Rachael

You know what? Google searches are good stuff. I found out
yesterday that an ex of mine is married. I can’t even tell you how much I love
that.

I remember, god, it’s like nine years ago now, when we broke
up, he told me that he’d never be happy, and someday I’d realize that I’d made
the biggest mistake of my life (he was also the one that thought the attraction to women was a cute and temporary thing. Tell my wife that, huh?). I remember telling him that someday he would be
happy again, promising him he would be happy. He swore he never would.

He’s was the opposite of me in many ways, although I loved
him. He lived his life trying to stay off the radar, off the net, using cash
instead of ATM cards, refusing to give his info to anyone, anywhere, anytime,
storing gold in his house, since it was the only currency that would last when
The Man came for all of us. Annoying, really. So it’s been hard to follow him
online, on the google searches. He’s really the only one I’ve stalked, checking
his unusual name once or twice a year.

Because, you know, I wanted to know he was happy. Even the
day after we broke up, I only wanted that. I’ve been DYING to know he was
happy, first of all because that’s good for all human beings, second of all
because DUDE, I told you so! No one can be miserable forever! Not even if you
really, really want to be.

He married a soil scientist, last year, according to my
expert sleuthing. And you know what? You get married because you’re happy. And
then, with luck and expensive cheese, you’re happy being married. On your wedding day, you’re happy.

Woot! I was right!

That makes ME happy.

Also: this struck me as funny today. Lala sent me an email
that said,

I have noticed that since you’ve been doing nanowrimo your
emails have
gotten more… writerly. Not in a pretentious way – it’s barely
noticeable. Just a little more of the sort of thing I might say "hey, you
should put that in the book!"
On the other hand, your ability to structure spoken english has gone
downhill. So it’s a trade-off.

It’s true. I can’t speak at all lately. But I have been
finding that it’s just easier to write. This NaNoWriMo thing is awesome. Went
out to an East Bay meet-up yesterday, and ate Mexican
food with a big room full of other writers. At my table, the age range went
from 7, to 16 (he’s almost done), all the way up to about 60. It was just heaps
of fun talking about the writing, about how, really, it’s not THAT much
writing. It’s translated to about an hour and a half or less of writing a day.
On the 15 hour work-days, that’s been hard. But on my days off, it just gets
done. Makes me think I should do it all the time. NaNoWriYe, anyone?

Also: A big shout-out (boy, does that sound dated and silly) to my girl Jodi, who has a brand new blog to go with her fabulous NaNoNess. Jodi was the officiant at our California wedding. And listen, in order to do that, she got a minister’s license. Think about it. Did she NEED one? No, we weren’t doing anything legal, nothing that required a minister, because we don’t have all the rights that others do. But she still got the license. Made us feel all real and wonderful and stuff. She’s truly the best, and I love her. Go say hello to her and encourage her in the word count.

I hit the 25,000 word mark today with the word "out," which is, I think, ironically funny for my straight romance novel.

*Edited to add — oh, my GOD, look at the date! I worked so hard to reach 25,000 because I thought it was the 15th! It’s not! It’s the 14th! YAY!

I’m having a fantastic weekend. It’s one of those weekends where I’ve been doing things, but I feel leisurely (and it lasts until Thursday night this week! Hurrah!). I’ve hung out with Lala more than usual, that might be helping my mood. I dyed my hair yesterday and gave it a cut (pic later? I’ll try to get to it). I’d forgotten how much I like the DIY hairstyle — how fun it is to hack at your hair with scissors in your bathroom. I just can’t justify $80 on a color/cut anymore. Not right now, anyway. Maybe someday. I do love having my hair done.

And I got up early, and my words are done, and all the dogs have gone back to sleep, and we’ll go to the beach later, and I’m meeting up with someone who wants me to teach a sweater class in the spring, which is kinda freaky, since I don’t teach as much try to talk other people into realizing that mistakes are okay and no one will ever notice, just keep going. And I might spin and bake blueberry muffins. And maybe roast a chicken with rosemary and lemon and garlic.

And I’m making mittens, for the first time ever — I’ve never been out in the cold, really, living in California, going from car to house to car to work. But now that I take the dogs out everyday, it’s different. I realized on the beach yesterday, in the pouring cold rain, that my hat, scarf, and wool/angora sweater were all well and good, but my hands were wet and salty and sandy and freezing. Mittens, good throwabout sand-filled mittens will help. Made one last night watching TV, will finish the other today in time for the beach. It’s sunny today. But dude, if I have new mittens (first pair of mittens since I was wee, I think), I’ll wear them, sweaty hands and all. Pics of those later, too.

If I were a responsible blogger, I’d go take pictures. That’s what you’d like, huh? Well, call me responsible, then.  Hang on, I’ll be right back.

My First Mitten.
I didn’t really use a pattern — I found some numbers online but it wasn’t till I sat on the couch that I realized it was written in the flat, so I just started knitting in the round on two circs. Size 5 needles, 28 stitches k2p2 for an inch or so, increase to 31 st, knit to 3 inch from cuff, increase for thumb gusset by making two every other round until 11 stitches have been added, place waste yarn for thumb hole, keep going until it fits my hand, throwing in stripes where it felt fun. I’m using Korean wool that was a gift from my wonderful and beautiful sister-in-law Won-Ju. (But I’m only telling you how I made them out of interest, for the love of god don’t follow these as a pattern — there are plenty of free ones online. Follow one of those, not this jumble.)

Harriet likes it as a hat.

Miss Idaho likes it as proof she is Very Small.

Ridiculous Clara would like to chew on it. Big surprise!

So, in other Hehu news, the other night Lala was bleaching in the bathroom. She, however, was bleaching beer bottles.

Hey, Lala!

How’s it going down there?

Good, good. She’s making beer, y’see, and I’m supposed to help bottle tonight. That should be fun. I will try to keep my WHY IS THAT DRIPPING OVER THERE kinda comments to myself. I really will.

So while she likes to bleach bottles, I’m now a bottle-blonde bleacher.

I went from this delightfully trashy look:

    ROOTS!   

to this:

That shot tickles me so. As does this one:

Loreal Feria, Extra Bleach Blonde, if anyone’s wondering.

I cut it to this length:

Please notice my shirt:

   
    1/2 way done, baybee!

And just a couple more gratuitous dog shots for the road:

Ridiculous Clara wants to know WHY we don’t like it when she eats potting soil:

And Harriet gets the last word. As usual.

I’ve posted an excerpt of my novel on my NaNo page (click on See Nano Stats and Read Excerpt at the bottom left). It’s not good, it’s from a rough draft, I’m writing fast, and the flash page-turning feature does strange things to my punctuation, things I couldn’t fix from within the site.

But it mentions alpaca sex. And did I mention it’s a romance? Like Harlequin-style? Oh, yeah. Fun so far. Enjoy.

Hey! People! If I talked you into NaNoWriMo, do not pass me in the wordcount. That means you, Becky! Slow it on down, there, champ. I’m
struggling, and you appear to be on a greased skateboard. The wheels being
greased, not the board, because that would probably suck and then you wouldn’t
be going fast at all, because you’d be on the ground. But you know what I mean.

But I wrote. It was like herding cats. Completely futile,
one hundred percent frustrating, and I have small cuts on my ankles from the
bastards that kept biting me. But I’m done with my word count for today. So
there.

I had a migraine last night, actually left work at midnight,
six hours before my shift was supposed to end. I hate going home sick, have
only done it a couple of times in my life. But it was worth it. Went home, took the new meds the doctor gave me (woot! They make me sleep, but only after I’d
designed a new sweater that was genius, GENIUS, I tell you*), and slept for
fifteen hours.

Today I feel great, except it feels like some guy took my
head off in his garage, put it back on, and now he’s kinda standing there,
looking down at the ground at that one extra part, going “huh. I wonder where
that one goes. Oh, well.” Or maybe I should compare my head to Ikea furniture.
You know, when you get it all together (gah, do I hate putting that together)
and there’s always that one piece of metal left over, a very specifically
shaped piece, and you’re sure it is the source of all stability in this chair/couch/bookcase,
but it doesn’t go ANYWHERE. Yeah, they left that piece out of my head. Feels
kinda funny.

But it’s almost my weekend. That means I can start training
Clara, for real this time. She’s being a very bad dog, made worse by the fact
that she saves all the badness for Lala and acts like a sweet angel whenever I’m
in the room. Training will save us. She’s smart as a whip and wants to learn
but is WAY too overeager and freaks herself (and me) out of training for long. She
knows sit and down and jump up, but not stay.

What’s your favorite way to teach “Stay?” Lay it on me, for the love of small critters.

*The sweater I designed in my drugged state is not genius, I realized upon sober reflection. As a design detail, I had a piece of fabric INSIDE the sweater, tacked into place, so a lace panel showed up better. Hmmm.

 

https://rachaelherron.com/hey_people_if_i/

I want cupcakes. I just saw some online, and I want some
right now. Of course, I don’t think I’ve ever had a cupcake live up to the
cupcakes of childhood. I don’t mind much, but it’s the truth.

Whew. I think I’m written out. I was going explain the above
few sentences, and I don’t feel I can. Let’s leave it at this: When I really
want cupcakes, I’m just better off opting for fudge or ice cream or Cadbury Crème
Eggs, because I really want something sweeter. Cupcakes just SHOULD BE sweeter.
That’s all.

Writing: It proceeds. Apparently, this second week is the
one that gets you. And how. This is the week that you realize all your
fantastic ideas have leveled off into one merely okay one. (Pssst: You need
more ideas, Rachael.) And where is your conflict? (You need more conflict, too.)

I swear, I’m about to throw in a rattlesnake attack or a
plane crash or a yarn drought, just to liven things up. I honestly don’t know
where I’m going yet. I thought I did. But I decided I don’t like where it was
headed, and I didn’t care about who the characters were while headed that way.
I do believe that even if you’re writing fast and hard, you need to care about
what you’re saying, you have to feel for the characters, and mine were marching
over to Cardboard Cut-Out Land, and I had to save them.

So yes, she DID in fact buy two alpacas, mostly on accident.
THAT should shake it up a bit.

(That is the good thing about writing – you can live out all
your fantasies and not have to worry about your urban neighbors calling animal
control on your ass.)

I’ve decided, though, that as much as this has been a challenge, I’m SO GLAD I’m doing it. I realize, again (how many times do I have to
have this revelation in order to remember it?), that I am a writer, and I love
writing. I don’t just love the having-written glow – I love the time spent writing.
I can think of only a couple of other things that make me lose track of time
the same way. I love that feeling of looking up and realizing that an hour has
gone by, and it didn’t even feel like five minutes. I love it when characters
are talking and you’re not even really thinking about what they’re saying – you’re just taking dictation (this is not as scary as it sounds,
really).

And dude, I have 64 pages in 9 days. That’s amazing.
Who cares if the writing isn’t great? At least it’s on the page, and I have something to work with. I can’t work with nothin’. I have no real idea where it’s going
to end, except I know it will be happily, and I’m in it for the ride, doing it
to get the pages down so I have something to edit later.

This feels good. How ’bout you?

 

This is an excellent way to keep track of your NaNoWriMo progress. (Excel-sheet download, courtesy Benson/Hyperion.) You’re welcome.