Freelance projects finished: 68
Book reviews published: 3
WRAP workshops facilitated: 1
Conferences attended: 1
Days spent on writing retreat: 4
Times E wanted me to stay in bed now, write later: 311
Drafts of novel finished: 3
Submissions: 8
Agent requests for more material: 6
Books read: 54, give or take a few, not counting manuscripts
New novels planned: 1
Moleskines retired: 1
Bones broken: 1
Races finished: 4
Really. We have to part ways. But I’m heartsick about it and love her to pieces.
Nuala is an 8-year-old female domestic tuxedo cat who loves to sit by me while I work, and sleep at my feet at night. She is quiet but has a big personality. She has been an indoor cat most of her life, but would be happy as an indoor/outdoor cat with free reign of an indoor area with a view (like an enclosed porch or garden room). She’s good with mellow dogs, but other cats freak her out.
She has all her claws, and is spayed, microchipped, and current on all her vaccines. She’s soft around the edges but in good health. She’s not happy in the apartment, and sometimes poops where she’s not supposed to, and lately has had two other accidents in the house. She needs a very clean litter box, plenty of attention, and an environment where her new humans will still love her even if she’s not a perfect litter-box-user.
I’ll be leaving town for a few days on January 7, so she needs a home before then. I’m charging a small adoption fee, but it’s negotiable.
I had no idea how redundant Angry Monkey* has been, usually while driving through the Portland’s Pearl District, in saying that other drivers are “arrogant, entitled assholes.”
Arrogant
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin arrogatus (appropriated), past participle of arrogare, from rogare (to ask). Ultimately from the Indo-European reg- (to move in a straight line, to lead or rule) that is also the source of arrogant, regent, regime, direct, rectangle, erect, rectum, alert, source, surge, supererogatory, abrogate, and prorogue.
Goodness me.
Speaking of ingredients: E is Mexican, I am of Arabic extraction, and ketchup is the food of both our peoples. Ketchup used to be a generic word meaning pungent sauce, made with fish, blueberries, walnuts, or mushrooms–tomatoes only later becoming popular in America. In Spanish and Portugese, escabeche means “sauce for pickling.” And that word came from the Arabic iskebey, which means the same thing. Romantic, isn’t it?
* Blog readers, meet Angry Monkey. A.M., meet readers. A.M. is the name of the evil force that possesses my 1993 Saturn, and occasionally me while I’m driving it. A.M. is the reason I usually ride my bike.
The comments on the original post are worth reading, too.
Dear Santa,
Please overlook the things I overlooked in 2009. Overlook the horrible cursing at Sam Adams when my car got towed last week for street sweeping, because I overlooked the big warning signs on the sidewalk. And whatever you do, don’t white-glove the apartment, because E and I get busy and don’t like to clean.
Direct your attention, if you can, to the worthwhile things I’ve done this year–because it’s the holidays, and even the vainest and most preening bugger who’s snarling for the last parking spot in the gym garage has done something selfless in his life. Remember that it’s human nature to be pushy; but also to get joy from making someone’s day a little easier. To hold a door. Or even to give books to a kid you’ll never meet.
I don’t need anything for Christmas. Life is fine. I will ask one thing, though, even though I know you’re not usually in the business of bringing luck.
So, you’re surely aware that I deal with a lot of writers; heck, I’m even one myself. You also must know that I read a lot of unpublished manuscripts this year, and that no writer’s keyboard produces an uninterrupted stream of genius–we’re all human here. But I will say, every single one of them had something inhumanly wise to say. In every single one, there was at least one line that had the power of genius, which made everything go quiet for a second. Those lines are magic doorways in a noisy, crazy landscape and there are not enough of them in the world.
As 2009 winds down and we start another one, give those manuscripts a chance. If you can make reindeer fly, maybe you could spare some of that magic sparkly Christmas dust for those yet-unpublished stories. (Or, if you’re short, you can borrow the dust that is coating the tops of our furniture and windowsills.) Anyway, the more open doors in the world, the better.
Fly safe, avoid the Duraflames,
Sarah
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