At the club on Saturday night, the women’s restroom line got to at least 20 girls long for four stalls. Yes, only four stalls. The wait took forever. Another gal in line wanted to know how long it really takes to go. While I agree, she went on and on and on. I decided I was in toilet discussion hell. It’s bad enough to wait in line for 10 minutes, but worse to continue to talk about it for 20 minutes or so after.

The whole thing can be summed up in less than a minute and be quite funny. So let me ask…How long does it take to use the bathroom, ladies? I realize that club clothes aren’t always easily removed, and the drunken stupor doesn’t help matters. But how hard is it to lift that skirt or unzip those pants? Personally, I decide on a club outfit based on how easy it is to go to the bathroom. Honestly, you don’t have to make it difficult. With never-ending line, a half inch of water on the floor (I hope that was water) and inebriation, there’s no reason to create more problems for yourself in going to the bathroom! Make it simple. Get in. Get out.

However, through this endless loop of women’s potty lines conversation, I learned one thing. I can’t stand it! I’ve been known to beat a dead horse—and I can’t take it when someone else does. So it’s time for me to quit. Certainly not about the annoying bathroom lines or any other crap.

I even had some dumb drunk girl throw water my direction while yelling at her equally dumb drunk friend. It soaked my shoe and went down my dress. While terribly annoying—the shoes tend to get black dye all over my feet when wet—hardly worth getting upset about. Even Mr. Brilliant, who loves to point out when I am beating that dead horse, felt the need to commiserate rather loudly about my getting wet. Frankly, I think he needs to take some of his own advice, particularly in this case. But I have kept my mouth shut. Perhaps on occasion I do think too much, but at least I don’t overreact to minor situations.

Technorati: bar restrooms

Today may be a lost writing day as well, but I hope not. I was out late last night in the East Bay. Not a place I regularly travel to, and certainly not where I would think of first to go out. I had a great time and met some great people who are friends of Mr. O.

Just who is Mr. O? Anyone who listened to one of the last of Kelly’s podcasts might know. He’s hard to describe. He’s my most recent writer’s block. So I’m not going into any detail here. Not that he reads it or would be bothered. I just don’t want to jinx it.

For now, I need water and more sleep. Maybe an afternoon nap. Right now, I’m just not that tired.

After a quiet night and catching up on sleep, I think I may be ready for this afternoon’s dress rehearsal. I have a couple of costume changes. When I write that, I can’t believe that I’m dancing and require costumes. Crazy. I would not have believed anyone who told me I would be doing this.

The novel is in waiting. No work got done on it yesterday, and today looks the same. My cats are feeling neglected because this week I’ve hardly been home. Pets really do love routines.

I haven’t wanted to think about the upcoming holidays, and so I’m behind in shopping. Typically, I have everyone taken care of. I hate shopping most of the tme, but this time of year it’s horrible. I’d rather have a root canal–anything except go to the mall. I still have one nephew and my grandmother to shop for. I also still need to get my hands on a PS3–without paying some jacked up price. It won’t be long before there will be enough of them on the market that paying 4 to 5 times the price isn’t necessary.

Well yesterday I spent a good part of the day writing. I didn’t get very far really. I wrote 1000 words of dialog. I left the scene where I was stuck and began writing a different scene. There was very little narration. Things move forward, but at a snail’s pace for me. I guess I find the conversations boring, but they are pretty typical. I still need to go back and finish the stuck scene. I think I need to find a good book–a well-written book just so I can read good writing.

I need to pay closer attention to what people say in conversations so I can write them with better detail.

I have created my first few characters and I still have a few more to introduce. I have ideas about things they can do to mess things up, but I just haven’t gotten that far yet. I still don’t like them very well. It reminds me of The Sims where you get to play god. I once created a character who was so stupid and annoying that I did kill her off. Slowly let her starve to death. Watched with glee. While I will admit that I created this characters, they have distinct personalities which makes them act in a certain way. Anyway, I think perhaps most of us spend too much time on pointless endeavors. I could have made my characters more intellectual, but who wants to read a book where the characters spit out their philosophy or dump their intellectual crap on whomever is around. I don’t want to read about snobs. I would want to torture them too.

I’m not sure how much time I will have to write over the weekend. I’m still doing hula dancing. I haven’t written about it in awhile. We have a show coming up in two weeks, and our last rehearsal is this Saturday–all afternoon. By the time I recover from the workout, I will have lost most of the day, if not the entire day. Luckily we have a holiday coming up, and I have no plans. Guess I will be writing.

I’m a little behind today. It’s late, and I’m just now getting to my blog. I still haven’t gotten ready for me day. An evening of debauchery will throw anyone’s schedule off.

Technorati: NaNoWriMo

At this point my word count is so low on my novel for NaNoWriMo that I can’t see how I will ever get to 50,000 words. That’s not the worst though. I’ve begun to hate my characters. They are morons. You know…those people who you wonder how they get through life…those morons we laugh at in comedy shows. Anyway, I’m stuck again. I think I’m going to write a different part of the story until I can get them unstuck. I will figure out a way to weave them together later. The conversations are getting stupid, but then I think that is a function of their setting. Conversations in the real world can be just as dumb.

I’m feeling a bit like a omnipotent being who is just sick and tired of the stupidity. A flood? That’s been done. Perhaps in this story a car accident would work. Maybe one could drink themselves to death. The characters have full personalities, but they don’t move along on their own without a little push. Let’s see…there are always earthquakes, maybe a epidemic disease. I’m not sure that an act of God would actually move this story forward–most likely make it even more stupid. My characters haven’t even gotten to the point where they do stupid things to each other. Two of them are just dying to hop into bed with each other. I may be able to get a few pages of drama out of that–if they don’t act like morons.

Technorati: novel hell

I hear the end of that title reverberating. Too bad blogs don’t have sound. I guess they can, but I’m not fond of them. You might even hear Darth Vader music in your head, but I’d rather save that for another ex.

Why is it that ex-boyfriends come out as soon as you’ve found a new one? Can they smell it? I’m still friends with an ex. We dated for a year and a half, but it has been more than 3 years since we broke up. He broke it off, not me. Every time I get interested in someone else, he calls. I swear he can sense it even though I haven’t talked to him in weeks. I’ve now gotten two phone calls within a week. I never get calls like that. He’s out of town for work too! He never called me when he was out of town for work when we dated. The whole thing makes me crazy. Yes, I’ve met a cool new guy. I don’t know where it’s going, which makes my mind think some crazy stuff because it likes to KNOW things. It’s also why I am having trouble coming up with topics for this blog—my mind is focused elsewhere. I still don’t get how it always happens that as soon as I find someone else this past guy comes into the picture. I don’t discuss my dating with him.

Anyone else out there had one of these? My mind would sure like to make sense of this one.

Technorati: the crazy things people do

I was thinking about a conversation I had over the weekend about the sexism I experienced in college as an engineering student. As I was reading Salon today, I was reminded that little has really changed. I generally don’t even think about it. It’s too easy to get caught up in the sexist stuff you see and hear and not get your job done.

As an undergrad, I had sexist professors and teaching assistants. It was obvious that they didn’t want you in their class. This was in the late 80s in engineering. It was common to be the only female in a class, especially if it wasn’t a large class. I even experienced that working over 10 years later. It wasn’t uncommon for me to be the only female in the room at a meeting. However, my work experience was much less sexist than my undergraduate experience.

Graduate school was very different, which I attributed to when I went. In this case, some of the students were sexist and rude, but not the professors. I did receive advice from one of my past chemistry professors about which schools aren’t worth going to. She didn’t think it was necessary to go to graduate school where you had to fight sexism—graduate school is hard enough. I’m glad I took her advice. I couldn’t have asked for a better graduate advisor. He had a unique experience himself. He had been a carpenter for a few years before going to college. He went to college while being married and then went on to graduate school and became a professor. Not the traditional path one usually takes.

Back to the sexism in society…I still wonder when it will be gone. The Salon piece dealt with whether the country is more ready for a woman president or a black president. A columnist in the Washington Post makes the argument that Americans hold nostalgia for traditional gender roles and is more likely to elect a black male president.

We’ve come so far, and yet have so far to go when it comes to both racism and sexism. To know this, all one needs to do is ask a woman or minority. The blacks I’ve met will tell you that they still experience racism. I think most women will say the same about sexism—if they are telling the truth and not trying to deny that it occurs. I see a lot of denial.

Technorati: sexism, racism

So I took a day off from blogging thinking that I would have something to say today. I can’t say it turned out that way. My current focus is on something I don’t write about.

The most important task I have this week is to get a PS3 (they are out on Friday). If not this week, then I will be hunting one down until Christmas. My son has been waiting for it to be released for about a year now, just like all the other Playstation fans. It’s actually a gift from his grandmother, but it falls on me to find one. I’m not crazy enough to pay double or three times the price just to have one. Although I’ve thought it might be worth getting one and selling it. My son, of course, hates that idea.

I’m looking at what else is going on this week. Not much that I can see really. The normal stuff. However, I haven’t heard back about the all day interview I had over a week ago now. Although they did say it might be that long. It would nice to have a definitive answer. In the meantime, I need to work on that novel. Looks unlikely that I will hit 50,000 words by the end of the month. I keep getting stuck, and then everything else I need to do keeps me occupied. I hope to be more productive this week, since I’m feeling better. The severe sore throat and headache did nothing for me.

I would like to thank everyone for the advice on “over-thinking.” Not likely that I will be smoking anytime soon. I’m terribly allergic to cigarettes, and second-hand pot smoke gives me a killer headache and difficultly breathing. I may have to pour all my over-thinking into my novel characters. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that my main character does exactly that. But then doesn’t everyone?

Well now that I’ve rambled on for a few minutes, it’s time for me to get motivated. I’m back to writing in my pajamas, when I should be getting ready for my day.

Technorati: rambling

Anyone know how to cure an overthinking problem? My thoughts just seem to get in the way of enjoying anything. Always analyzing. I thought I had taken care of it. I swear it used to be worse. But it looks like I have another case of it, and it’s noticeable. It’s not doing me any good, and it’s not doing the other person any good either. Perhaps it makes for a good laugh now, but I’ve seen how this works out in the past. After awhile, it’s no fun anymore, not funny and in fact, downright annoying.

I can hardly think straight today. It has been that way since Wednesday when a bad sore throat came on rather suddenly. I’m still dealing with it today, although it is a bit better. It’s very annoying because I just don’t get sick like this. I managed to get one thing taken care of this morning early so I don’t have to deal with it later. So I have the rest of the day to be lazy and perhaps let my body take care of these germs.

I was concnerned enough yesterday after looking at my throat to go to my naturopath. I didn’t want to take antibiotics, and you never know if they will work or not. So a $100 later, I am hoping that what I got will help get rid of it faster than without anything.

It’s not much of a post today. I did work on my novel some yesterday, but I only added a few hundred words.