My first solo pumpkin pie is in the oven. I've helped Mom make pie in the past, but this is my first time doing it all by myself. I'm a little worried about how it will turn out because after I started mixing up the pumpkin filling, I discovered we didn't have any ground cloves, only whole cloves. But I noticed some "clove dust" at the bottom of the clove jar, and I figured that would be about the same as ground cloves, so I dumped all the cloves in a bowl, and picked out the whole ones, leaving the little bits. But these only amounted to 1/8 of a tsp, and I was supposed to have 1/4 tsp. But maybe clove dust is stronger than ground cloves? We'll see tomorrow when we eat it, I guess. Actually, there was a little filling left over that didn't fit in the crust, so I ate it and it seemed fine. At least, it didn't seem overly clove-y

My friend ED had her very own art show up here at the college this past week, which culminated last night in her giving a gallery talk and lots of people eating cheese. It was fun, there was a gratifyingly large attendance, and I'm very happy for her.

NaNoWriMo is almost over! And I will definitely be clocking in at 30 single-spaced, MS Word, pages for our little version that our Writers Group has done. Writing this story has had a very surprising side-effect: I've fallen in love with Art Deco furnishings! They're so clean, jazzy, sleek, smooth...I love them! Someday I'd like to do a room in Art Deco (maybe a kitchen, since they're already full of geometric things like cupboard doors)...or maybe incorporate it into my Hollywood Haven themed living room? Hmm. See, I was researching Art Deco (particularly the early styles of the mid-1920's) because one of the characters in my novella gets an apartment furnished in that style.

I should probably go finish drying dishes.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just found out there will be no more new episodes of my beloved Angel until...January! How am I supposed to live for 6 weeks not knowing what happens next? How could Joss (Whedon, creator of Buffy and Angel and the person we blame--or praise--for everything that happens on the shows) do this to me? Not only am I barely working at the moment, but then I lose Angel? Grr. Aargh.

Oh, I'm a bad, bad girl (to paraphrase Wesley Wyndham Price from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Earshot" where Buffy can hear everyone's thoughts). I haven't blogged in days! The Creed concert ROCKED!!!! We had floor tickets, and we got there early enough that we were only 15-20 feet from the stage! We could see everything! It was just amazing. We were close enough that we could feel the heat from the pyrotechnics! And I mean, instantly feel it. As soon as they'd light the torches or start the sparks we'd feel it. Of course, it was really really really crowded there, so between all the people and the pyrotechnics it got pretty warm. MB says she almost passed out at one point. I didn't notice the warmness so much once Creed came on though (Stereo Fuse and Default opened). ED says she liked Default as well as Creed, but not me. The weirdest thing about being that close was how the bass affected us. It's like our chests became speakers or something. We could feel the bass reverberating in our chests and throats (and at one point in my sinuses, which sucked because I got a headache later). It felt like someone was knocking the wind out of me in time to the music. That was mostly with the opening acts though. They had their bass cranked way up. Creed affected me much less, or else I was just used to it by then. Wanna know the coolest thing about the Creed concert? We were so close that Scott Stapp actually heard my voice! Mine and mine alone! During a quick lull between songs, I screamed "SCOTT!!!!" as loud as I could with what voice I had left. He whipped his head around to look in my direction and grinned!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How awesome is that? I made Scott Stapp smile! Of course, he's made me smile a lot more than just once... 

Just got a message from my parents, who are still in Florida, but gained access to a computer for a while and checked their email. They didn't get to see a NASA launch after all because it was scrubbed due to a leaky fuel valve or something. :-(

My perfectly wonderful weekend has made Monday even more depressing. Plus, I'm hungry. But lunch is two hours away.

At least the weekend was fun. I watched waaaaay too many movies (6) and ate too many doughnuts (3). It was great. But now I'm sleepy (doesn't help that this morning's radio episode of Sam Spade dealt with insomnia), hungry, and tired of work already. Good thing there's only one Monday each week.

My parents are in Florida. They called Friday night with the news that they had tickets to a NASA launch! I suppose they'll call me again one of these days and tell me all about it.

I should never watch Breakfast at Tiffany's. It always depresses me, and I can never quite tell why. See, I'm never totally happy with the way it ends, but I can't explain my unhappiness. Grr. PLUS the copy of The Apartment that I got from the library because I've wanted to see it forever...well, that particular copy has just been watched too many times apparently, because it wouldn't play at all in our vcr. At least the other five movies I watched were awesome and made me very happy: On the Waterfront, The Hustler, The Fast and the Furious, The Lion King, and Chocolat. And the Angel episode last night was hilarious.

I found the coolest online radio station ever! You can access it at www.brandoclassicotr.com or if you have Windows Media Player you can find it under special interest stations or something like that. Anyway, it's called Brando Classic Old Time Radio, and it rocks! I can listen to it while I'm at work, and it's like being allowed to watch really old tv! Today I got to hear "The Cisco Kid", "Red Rider", "The Lone Ranger", "Abbot and Costello"...it's so awesome! Yesterday I heard a "Sam Spade" and a "Dragnet", and the day before I heard "The Shadow" and "Sherlock Holmes." I'm entranced! And the weird thing is, my productivity has actually gone up!

"Sleigh bells ring, are you listenin'? In the lane snow is glistenin'!" That's right, we've got snow! Not that I expect it to last, but the ground was fairly white this morning, and it took me 5 minutes to brush off the car. When I was walking to the car, I was thinking how cool it was that mine were the very first footprints in the snow (because who else living at a college is crazy enough to be walking around outside at 6:45am?). And then I was suddenly reminded of a quotation from the movie Chisum in which the title character (played by John Wayne) says: "Wherever you go, sooner or later, there's the law. And sooner or later you realize that God's already been there." Well, I'm not saying God was leaving footprints in the snow, but one of the adorable little bunnies He created had been. It was probably the bunny I usually spot on the way to work.

But mine were still the first HUMAN footprints on that particular stretch of campus.

My parents, brother, and grandma are in Florida right now. Being me, I'd rather have snow. Except that I've never been to Florida. Yet.

Feel free to laugh at me.

For the last couple weeks my sinuses have been acting up, as they usually do in the fall. But this year I experienced something that doesn't usually accompany my allergies: a peculiar ringing in my ears. My ears rang most of the time, just a little, but enough to be annoying, for about three days. And then they would pretty much only ring while I was at work. And this second ringing was a very intermittent, high-pitched ringing that would last for 2-20 seconds, and then go away for a minute or so, only to start up again. And today I figured out what it was: the new printer that sits about 10 feet away from me. Every time it prints (and that is quite often in a paper-oriented place like this), it makes this high-pitched electronic whistle, that when muffled by the headphones I usually wear, sounds like a ringing in my ears.

At least I know I'm not going either deaf or mad.

On another happy note (so many for a Monday!), I took Gabriel to the camera shop down the hill this weekend, and for $20 they'll have an answer and an estimate for me in 10-14 days. Hooray! So superb compared to the $120, 6-8 weeks offer from the place in the mall!

This has been an eventful morning. They're tarring the roof of the place I work, so it's been really noisy all morning. Then suddenly, one of the ceiling tiles fell down! And a few more looked ready to follow, including a big air-duct grate. And there was a big piece of metal sticking through the hole in the ceiling. So the people who work on that side of the room had to move, and then this woman brought in a huge ladder, climbed up, and started yelling at the roofing crew. They finally got the point, I guess, because now there are workmen wandering around and climbing ladders and talking on little radios.

Today is the beginning of NaNoWriMo. If you don't know what that is, go to www.nanowrimo.org. The Writers Group I belong to is doing its own version of NaNoWriMo. Instead of writing 50,000-word novels in a month, we're writing 30-page novellas. That's a little more workable for the group, considering that all of them except me are still in college. I've started mine this morning, jotting down a few words while I work. Its working title is "Rudolph Valentino Reincarnate".

Last night was fun. We got our portraits made for $10, and then went trick-or-treating in the mall. The dance at college really sucked though. We only stayed for 3 songs, which all reeked, and then left. The school decided to try out a new dj, which was a big mistake. They should just stick with our pal 'Draven' (that's his pen name, so if he gets famous some day, you know I knew him in college) for a dj, because his dances rock!