Tom & Alissa

Back at work. We got home pretty late on Saturday night, watched the last new episode of The Office (sniff) with hot cups of tangerine rooibos and went to bed.

Yesterday we went to church early to set up communion. The service was downstairs again - the building we rent out is having serious heat problems, and the sanctuary upstairs, where we normally meet, was frigid - and it was reasonably crowded for a holiday weekend. After church we snuck off to Angela’s apartment and had buckwheat blueberry pancakes, sausages, and what I think was golden raisin bread with her and Steve.

Tom’s shooting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art today, so he worked yesterday evening to set up. They are shooting a very long day with a lot of extras in temple of Dendur room today. So while he was working, I went out in search of a tiny Christmas tree for us. I was unsuccessful - the hardware store where they’re sold was closed - but I did come back with lots of little white Christmas lights, candy canes, a couple of baguettes, four tomatoes on the vine, a bag of baking apples, and a power strip. Similar. Spent the rest of the evening cleaning up the apartment for the holidays and strategically placing lights and candles about the place. My major accomplishment was consolidating my stacks of notebooks, papers, portfolios, and books into a basket which I’ve placed at the foot of the couch, where I tend to do all my work anyhow.

If you haven’t guessed, I’ve abandoned the NaNo project this year around 22,000 words. I wasn’t anticipating the sudden spike in paid writing work this month, and paid (and published) work always comes first. I feel much better about it after talking to Josh yesterday, though - those 20k words do include one fully-finished story and half of five others, and that’s an accomplishment for me, especially with everything else that’s been going on. If nothing else, it’s helped me overcome my fear of writing fiction.

I have a lot going on this week, the most daunting of which is my wisdom teeth (uppers only) being removed on Thursday. Perhaps I’ll get some rest then?

I’m beginning to doubt more and more that I’ll finish the NaNoNovel, not because I don’t want to but because I keep getting (paid) work thrown in my direction. Which is awesome! But I want to do my best on it.

But still, maybe I’ll just keep going and see what happens. I ran out of story suddenly yesterday but I’m keeping it all in the back of my head. If you have a good idea for a somewhat realistic story in which the protagonist is a smart six-year-old boy living in Greenwich Village, let me know.

In other news, this has been a crazy week at work and I got home around 9pm tonight, forced to forgo the IAM event I was going to both attend and photograph. In lieu of that, I watched a screener of Sand and Sorrow, a George Clooney-narrated documentary about the events leading up to the genocide in Darfur and into last year, and I’m now thoroughly outraged. I do highly recommend seeing the film when it comes out (next month?) but I can’t say much more because I’m supposed to write a review this week.

I am hearing nothing but the biggest and best of raves about There Will Be Blood. P.T. Anderson is probably my all-time favorite filmmaker (I kid you not, it borders on worship sometimes), so I was expecting this, but I didn’t anticipate the almost deliriousness of every review. Now I absolutely cannot wait to see this film.

But, this is not the weekend. (I think it comes out right after Christmas.) So this weekend, we were thinking of seeing Beowulf, but we may see something else. I am very prejudiced against this Beowulf - from the first time I saw the trailer, I knew I was going to hate it, it’s all wrong - but whatever. They’re calling it a “must-see” and so I must. I guess.

Also, we are going to a SeptokberfestinNovember party (don’t think about that too hard) at Kevin & Laura’s tomorrow night, which will undoubtedly be awesome, and I really need this weekend to recuperate. I am very glad that next week is a short work week, even if it means spending a lot of time traveling. Also, stuffing and gravy make everything much better. And Christmas can officially start. We can get our (tiny little) tree!

Last random observation: on my way to the IAM reception/lecture last night, I passed bagpipers on the steps outside of Cipriani and a whole lot of men in kilts for what felt like blocks. Sometimes I think that writers in New York are actually at a little bit of a disadvantage, because we get so used to the unusual that it barely registers and therefore rarely makes it into the notebook.

P.S. Amanda, I read the Zadie Smith book today, and I’m swooning.

I do have to mention, though, that though I’ve handily churned out about 3,000 words today, I am realizing that I’ll have to do that every working day from now until the end of the month if I’m actually going to finish this thing, since I’m most certainly going to lose a few days next week. And I’m getting my wisdom teeth out the week after that, which I’m suspecting will either have a seriously detrimental effect or will make me a brilliant writer in my drug-induced delirium. Also: several film reviews to write.

Honestly, I don’t know if I will make it, but for now, I’ll keep trying.

I’m still at work, ending a really spectacular week (sense the irony, reader) and watching this printer spool 1veryslow% at a time. All I want is my printed book. Just give me the book and let me go home.

62%.

Actually, I’m not going home; I’m crossing the street (to Starbucks, where I’m too cheap to pay for Internet, and ergo, without distractions) to try and catch up the NaNo, maybe get ahead a little bit (the other day I turned out about 2,000 half-decent words in forty-five minutes, so it’s not a totally ridiculous idea), polish off the film review for Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days and 30 Nights, from Hollywood to the Heartland due on Monday. Yes, that is the name of the film.

I saw said film last night, but clearly ate or drank something before it that did not settle well, and finally had to leave because I was so nauseous. Times Square is the last place in the world to be when you are nauseous. I had to get home. Briefly considered paying the obscene amount it would be for a taxi, but realized that sitting in the back seat of a car would be the worst thing - my car tolerance has all but disappeared in the last two and a half years of being a New Yorker - and decided an underground train really was the best plan. So I managed the subway and walked home from a further stop, and the cold air really was a Good Thing. I was weak when I got home, but happy to be there.

83%.

And I’m fine, now. Very excited about this weekend. We are planning to see No Country for Old Men (one of my most anticipated films of the year), go to a “wig” party (we have no wigs, so I’m not sure how that will work), and on Sunday, I am tickling the ivories at church for the first time ever at the Village Church and the first time in probably about three or four years in public. I played two services a week, every week for years at my home church in a fairly decent band, but I quit during my last year of college from sheer exhaustion. But now I’m revived. I’ve been thinking of doing this for about a year, and now that I have a piano at home, there’s nothing stopping me from doing it.

So I am.

93%.

Can anyone explain to me why Word gives me a word count of about 100 words less than Google Docs?

And who’s right? Hmm? I’m not going to sit down and count my 8044/8133-word document by hand.

. . . words so far. Not quite “on track” by the 1,667 words per day standard, but Anne Lamott would be proud of me (by the by, Bird by Bird has been quite an encouragement to me).

I had a relaxing birthday weekend. We spent Friday evening mostly at home; I had turned in my article before my deadline (this is a breakthrough, friends), and I wasn’t going to be NaNoing this weekend, so Tom picked me up from work in his big work van and we went home and watched The Simpsons before bed. We are on Season 2, now. At this rate we’ll finish by next year.

We got up somewhat late for us (we’ve both been doing early mornings lately, Tom obscenely so) on Saturday and ate some breakfast before heading out to see American Gangster (as apparently everyone else did). Perfect film? No. But very enjoyable. (Though, read a review before you go; definitely for mature audiences.) Afterwards, I remarked to Tom that it was refreshing to see a movie in which the cop was not only the good guy, but he stayed the good guy throughout the whole movie.

Came home, and Tom edited pictures while I cooked up a storm of cheese grits, chicken poached in white wine, and glazed parsnips & carrots. Delish. We will be eating a lot of grits in our household, I think, though our only real connection to the south is through family and neither of us have ever lived there. I made them with mozzarella and jalapeno jack cheese, which wasn’t quite right (mozzarella is too stringy and jack too Mexican), but we do think that bits of hot peppers might be a good idea. So I’ll try cheddar next. They were just as good the next day, too.

Ate dinner over an episode of Battlestar Galactica (okay, so, this sci-fi hater is totally addicted to this show now and if you’re sneering then you’re only just proving your unenlightened state), and then we headed out to BAM for the Sufjan Stevens extravanganza.

Which was a ton of fun. It was the third night, completely sold out. I really adored the musicality of the first half, which was a commissioned half-hour “cinematic suite” on the theme of the BQE with a good-sized orchestra and three separate reels of footage and hula hoopers throughout. That all sounds like a recipe for disaster, but it worked wonderfully, especially after reading in the program that Robert Moses (who designed the monstrosity that is the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway) opposed any sports that were not competitive, and obviously, hula hooping is the antithesis of that.

Tom loved the second half more, where Sufjan broke out a bunch of hits (he said they were “songs of civic pride”) and performed them with the orchestra and his band. Excellent stuff. It’s true; he’s not the best or most groundbreaking musician, but watching him, you just feel happy. He is definitely up there playing the music that he hears in his head, and it seems a lot like he’d be ok if you didn’t like it. He’s offering what he has to offer and not trying to be anyone else. And that is wonderful to see, especially in a young guy who’s had great success.

Sunday was my birthday. (I’m 24, lately a fact that scandalizes everyone.) I had about fifty Facebook “happy birthdays” from everyone (thanks, guys!) and a bunch of phone calls from the family. We were out to church, then to home to eat our leftovers and watch more Battlestar Galactica before meeting up with some friends at Union Hall. And of course, my sweetheart had gotten me the Piano of Awesomeness and some much-needed and lovely clothes, so I am spoiled and happy.

Hectic work week, and not just at work.

3938 words so far. So far, so good.

In other news, we are going to Sufjan Stevens’ symphony at BAM tomorrow night, and I have a birthday this weekend.

Also, I am exhausted today. Why? I don’t know.

NaNoWriMo starts in something like an hour and twenty minutes, and I’m going to give it a shot this year, so if you’ve already signed up with the site, add me as a buddy to keep me going. :)