I hate writer's block. It's way worse than writer's cramp. Writer's cramp I can fix by just massaging my hand and wrist (or my back if I'm hunched over the keyboard). But it's really hard to massage my imagination. I can feed it, but I'm not sure I can massage it.

So yeah, I'm working on my novel, which I have neglected for simply weeks, and I'm stuck. I just deleted about 2 pages of stuff because I decided I didn't like where it was going, but now I don't know where I want it to go instead. And I'm irritated by my main character. I just don't like her very well. If she was a real person, I don't think I'd hang out with her. And that's okay, because she's supposed to start out kinda off-putting, but then get nicer and more likeable as the novel progresses. But I haven't gotten to where I can like her yet. I think she's stupid.

So, I'm stuck in the novel, disliking my main character...time to blog. Maybe it will loosen up the imagination blockage. Or maybe I should quit and go bake those apple pies I've been planning. I kinda thought my sister-in-law, The Chameleon, would be here by now and might want to help me peel alllllllllll those apples, but so far she's a no-show. Probably still asleep.

Hmmmm. Maybe I'll go check out MB's blog and see what she's posted lately...

Well, after an absence of...I don't want to think how long it's been since I blogged. I actually didn't think this thing would still be around. But my friend MB set up her own online journal recently (http://maribel.easyjournal.com), and suddenly I've gotten the urge to resume blogging.

I have three sad things to say.

My darling dog Westley is dead.
They canceled Angel.
Creed has disbanded.

It has been kind of a depressing year, now and then. Other than the above 3 horrid occurances, life has been good though. We're in WI now, not MN. We live near my Cowboy's family, so that's kinda cool, we get to hang with them a lot. Good thing we all get along fairly well, eh?

I have a lot more to say, and I hope I'll get around to saying it. Oh, I named my new camera 'Marlowe' after Raymond Chandler's gumshoe Philip Marlowe. That's really old news, but it fits with the last post I left oh so long ago...

:-( :-( :-( Gabriel is dead. His DC converter and winding mechanism both broke, and would need to be replaced to the tune of $127. I love Gabriel, but I only paid $200 for him in the first place, so I told them to just ship the body home. I hope they got that roll of film out.

But I got a new camera :-) It's by some non-big-name-brand company, but it's fully manual, which I like because I get to mess with more stuff. It looks about 10 years old, and I picked it up at a pawn shop this weekend for $75. It's in nice condition, no lense scratches or anything. I can't wait to try it out! You won't believe how often I wanted to shoot stuff while I was good-camera-less...

So yes, I mourn Gabriel's demise. But now I get to name my new camera. I haven't decided on anything for sure yet. Clark? Edward? Liam? Hmmmm...

I'm afraid the trees will start budding soon. It's still so dogburned warm! We did get a lovely bit of snow on Christmas Eve (my hubby and I went wandering through a graveyard while it snowed...very peaceful), but now there's not a speck to be found. Grrr.

I'm off work today, and I must admit I'm a bit bored suddenly. I think it's the jeans. All my (3 pairs of) jeans need washing, so I'm wearing the ancient pair with gawking holes in the knees. I used to love these jeans. But today they're assuring me that I have indeed gained weight this winter (I wish I didn't love to bake and cook so much), and that's made me a bit irritated with myself, and this led to not wanting to do anything and that led to being bored. I baked blueberry muffins this morning and watched L A Story (ED loaned it to me over break) and now there's nothing on except a John Wayne movie I've seen recently. I should drag the laundry down the hall and wash it, but it's full and heavy and I want to wait with it until noon when Cowboy comes back and can help me with it. He has to work today :-( But not tomorrow! I kind of want to watch a movie, but one I've never seen before. But I have several of those, and can't decide between them. Hmmmph. Hey, just noticed that it turned a new hour, so maybe now there's something on. Or I could figure out what to make for lunch.

We have snow, we don't have snow, we have snow, we don't have snow. CAN'T THE WEATHER MAKE UP ITS MIND?

Okay, it's the day before the day before Christmas. I'm so excited! I don't know how I'm going to survive work today.

Anyway, The Two Towers rocked!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In fact, it was so awesome that I didn't even once wish that Oded Fehr had played Aragorn instead of Viggo Mortensen (usually I spend lots of time bemoaning that fact). It was gritty and rough and funny and dark and I reallyreallyreally want to see it again. (Oooh, and Boromir was in a tiny flashback scene, so hurray!) Gotta run now, my break is over...

TODAY IS THE DAY!!!!! That's right, folks. At 7:05 tonight I will be entering a darkened theater to see The Two Towers!!!!!! Woo hoo! I went and got 7 tickets on Monday (had to stand in line for about 20 minutes), because a big group of us are going: me, my husband, ED, MB, DR (akaTSR), MB's cousin JC, and whoever TSR decides to bring. We plan to get to the theater around 6, because from our experience last year, there's going to be a gigantic line.

Our weather is being so weird. We should have mounds and mounds of snow by now. Today when I walked to my car at 6:42am, it was raining and felt like April or May. Really warm. I WANT SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Of course, my enthusiasm for The Two Towers is slightly lessened by the fact that my beloved Boromir is dead and won't be in this one. But that's just a tiny corner of my enthusiasm. The rest of me is bouncing up and down and wearing a little facsimile of the One Ring and counting off the seconds until I get to leave for the movie...

Bad, bad me. Look how long it's been since I've blogged! I do have a reason, which I will now explain. I usually blog during my last break at work, if I can get at a computer. I do email during my first break, read a book during lunch, and blog during the third break. But I've started reading Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, and it's so fascinating and compelling that I want to read it during my last break too.

We still have no snow :-(

That's about all the big news. Our apartment is decorated for Christmas now, tree and everything. This weekend I'm going to start baking Christmas goodies. I've started wrapping presents too. It's so exciting!

The other reason I've been negligent is that I got a really nasty stomach flu last Thursday, and it wiped me out until Monday. I just slept a lot for about 4 days.

(BTW, the pie for Thanksgiving turned out fine, as did everything else).