This will take a very long time to fix. If ever.

I’m backing out early before it burrows in any deeper.

• You cannot be responsible for the thoughts and motivations of other people and you cannot keep making excuses for them.
• I rediscovered U2′s “Stay”. That band’s best songs are never their most popular.

For now, that is all.

In mere days, the critters will be out of school and all of us will be there as days turn into nights and then back into days, putting all the little broken Humpty-Dumptys back together again. The one upside? free AC as the city suffocates beneath the blanket of humid heat from now until September.

P.S. I finished reading The Big Short last night. I’m disgusted. I didn’t understand it all, all the machinations to make debt out of nothing, but then I think the point of the book is not many people did. They will never be punished for what they did.

P.S.S. I made vegetarian paella yesterday and actually managed to get the rice crispy on the bottom this time. Yay. The only unfortunate thing is I didn’t have a bottle of red Spanish wine to drink with it.

The first paella of the season.

I also start pottery classes Sunday. And as a friend at work said today, “So if you die you can be buried in a potter’s field?” I have nothing more to say. It’s the three dog nights days of the winter.

Happy Christmas.

And just to avoid sounding saccharine, I hate people who hate Christmas and I still hate vegetarians (and this article makes a good point).

There are other baking chores, too. The gingerbread house for the Daring Bakers, cookies for next weekend’s “cookie swap”, food for the work Christmas party, and biscotti to take home. Damn. I’d better get back to doing what I should be doing. It’s time to reclaim my weekends.

Now he’s gone and disappeared and I have no idea why. He either got a message with a clue and had to chase it down, or he had to go meet someone, or he’s hiding from them (why?), or something HAS HAPPENED TO HIM. But that wasn’t supposed to happen until later. Dear God. Don’t do this, baby, not now.

“just hit 50,000 words. I feel accomplished. Oh, yeah, I have the other half of the book to finish.”

So, yeah, I have to finish the actual book but my word count requirement is done. Nine days early. This story is clipping along pretty well in spite of some plot holes and boring sections but I’m plugging along. I renew my vow to finish this book, something I haven’t done in a lot of things I’ve written lately.

I stumbled upon an article on what chefs say their death row meals would be. Now, I’m not a chef but since I can cook better than just about anyone I know plusly, it’s a fun thing to ponder, here’s mine. It would have to entail soft boiled eggs with runny yolks, deep Italian bread, luscious pungent cheeses and olive oil. And a huge chunk of chocolate. Yes, in spite of my multiple food feats and my love of great dining, I’d pretty much go with the cheese plate.

Speaking of chocolate, I stumbled onto an article about Green and Black’s doing well in spite of the economic downturn. Let me say two things: chocolate is a great, cheap (less than new shoes) fix that makes just about anything feel better and Green & Black’s sucks. Sorry. I’d prefer Cadbury if I had to have something from the same company. But as for best chocolate, I’m a milk chocolate whore and I love Michel Cluizel more than any other I’ve ever eaten ever. So there.

P.S. I have yet to try Amadei. Maybe I’ll have some tomorrow after my massage.

This has to be done by early December or it will never be done, just like last year’s. I still feel there was a good story in last year’s NaNo story but it fell victim to a really crap year and my own personal stressors that didn’t lift until closer to now.

Thank you, Buenos Aires. People wonder why I didn’t more around more while I was there. I tell them it’s because I was shopping so much and I couldn’t bear to leave the city. While there is truth in that, I was also getting a story out of the clear blue sky and that takes some time to do. It was the perfect time. I wasn’t sleep-deprived, I wasn’t tired after work, I wasn’t stressed about stupid home things, I didn’t care what I ate or what I spent. Again, thank you, Buenos Aires.