A case of the Wednesdays

I've decided it's Wednesday. Since Wednesday is my Friday. Since Wednesday is, well, EVERYONE'S Friday. Except for people who work in retail and will have to deal with the hell that is Black Friday. I feel for you, retail workers. I've been where you currently are and all I can say is this: GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN!

* * * * * * * * * *

I worked on my novel on Friday night and wrote a lot. It was good and I went to bed at 12, I think, and unfortunately slept like crap. I got up at 8:15 on Saturday morning, having joined the ranks of Those Who Cannot Sleep In On the Weekend, Even If They Want To, and wrote until 11. I was meeting friends at noon, but had a big day ahead of me and decided to lie back down for 30 minutes. Which was good. Except that I flew out of the house at 11:45 and still had to get to the downtown mailbox to send off three bills. Which I did. But not before Serena called me (at 11:55 AM according to the clock in my car) and asked where I was. I believe I said that people would definitely know that I'd been abducted by aliens if I wasn't late to my own social function. Or I might have said that to Vanessa who overslept and missed out on the good food. Whatev.

So I lunched with a bunch of friends, including Serena, Steele, Sterling, Venus, and Sebastian, on Saturday. We ate delicious Turkish food and then Serena and I went to a local museum and saw Roman art. Serena is a nice person -- usually -- but has this, like, psychotic thing about time. I think she experiences physical pain if she's not on time for something and if she perceives that something is taking too much time. Case in point: We were wandering through nine (NINE!) rooms of Roman art and towards the seventh or eighth room, she found me and said she was done but that I could take my time finishing up. Which meant "I'm ready to go, so hurry up." So I breezed past the last few statues -- they were all amazing and majestic but after a while, the clutch of people I was politely trying to avoid while gazing up in awe at a gigantic, carved slab of marble got to be too much and I was actually okay with moving on to less-crowded parts of the museum. But still. It would be nice to be in a museum and definitely not be on a timetable. Serena kept saying "thanks for humoring me" after we went through other parts of the museum. She apparently felt I wanted to go (not true) or was on some kind of schedule, which meant that every time I sat down, her blood probably began to simmer. Shrug. It's a big place, I'm out of shape, and YOU NEED TO RELAX, LADY.

Anyway, the exhibits ruled. A transcript of our conversation during the three hours we were at the museum would include high incidences of the words "Wow!" and "Cool!" We checked out American art and stood in front of a large Georgia O'Keefe painting that was gorgeous in its blues and greens that surrounded white flowers. We made it to European art and sat in front of a Seurat and just stared at all the dots. Serena squealed for some work by Monet, whom I love as well, and (back to the Americans) I sat in front of a hotel scene that Edward Hopper had painted. It was a good time and I'm glad I wore sneakers because the walking around about killed me. The museum is HOOGE.

* * * * * * * * * *

Sterling and Steele gave me a novel-writing kit that was compiled by Chris Baty who invented the National Novel Writing Month concept. I pulled out a card looking for a hint about how to move my still-behind novel ahead so I can reach my goal of 50,000 words by the 30th. The card recommended writing in 40-minute bursts, taking a 20-minute break, and writing again until reaching 1,500 words. And then doing that twice more during the day. By the end of the day? Ta da, 4,500 words. So I did it. I added 4,505 words to my total yesterday, which helped me catch up a little. I've been writing my novel by hand and have the crinkly pages of a composition notebook to prove it. It's time to start putting those words in the computer so that a machine can count my words. I've been counting, of course, and [sarcasm] delighted in losing my place repeatedly as my eyes began to cross yesterday and having to start my counting over. [/sarcasm] I keep coming up with different totals for how many words I've written, so it's definitely time to let a machine take over.

Serena gave me a small black cauldron with which I redecorated my altar for fall/winter last night. It looks pretty awesome. I'm looking forward to stripping the paint off the fireplace bricks -- because apparently the people who lived in the house before me were nutjobs, considering they also painted over the beautiful, dark woodwork around the windows -- and seeing just how beautiful the fireplace probably is. Right now it's covered up in a weird brown-ish almond paint that does NOT go with the Smurf blue walls they also painted. Oh, and if scraps of blood red on the ceiling are any indication, the ceiling was also, well, blood red. Crazy AND color blind. Excellent combo.

* * * * * * * * * *

I failed to pay a speeding ticket in time and received a note on Saturday that the BMV is going to suspend my license. Having never had to deal with this crap before, I assume I can pay the ticket and some kind of late fee/fine and then the court (whose phone is eternally ringing busy) will notify the BMV that I'm not a dangerous criminal and the threat of suspension can be lifted. I think I might just go down to the court and find out what I need to do if their phone continues to ring busy. But it is Monday morning and they're probably swamped with phone calls. But still ... a busy signal? How archaic.