my heart is a glorious machine;

I love how when I make a post saying "comment here and you get things from me!", everybody comments. (Give me another day or two and I'll send out the poor tattered NaNo for consideration.)

Work = better today. A steady stream of customers is always pleasing (though the Christmas muzak the mall's been playing since Thanksgiving ended is about to make me go spare), and four people complimented my hair. One of them was Santa. And, there was fresh, moist, and very luscious chocolate cake in the back room after work. Yay!

So, I have a problem. Since November ended, I haven't been able to write. At all. Like, I think about trying to write, and I start to feel a little sick. It is kind of worrisome. I did not realise that NaNo was going to take that much out of me. I planned to take a break from That Novel for a week or two, but I also planned to work on some other projects, you know? All that productivity -- don't want to lose it, you know? So here's what I'll do. You know the old ficwriter's meme: give me a character from a fandom I'm in, and I'll tell you three pieces of my personal canon about them. (Unless they're reallllly obscure characters. I have no personal canon about Ioreth of the Houses, for example, or that one vampire with the glasses that Spike had translating the text for Drusilla's cure. Although I do have a considerable amount of personal canon about the werewolf in Arthur Weasley's ward in St. Mungo's at Christmastime, so, you know.) It's like writing, except not. Little steps, yeah? 

Fandoms include: Jossverse (pretty much all of it), Tolkien, Harry Potter, Emily of New Moon, Doctor Who, Pushing Daisies, and ... um? Isn't there something else? There are a lot of things I love, but not all of these am I comfortable circumnavigating in a fandomy sort of way. Sunshine would totally be a fandom if McKinley's editor allowed fanfiction, so I suppose you could always throw that in, although me trying to guess anything about Con that we didn't get told in the first place would be about as simple as trying to guess what the moon's thinking, honestly.

Go!

I WOULD BE EXCITED MAYBE IF I WERE NOT A) NUMB AND B) REALLYREALLYREALLY EXHAUSTED.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm thinking that maybe this weekend I will actually have a really excellent night's sleep. This I am looking forward to.

So: I have all this stuff to do tonight, including a) some baking, b) cleaning the bedroom, and b) NaNoing. Ergo, I am drinking coffee. I don't particularly like coffee, but I need to stay up tonight, and today at work I was feeling terribly bleary again: especially as I had a grand total of one gorram customer. *facepalm* At least there were truffles to compensate. (TRUFFLES! AT MY REGISTER!) But yes: Stuff must be done, ergo, coffee + me. I want to like coffee. It's very cosy. And this is gingerbread coffee, and I very nearly like it, but that bitter undertone keeps throwing me off. It is also now cold (bleaaaaah!), but I mean to finish the cup. Eventually. (You know, maybe whipped cream and, like, cinnamon would make this more awesome.) 

I should have been cleaning my bedroom, but I did this instead: got sucked into a glorious whirlwind of traditional ballads. "Reynardine" is traditionally about either your average everyday stalker luring some girl to his castle (castle?), or it's about a werefox (hee!), or a werewolf, and it was suggested to me as a possible Vampire Ballad. Well, turns out? There are actual legitimate vampire interpretations of this ballad. I could dance. And then "The Unquiet Grave" is pretty fabulous, too, especially the versions where the lyrics are a little more menacing. Solas' version is too -- plantive? -- and not scary enough, I think. Her lover rises from the grave, you guys. And he's all "if you kiss my clay-cold lips, your time will not be long". Totally. a. vampire. Like, I can hear him saying this with a dangerous little smirk on his face and everything. I am now composing a new version that may reference vampires a little more clearly. ....Annnnd something made me decide that the innocent-enough "Early One Morning" is totally a bowdlerised version of a now-lost ballad in which the singer's lover has become a vampire, and either abandoned her so as not to eat her (CHAGRINNNNNNN!), or ... he's the non-vegetarian sort, and she is either dying or very very worried. I know how there is absolutely no reason for me to connect this ballad to vampires ... ever ... and especially not James Marsters ... oh dear, my knees get all wobbly when he sings it. Dear me. There is a tremendous deficit in instances in which James Marsters sings traditional ballads, let me tell you. 

Also? Mr Caruthers' past is kind of sordid. Eep. Poor bloke. No wonder he's so anti-social and completely unwilling to let on that he's in love with Evangeline.

Some observations:

i. My father is kind of adorable. Also, his music taste is made of win. (My father's taste in music is primarily responsible for my taste in music, though we listen to quite a lot of entirely different things. My adoration of all kinds of alt folk and traditional folk music is all his doing, though. I grew up singing along to his Steeleye Span tapes.) He's cleaning out his office and blaring the Strawbs' Hero & Heroine, and I have no idea why I have never stolen this album from him before. RECTIFY POSTHASTE. (Aww, now he's playing Once!) 

ii. I'm beginning to worry that the Evangeline story is only a really good excuse to hunt down a lot of alt. traditional folk. However, it does mean that the mixtape I will perfect and post at the end of the month will be really fantastic and full of artists nobody's ever heard of, yay! (Also, freak folk/neofolk/New Weird America is my favourite. thing. ever. We were made to be together, we were!)

iii. Speaking of which? I FOUND MY VAMPIRE BALLAD. After I watched Wings of Desire and alas, did not have the soundtrack at all, I started playing the only Nick Cave I possess on repeat, which is a duet with PJ Harvey I got off audiography ages and ages ago -- the old traditional ballad "Henry Lee" (lyrics), and eee, is it ever fantastically applicable to vampire seduction, except that she only stabs him, she doesn't eat him. Oh well, the version in my altverse could easily be slightly different. Anyway, it is fabulously atmospheric and I heart it to bits. ...I seem to have this problem with loving murder ballads too much, c.f. my wild love for "Little Sadie" in all its cheerfully psychotic glory.

iv. Apparently I am quite ridiculously A SAP. Like, I have had "Full of Grace" stuck in my head today? And I get all flaily and sniffle and yell "ANGELLLLL!" at inappropriate moments? IT IS BAD, I AM TELLING YOU. (Since when did I ship Buffy/Angel this much, anyway?) Also I have this absurd need to write fanfiction. OH HELP.

v. Twilight calendars attract the weirdest people. Seriously. I have had much weirder not-customers since we started displaying them prominently. Several times elderly women have picked them up dubiously and just sort of looked at them, like, "the undead? is that what the kids are into these days?". Also there were Real Live Twihards in handmade Team Edward t-shirts wandering around my kiosk today, at the most caffeine-raging stage of thirteen, and I was beginning to plan out emergency escape routes in my head ("if they make a rush for the front display, I can duck behind the register -- I think it's bulletproof? -- and these keys can totally be turned into a weapon if things get really dire!").

Annnnd the people at FYE keep moving Edward around, and he glowering sinus-infectionly at me all shift today, aieeeeeee. I'm beginning to construct a theory that sparklepires contract some kind of Death Flu which presents itself with symptoms very much like vampirism, except with more sneezing and, um...glitter? That bit's hard to fit it. Then again, it's hard to fit into the original context.

I'm hoping someone will, like, knock over a bunch of CDs, and Edward will be all "THESE ARE NO LONGER ALPHABETISED. AND ALSO YOU CRACKED THE COVER OF THIS JOSHUA RADIN, YOU CRETIN. PICK IT UP." and have to climb out of the poster to go fix them and THEN HE WILL STOP WATCHING ME ALL DAY? 

So yeah: life = job job job job nano job sleep. I am staying up late tonight to write. ...Except so far it has mostly been catching up on the two days of LJ that I missed, good heavens. Tomorrow I plan to: touch up my hair, take some books back to the university library up the hill, SLEEP, bake a cake (what? I really want cake), mayyybe pick up a bottle of Vampire Red Manic Panic at Sally's because they were closed when I got out of work today, NaNo, and possibly attempt to clean the pit which is my bedroom, which I have been putting off in favour of NaNo for weeks now. Argh.

You guys, I am cross and depressed and faintly nauseated, and ABC has proven themselves to be a fat lot of pillocks by cancelling Pushing Daisies, and I've pretty much eaten all of my candy, and I don't want to go to work tomorrow, and, worst of all, my NaNo has a PHD in horribleness, and not in the nifty-goggles, I-will-kill-you-all kind of way. SO MUCH EXPOSITION SANDWICHED IN BETWEEN POINTLESS CONVERSATIONS ABOUT NOTHING. There is no pacing, no imagination, and my characters are all flat cliches who aren't even consistent. Also I don't even know where my plot is. I'm seventy-odd pages in, and still no Primary Vampire. But then, I don't even know what the end goal of this novel is -- or, for that matter, WHY THERE IS A VAMPIRE PROBLEM. Seriously, this is...kind of a big deal. Like, I have this whole idiotic CRAZY LONG section in which people are trying to convince Evy that they really, really need her on the vampire fighting front. Except THEY CANNOT GIVE HER ANY GOOD REASONS FOR HER TO BE DRAGGED INTO THIS. There's a lot of "but!" and "what if?" that is mostly me fishing for ideas as I write.

Seriously, I have absolutely no idea why the vampires are a threat. I have a vague inkling as to why Evy might be especially useful, but that kind of falls flat when THERE IS NO PARTICULAR THREAT. It's just, oh hey, vampires are evil. Some could kill us. WE NEED YOU, EVANGELINE. Also there was a vampire attack on the library and about thirteen people died, but NO ONE KNOWS WHY. ASLJKGDWJDGDGH. And it's especially difficult because I'm trying to walk the line between inconsequential and lame and OBNOXIOUSLY EPIC. This means: no gigantic vampire army trying to overthrow the king and take over England AND THEN THE WORLLLLD. Vampires =/= human, anyway. They don't want the same things humans want. What they want, I have no idea. The only thing I've been able to fall back on in my head is the idea that there's something going on with vampires being experimented on because of the oncoming WWI, except -- did anyone know WWI was coming? At all? There was a lot of tension, though, I suppose, so anyone could be interested in making their own little vampire army. (See? Now I run up against things that sound stupid when you type them up. VAMPIRE. ARMY. *FACEPALM*) Heck, the Russians could be all "LET US OVERTHROW THE VICIOUS ROMANOVS WITH...VAMPIRES!" Even so, that idea hasn't turned into anything more than extremely murky thus far.

So, um, a little help here? I'm not asking for you to fix my plot here, but I am just...defeated. I am at the end of my writing rope. (See? I used a really limp cliche. That evidences how bad things have gotten.) I am desperate for some kind of inspiration.

WHAT YOU CAN DO
Prompt me. Please. Anything. A song, a quote, a poem, a picture, a plot device, a suggestion. Anything. I need to write at least a thousand words before I go to bed.

Well, no more writing on the job for me. Bah. And of course it was Cranky Manager who told me, although she did it fairly diplomatically. The thing that upsets me, however, is that she, by her own admission, does not mind me writing, the store manager is very unlikely to mind me writing, but Company Policy minds me writing, and if The Man happened to walk by and saw me writing on the job they would probably fire me on the spot. I kind of hate corporations right now. 

Let me rant for a minute.

1. Writing helps me do better on the job. It keeps my mind active and my temperament cheerier.
2. Thus far, writing has never, ever gotten in the way of me doing my job in any way.
3. My job involves, at the moment, me making about one sale per hour. In between I have virtually nothing to do, except occasionally straighten calendars. Writing for five minutes at a time and then going round to make sure things are all right and making certain I am alert to any and all potential customer needs cannot possibly hinder this. I understand that I will get much, much busier -- someday? really? PLEASE? -- and of course I would not spend all sorts of time scribbling when I have lines of customers and people knocking things down and making messes.
4. THIS IS DISCRIMINATION AGAINST NANOERS. CAN I SUE? [/flippant]
5. Writing + books + bookstore employee. Do the math. It is of the good.
6. I really, really hate wasted hours. Quite a lot of people will laugh at this because when I have a bad emo fit I spend quite a lot of time sulking about and doing nothing -- but really, few things make me feel worse than doing nothing for hours on end. When I go to work I feel very insignificant. I spend four hours standing around doing very little. I sell people calendars occasionally, and yes, I am earning money and gaining experience, but it feels so very -- pointless? -- in the end. That's coming off a bit strongly, I think -- what am I trying to say? Superfluous is the word I keep knocking up against. I sell people somewhat expensive things that they do not very much need. Certainly I may make some people happier by -- being pleasant towards them? Making things go more simply? 

So, yes, I felt really horrible and emo after work today. Silly and selfish of me I suppose. I won't write on the job anymore, and if I get into the store eventually I won't have time anyway -- and that's all right with me. I just hate that I have hours and hours in which I can't do anything useful at all. (Of course claiming that my writing is very useful is somewhat presumptuous of me.)

In better news, I was slated to lead worship all by me lonesome this morning and had scrapped together some songs -- all gospelly things that I enjoy playing and singing, because I am very tired of limp worship songs, but I was not exactly looking forward to it because I am Not Very Good at leading worship. So I was practising a bit, and then Jonathan got on the piano and we ended up jamming for a bit, which turned into impromptu-ly adding him to the roster. It was the best worship ever. My voice only did something funny once, the congregation was actually singing a lot, I managed to be slightly charismatic ("okay everybody, we're going to sing this song now!" and "all together now!" and "one more time!"), Jonathan sounded fantastic, I felt really involved in the music, and I wish I could clearly say that it was because I was worshipping, but I can't tell, really, between music-propelled emotion and actual worship, but at least it was good, and whole-hearted, and joyful, and well-meant, so I think that counts for something. Also, everybody sang. It was kind of mind-blowing. I have so much trouble getting anybody besides my parents to sing with me. (And, um, Dad tends to throw me off sometimes because he is sitting in the second or third row singing a really different melody and harmonising and throwing odd little bits in and, argh. I mean, it's kind of adorable, but it really throws me off. And sometimes people start singing a different melody or tempo than I am singing and that messes me up terrifically. But anyway.) 

(Also I had this really vintagetastic new Goodwill dress, which made me a little happier than clothing probably ought to, although practically every single person in the car made fun of my green stockings at least once.)

I wrote two thousand three hundred or so words today, I think. I meant to go for another two hundred at least, but it was eleven o'clock, and I already wrote more than the Daily Quota, so if I keep that up I'll catch up by the end of the month, at least. I can't expect to write three thousand words every day from now on. (Also when I checked my word count I was at 22,222 words, which was so awesome that I had to stop there.) And, oh dear, how I hated most of what I wrote. There is a certain underlying problem, though, that caused most of the hating, which I may expound upon later. But there were about two hundred words, near the end, that I really liked, and after so many exhausted, trite metaphors and repetitive dialogue and my characterisations going bland and stereotyped and melodramatic, that felt good.

( more silly nano ramblings; read at your own peril. )

I dropped my bicycle off to get fixed today, the weather is broken because it is balmy, and I should get my contacts tomorrow. Also I sat on the cat.

And I should tell you all how absolutely glorious the film Wings of Desire is. I saw it with Dad several days ago and it is probably the best film I have seen in -- well, since Once, anyway, I think. Gorblimey. It is like a T.S. Eliot poem made visual, I am telling you -- it is beautiful, surreal, full of thoughts and philosophy, both large, poetic thoughts and little tiny fleeting human thoughts -- the whole first half of the film is almost entirely listening to people's thoughts, profound and mundane and both at once, all through the city of Berlin. It is sort of a love letter to Berlin, and it was partially inspired by Rilke (!!!), and it has both glorious solemnity and moments of absolute absurdity -- another reason it reminds me so intensely of Eliot -- Peter Falk as himself is just -- hee. And aww. And wow. Also the score is probably the best I have heard since The Illusionist, or Pan's Labyrinth, or Atonement -- ...okay, there were a lot of excellently scored films which I have seen and loved in the last year, but still. It's got cellos and surreal orchestral arrangements and one of the best choral pieces I have ever heard, and also eighties post-punk (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are prominently featured, and Dad was like "THIS IS THE WORST BAND EVER -- well, it was the last time I saw the film, but I have listened to more weird music since then, so it's not so bad now?" and I was like "THIS IS AWESOME I WANT MORE AKLHDHGH even if Nick Cave is, like, nancing all over the stage and making weird gyrations and stuff; also his hair is epic, but hey, eighties post-punk, also deep voice, yum") -- anyway, brilliant.

Every aspect of this film was perfect, and rather awe-inspiring, whether you are an aspiring filmmaker such as myself or just someone who really loves film. I just...this film was made for me to watch it. It's like they took a poll and found out everything I love most in a film and especially things I love most which are difficult to come by and then they put them all together. Did I mention the cinematography? It may in fact be the most magnificent and ambitious cinematography I have EVER SEEN, and I have lists in my head of films who have breathtakingly fabulous cinematography (The Illusionist I can name off the top of my head, films made by Joe Wright namely Pride & Prejudice and Atonement (I LOVE LONG PAN SHOTS OMG), Aguirre the Wrath of God (more long pan shots! I love you, seventies art-house cinema!), and hey, that Russian film which was kind of weird but also filmed in one continuous unbroken shot for, like, two hours). I mean. I can't even describe it. Colour and black and white and long pan shots and interesting angles and iconic captures and oh dear oh dear oh dear. I haven't had anything close to the flash watching anything all of this year, but watching this film I came so very, very close.

This post would sound so much more intellectual if I sounded so much less giddy and used fewer italics and internetisms. Heh.

Busy days, gorblimey. The rest of the week ought to slow down a bit, I think -- I need to catch up on NaNo rather terrifically (the bit I wrote on my shift today? seems to have stopped just short of the Plot Point at last), and also sleep. Which, um, I could have been doing lately, but -- well, it's more difficult when one has Things to do. Sunday: work. Monday: work! Tuesday: fun with Jonathan, Sarah, and Hannah (their brother Eli came along for the ride). Today: work! I'm not scheduled to work anymore this week, which is a relief in terms of laziness and kind of sad in terms of money, but, you know. SLEEP. (AND NANO. AND THEN SLEEP SOME MORE, AND MAYBE BAKE COOKIES. ...FOR NANOAGE.)

Today at work: apparently I am late unless I arrive about ten minutes early. *facepalm*. Fortunately this was told to me by one of the managers I really like and I barely had to deal with Shannon, who makes me edgy, at all today. My customers -- all four of them -- came in funny patches, though: a girl around my age with fantastic hair (short, black and blonde, and quite classy looking for a punk hair-do) came in looking for anime calendars, was (rightfully) scornful when all we had were a couple of very very mainstream ones, and then we ended up talking about Death Note for, like, ten minutes. It was awesome. Now I have this silly urge to eat a lot of candy and hold things funny. While I was talking to her and processing her purchase, another woman showed up behind her with a calendar, and I managed to process her purchase without a hitch while talking, and not being rude to either of them, and not giving anybody the wrong change. I was very pleased with myself. My next -- and alas, last -- set of customers also came in a pair. This was slightly less fun because the first customer gave me a check, and...no-one has actually taught me how to process checks. I gave it my best, though, and only gave up on it after I'd held him up for several minutes, and now I know what I need to ask People Above Me. He had cash, thankfully, and was extremely friendly and patient with me and even tried to help, so that made me feel considerably less of a failure than I might have otherwise.

Also, this elderly gentleman walked past clad in a long black leather duster. I gaped in awe and admiration. I have also decided that he was clearly up to supernatural shenanigans. Which reminds me of the other bloke in the long coat I saw my first day -- he was pale and very -- his face was very sculpted? -- and he had long dark hair, and was dressed sort of -- unusually, but not in the sort of way that immediately draws one's attention. I think he had on a waistcoat and tie, along with the LONG BLACK COAT WHICH FLOWED OUT BEHIND HIM. I sort of wished that I had fallen head over heels in love with him as he passed, or at least had a tiny flutter of fancying, because that would make for such a better story, but alas, I am far too sensible for that, and mainly admired his coat and made a note to put him in a story later. He was so very unusual-looking, though. What on earth was he doing in my mall and was he entirely human? One does wonder...

Sarah stopped by my kiosk and we had a splendid chat and inched away from the Edward Cullen poster, which has ONCE AGAIN been moved so that it makes eye contact with me all throughout my shift. NEXT THING YOU KNOW I AM GOING TO WAKE UP AND HE IS GOING TO BE IN A ROCKING CHAIR IN THE CORNER OF MY BEDROOM. ROMANCE FAIL, EDWARD CULLEN, YOU CREEP. ROMANCE FAIL.

Annnnnd I managed to count out my drawer and close up for my shift ninety percent without assistance, which was -- terrifying, really, but encouraging. AUGH SO MUCH MATH THOUGH. CALCULATORS ARE MY FAVOURITE. Fortunately again, the woman who usually has the shift after me, Liz, is really sweet and helpful and motherly and always makes me feel as though I am doing a fabulous job and never makes me feel stupid for needing help or taking too long. This can be kind of relaxing.

Yesterday there was a Game Afternoon at chez Jonathan, which was full of fun and not having to be bothered about anything (except for candles which melted flat) and enjoying the company of friends and silly games with words in them. Also Jonathan put a candle in an empty sparkling cider bottle; it was fantastic. We really ought to have Told Spooky Stories around it or played Mafia or something. It provided excellent ambience.

I need to NaNo. And sleep. These are things I have not mentioned I am sure.

Cross and tired and want to go to bed with a cosy book. Yesterday was (mostly) quite good; today was, predominately, not nearly so much.

We spent quite a lot of yesterday out shopping, because I have been desperately in need of some respectable-looking jeans for a very long time and pay-day had just happened for people who are not me and are still in charge of my pants. There was some Goodwillage, at which, exactly as I predicted, I found nothing -- trousers are the only things I have never had any really good luck with at thrift shops. Ever. I have never found that serendipitiously perfect pair, and certainly not the ones which fit me like a (pleasantly corduroy) dream. All of their jeans are what I would call "grunge jeans" -- very blue lighter washes, and the only ones that ever look as though one could dress them up with a nice blouse and a pair of heels are, inevitably, about a size .5. I did find a very nice warm nightgown, however, which was another thing I am in some need of.

I haven't mentioned my old jeans, have I? They've gotten to be quite the disaster. Finding trousers that fit me attractively is so accursedly difficult that we only undergo the process about once a year, especially as we are nearly always forced to buy them new. These are, of course, last year's pair -- and they have somehow grown since December -- grown quite a lot. I am sure I can't have lost nearly that much weight. They are always in danger of falling off, they are scuffed and drab and limp-looking, the bottoms are terribly frayed, a hole's started on the side of one leg, and, strangest of all, they smell peculiar. It isn't exactly a bad smell -- not a body-sweat smell, nor a these-pants-haven't-been-washed-for-months smell, but -- strange. Sort of like detergent, like trousers you wash in the machine and then leave them to dry on their own. Except musty. I would keep washing them and washing them, trying to get the scent out, but it wouldn't come out. And anyway they had stopped looking respectable long ago, traitorous things.

Anyway, we went to Ross Dress For Less, which has lots of very nice new quality clothing for less mind-boggling prices. I bypassed the regular trouser section and went straight for the clearance rack and managed to pull off about six pair of trousers to try on. Heh. Look, I haven't had a good pair in a while.

So, the first thing I discovered: skinny jeans? Kind of look fabulous on me. Who knew? Certainly not me. I sort of liked the idea of them -- I have a lot of very -- fluffy is the wrong word -- blouses, babydoll tops and peasant tops and the like, which would certainly benefit from a narrower jean, but I am naturally quite pear shaped, and I thought a narrower jean would only make me look ridiculously more so. But hey, contrary to popular belief I do look out for trends if they are pleasing to my aesthetics. I can't help it. I'm very silly. So I tried on a pair and discovered that they are bizarrely slimming and besides which compliment flats very nicely. So I have a lovely new pair of skinny jeans -- I think the official colour term is charcoal, but they have the tiniest hint of purple to them, which pleases me -- and another pair of regular dark wash jeans (which came to about twenty dollars, total). It is the first time in several years that I have had two pairs of presentable trousers to alternate between.

Also, Claire's was having a sale with quite a lot of fabulous items, including button earrings, apple jewellery, and turquoise lace not-gloves, for a dollar apiece. My new paycheck was very happy to accomodate.

Then we ran into a friend of Mum's and ended up talking for a very long time. And then I ran to the library, absurdly admiring my jean-clad reflection in the shop windows along the way, and returned and collected books in the seven minutes before it closed.

Today, around two-thirty, I called my job to find out my hours: I had realised that I didn't have any on record for this week and didn't really know who to ask. It was the beginning of the week, you know? So it ought to be a good time. I ended up being on hold (I don't even know; I think the manager was out and they had to go find her?) for -- ten minutes, at least? -- and finally a woman came onto the other end and said, "Um, actually, you're working today, and you were supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago."

Says I: "ULP."

(Truly, Reader, I was mortified.) 

Mum rushed me over, and I was very cross and unhappy, because I wanted a ruddy nap so very badly, after having got to bed very late previously, and I want to impress my new employers, not make stupid embarrassing mistakes that force a lot of people to shuffle things around and accomodate me. (Mum and Jonathan tried to console me a bit -- I was, thankfully, not in the hysterics I likely would have had a year ago -- and it did make me feel a bit calmer, but still. I am still quite ashamed. Certainly, no-one told me anything about how I was to find out my hours, although I should have asked, and certainly should have asked Saturday, or even Friday night, leaving.) So my shift was only about two hours this time, and I made exactly two sales (drat you people! come on, let me use the cash register with its wonderful clicks and dings and whooshes!), and then I got to learn how to close up again -- I do enjoy putting up the curtains, with their hooks and zippers and padlocks on the zippers, and counting out the money is horrible in a mathematical way, but nice in a texture way, although when one realises exactly how much cash one is casually flipping through it can sometimes be faintly overwhelming.

However: Person In Charge who was showing me yet again how to close up was exactly the sort of person who puts me most on edge -- one of those perpetually negative, abrasive people who makes you feel that no matter what it is that you are doing, you are most certainly doing it wrong. And I know that's just how her personality displays itself, and she doesn't really think I am the scum of the earth -- she even admitted some of her own mistakes on things like counting out the cash and such, presumably to make me feel more confident -- but I still felt -- squashed, and insignificant, and very very young, and after such a ridiculously collossal mistake, too. And of course when I am nervous I make still more mistakes. At least I didn't knock anything over, but by the time I was picked up I just wanted to curl up and go to sleep. Only we went to BiLo instead, so Jonathan (who never ended up getting dropped off -- he rides with us to church and usually stays the afternoon -- and instead went with my mother to Wal-Mart?) could fetch milk, and Mum tortillas and parmesan and (at my begging) chocolate mint ice cream; and then there was a Goodwill sale, and then we came home and I holed up and read a book and it was marvellous. (I am, by the way, madly in love with Eva Ibbotson. Why has no-one ever forced me to read her before? A Countess Below Stairs was one of those marvellous, good-hearted books, with such fantastic writing and characterisation and Britishness -- the sort of warm, bright book you wrap around yourself as a shawl. I started reading it over again right away -- it was exactly the sort of book I needed after feeling so desperately out of sorts.) 

And then I wrote a thousand words. And now I want very much to go to bed.

Over eight thousand words, and I dislike my story a little less. In fact I have written an entire sequence that I am really quite pleased with, and which even involved a tiny bit of plot. The terrifically aggravating thing about NaNo is that apparently -- I'd mostly forgotten this -- things change rather frequently in my writing, by which I mean I will have written something one way and then realise within short order that it actually came about this way, or that this thing happened in between, or that person has been here all along. Then I go back and write in the explanation or the introduction. NaNo, of course, is all about Pressing Onwards and Not Editing Ever. So I currently have: an important secondary character who appeared, complete with name and personality, out of nowhere, a sort of sunlight talisman whose origin I have not quite discerned, and an odd ability of Evangeline's that must have been discovered a very long time ago.

So, yes, some Plot did happen. I am so pleased. Not any of the Plot I had planned, but it does lead into my plans, and I hadn't figured out what did that yet, so this is nice. My somehow writing over two thousand words today (twice as much as my usual daily output thus far) is mostly due to finally having something to write about, although the sessions with Victoria and Jonathan last night also helped. (Also I know what is going to happen at the end of this chapter, and that will make everything much more interesting and finally give me much material with which to work. They say the beginning is the best and the second week is the hardest, but honestly? For me I think the second week is going to go so very much better.) 

Yesterday there was work, and it was dull. Oh goodness was it ever dull. I did not, however, muck up any sales so badly I had to void them, so that was a perk -- but I only had six or seven sales in four hours. I was warned the kiosk could be deathly boring. Well, now I believe them. I am not allowed to bring things to do -- like my notebook -- because The Company (not my boss, but The Man, seriously) does not wish for me to look otherwise occupied and therefore discourage customers. Says I: BUT THERE ARE NO CUSTOMERS TO DISCOURAGE. I swear, tomorrow I am going to smuggle in a book under my shirt or something. Wear a jacket with pockets. I want to be a good employee and not flout rules, but also? I am cannot be a good employee if I am so inactive that I can barely think straight, which is what happened yesterday. That was one of the things that I really loved about working Waldenbooks, by the way -- even when there weren't customers I could still keep busy with useful work, mostly finding where books go and putting them there. (Also there were a lot more customers.) Now the only thing I can do to relieve the boredom is walk around the kiosk multiple times, making sure no-one has knocked over any of the displays (they haven't). GAH. I cannot wait to acquire store hours again.

I did find a notepad and a pen after a while and wrote fifty-one words on the sly. I would have written more, but again, I was so utterly bored I couldn't even focus. I don't even get bored most of the time. (But then, usually I can bring a book.) 

ALSO? My kiosk is right in front of FYE. Right at the doorway they had this GIGANTIC POSTER OF EDWARD CULLEN. He looked clammy and damp and seriously contagious (whose brilliant idea was it to give the vampires bloodshot eyes? they don't look eerie or beautiful or otherworldly, they look like they have THE WORST COLDS KNOWN TO MAN and all I know is that I DO NOT WANT THEM TO SNEEZE NEAR ME). So my entire shift he is there, glowering at me and looking rather nauseated and all I could think was "STOP STARING AT ME I DID NOT TAKE YOUR STICKERS LEAVE ME ALOOOONE."

This is where you observe that I have gone mad from boredom.

And my legs ached like -- something, I am out of metaphors after two thousand five hundred words or so -- when I got home, ow. I won't even tell you guys about closing up the cash register after my shift. (LEAST. FAVOURITE. PART. EVER.)

Then I walked to Jonathan's, because the Angelmobile, while not totalled, is certainly out of commission until his tire gets fixed. There was a NaNo get-together with Victoria. Because of the walking I arrived ten to fifteen minutes late, and it took five to eight more minutes for anyone to figure out I was waiting outside. (Jonathan's apartment does not have doorbells. Nor can I get into the hallway and go up and knock on his door without a key. Usually when people come over he waits on the porch to let them in, but I was -- like I said, kind of late.) I threw bark at his window and waved my arms and yelled and everything. (One of his neighbours looked out the window at me curiously and I kind of smiled apologetically and kept waving my arms. I didn't want to make a lot of noise because I really didn't want to upset his neighbours, but I also did not want to stand outside all night. Fortunately it has been extremely warm all week.) 

He finally saw me and let me in, and then there were rollicking good times with word wars, candy, describing each other's NaNos, catching up with Victoria, and general organised chaos. It was splendid.

Today I did not work and instead wrote a lot, sometimes outside, and baked cupcakes, and finished re-reading Sunshine for approximately the thirty-seventh time.