to Dr. Suess, or Dear Heloise. But this was pretty good:

Radio weather forecasts
It'll be warm tomorrow in Washington, high in the 60s, with clear skies except maybe over the White House, where, anytime now, with any sort of luck, we're going to see the wrathful, purifying fire of a justly outraged God. Over to you, Christina, for a look at the traffic.

And thanks to Froomkin for sending me over that way.

Arlo Guthrie/Alice's Restaurant *

For some reason I was thinking about this song today. Maybe because of the interesting state of our country these days...

My favorite part of the song is when they jump up and down saying "kill, kill, kill."

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restuarant. Let's revive the movement.

Sweet!

I haven't been this happy since...I don't think I've ever been this happy. I am sitting on my couch blogging away on my spanking new laptop. I've never had a laptop before, so it's interesting getting used to the basics, like moving the cursor around (although I do have a nifty wireless mouse) and the relatively flat keyboard. Anyway, my laptop ROCKS! It sure does work a lot better than the desktop I've got, the desktop that now belongs to everyone in the house. Oh happy day.

SNL - Digital Short - A Special Christmas Box *Uncensored Ve

I think I love the shaggy haired boy Andy Samberg and the I date older women Justin Timberlake (good for me, I'm the same age as his ex!)
1. Cut a hole in the box.
2. Put your junk in the box.
3. Make her open the box.

Priceless.

Soccer Mom Ho Redux

I'm still getting the hang of the whole embedding youtube vids and stuff, so the links I wanted in the original post didn't show up. You can find Feministing here and Broad Comedy here.

Soccer Mom Ho

I love these ladies. I linked to them from Feministing, a fantastic feminist blog. Warning: Explicit Lyrics. Please go check out their website, they've got more videos. I'm thinking of changing the title of my blog to Soccer Mom Ho even though not one of my girls actually plays soccer (even though we live in Soccer Mecca Brazil.) Notice that when the Ho's are referring to their soccer playing children they're girls even though in the end it's their male children that shout out. Soccer is such a girly thing.

Weekend Update: Blackness Scale

I giggled like crazy with this. Scales of Soul. Obama is whiter than Bill Clinton. Gotta love it!

Queen of procrastination

It's 2:47am and I'm supposed to be working. I guess I could go to sleep if I wanted, seeing as how I only need to deliver this job at the end of Friday, but, I don't want to sleep! I just finished a 24 page translation of an infuriatingly badly formatted booklet for a local NGO. I don't understand why they even sent it out for translation. There were even parts of it with that automatic text you get, Lorem Ipsum or whatever the fuck it is. Why bother? And I checked out thier website. Who the fuck translated that? I really hope it wasn't the company I'm working for because I would be seriously embarrased to associate myself with such crappy work. I am constantly annoyed by bad translations. Some of these companies should be ashamed to put their babelfish translated websites online. It just makes them look cheap and second rate. Why don't they understand that? Just shell out the extra $ and get it done right the first fucking time. I think that may be the hardest lesson for the majority of the people in this world to learn. Just suck it up and do it right the first time. You'd save yourself the frustration of having to re-do whatever it is over and over again. Cheapskates. Speaking of which, that asshole that I'm freelancing for not only pays me half of what he should, but he doesn't even pay me on time! After harrassing them for a month, they finally paid me half of what they owe. What is wrong with people? Don't they understand that we work to get paid because, holy shit, we *need* the money? Food doesn't grow on trees...ok, well, bad example. Just ship the cash idiot!

Ok, rant over. I'm cranky because I didn't get my daily news junky fix. Maybe tomorrow...

I dreamt about John Mayer last night...

And no, it wasn't one of those kind of dreams. I took my 3 little girls (6, 3 and 2) to his concert when he asked all of the little kids to get up on stage and dance. I was lucky enough to be able to sit on the couple of steps on the side of the stage, watching and enjoying. The kids danced all around John, who seemed to be having a pretty good time. While the two older girls were dancing (in the middle of a pretty big group of kids...who takes their kids to a concert?) the little one had to go to the bathroom. We went backstage, which looked oddly like a public elementary school. For some reason I let her pee in the sink. Suddenly I heard the two guys from the Barenaked Ladies signing along with John (I have no idea what song it was) and I grabbed my kid, pulling up her pants on the way. I was crazy excited to see the combination only dreams could conjur. After the concert my kids went to eat in the concert hall cafeteria (huh?) and I saw a whole bunch of people from my high school (that I haven't talked to since 93) one of whom had actually shrunk since then and stood about 2 feet tall, she didn't even come to my hips. There were some very yummy ham and cheese croissants, in fact, all there was to eat were croissants. When I finally found my kids, they were falling asleep on the table they were sitting at, crayons and papers scattered all around them.

I really love to sleep.