Jobs. Yardwork. Writing. Noof.

M's interview went well for him. The house is nice and clean now. We'll see how long that lasts. We did so much yardwork this weekend. So much raking. Raking is fun to do for about the first half hour. Then you get the blisters and the aching muscles and the stuffy nose and it ain't so great.

If he gets this position, it will probably be second shift, and I'll be spending a lot of time alone. With the dogs. The lieutenant who did the interview seemed like a decent sort. He said he'd give M a good recommendation.

My dad bought a Nikon D50 this weekend. I went with him to get it. He let me play with it for a while yesterday. Man oh man. Man oh man oh man. That is a nice piece of work, that D50. Nice. I want that damn thing with my mitochondria. With my windpipe and my sternum and the bottoms of my feet. Hot damn do I want that thing.

I never expected photography to become quite the obsession that it has. Why can't I have a normal hobby, like...

?

what do people do for hobbies these days? Play racquetball? Collect stuff? Shit. I don't know.

A nice, normal, cheap hobby.

My mom is having surgery on her ears. She's lost her ability to hear low-range sounds. Which apparently includes my voice, because she asks me to repeat things a lot. It makes me sad. She says she isn't nervous about the surgery, but she is. She talks about certain things certain ways, and I know. Her surgery won't be until after New Year's, so. Anyway I hope it works out. They're replacing one of the three itty-bitty bones in there with a fake one. When you get this done you have to wait a year between getting one ear done and getting the other done. It's weird.

I keep thinking about my job and how I can get out of it. How I can...do something else. I don't know. I feel like I put my foot in my mouth daily, and I can't really do much right, and there's no point me staying on here for various reasons, and at the same time I think I'd be an idiot to give it up because of the nice 401K program and the security and all that shit. I don't know. It's something I've been mulling over but can't quite seem to come to a consensus with myself on. I'll get there one of these days. Indeed I will.

Strange weather here lately. Much warmer than it's supposed to be for this time of year. Not complaining about that! That I can still skate into November is awfully nice.

NaNoWriMo: It's going okay. I got some stuff written, which was the whole point for me of doing it. I'm not really following the letter of the NaNoWriMo law here. I just needed something to get me going again. I agree with Christian that you can't really write a good novel in a month, because all you're doing is plowing forward without the introspection and culling and carving and polishing that it takes to shape what comes out into something presentable. However, when I read his post, I also got a little offended. NaNoWriMo is encouraging people to be creative. In some cases, it's giving people the impetus they need to finally make themselves sit down and try something they've been meaning to try for a long time. Saying that "real" writers, i.e. those who are trying to make a living at it, are laughing at NaNoWriMo participants seems to be perpetuating a derisiveness of "real" artists for "fake" ones, or those who haven't found their sea legs yet. I know what he's saying is born out of a defensiveness about spending so much time trying to do something and then seeing a huge group of people trying to do that same thing without (seemingly) all the inner turmoil and stress and perfectionism and sleepless nights of revision and dedication to quality that goes with it, but still, it kind of hurt my feelings. Which surprised me--I didn't think I was sensitive about that sort of thing after years of creative writing "workshops" at the university where people either say "I liked it" or "I didn't like it" in various ways. Who knew my tough skin had fallen away? Sheesh.

(By the by, I don't mean to start any flamey stuff by bringing that up--I just thought it worth talking about. Diverging viewpoints and all.)

Anyway. I think I'll go for a walk on my lunch break. Take some pictures.