Fast Fiction

Yeah.

I’m depressed.

Today’s smell shouldn’t surprise you.

It’s the smell of democracy.

What does that smell like, you ask? Well, at my polling place it smells like babies. Dunno why, but everyone (okay maybe about a quarter of them) at my polling place had a toddler in tow. I think it’s great.

The line was long, but only because everyone was trying to vote early. The line at our polling place a few hours later was practically non-existent.

I’m not one for looking at the results before they’re actually in. My current displeasure with the media started in 2000 with the last election and continues to this day. As Jon Stewart has said, “Stop hurting America.” I hope that we can just be informed, be aware and then wait for the results instead of second and third guessing everything from moment to moment. My life doesn’t change knowing who our new leaders will be in the slightest for knowing 12 hours later than I could have known. After all, the President doesn’t take office until January and the Electoral College doesn’t meet until December.

Are you here to see how my novel is going?

Well, I’ve decided I’m going to be an asshole and hang out in coffee houses and make fun of the little conformists that do their wordcount in 1667 word incremements every day and then write all of mine in the weekend before Thanksgiving.

Um, no, wait, that’s not what I’m going to do.

I’m not planning on starting my novel until I’ve finished a draft of a new play. Supposedly I was going to do that last month, but I’ve stalled a little bit on it. But The Man laid down an edict that I not write another novel until I finish a play, so here I am, in the midst of National Novel Writing Month trying to squeeze a draft of a play out.

Of course my standards for plays are vastly different than my standards for novels (thank God!). I want to write a good and coherent play. So, I’ll get that done, probably on Saturday morning and then be able to start the Novel in earnest. It’s not like I don’t already procrastinate. At least this time I’m doing it to good purpose.

I’m going to redo my blogroll to include other NaNoWriMo bloggers, so if you want me to include yours, please let me know and I’ll give you some linky love.

Or, if you’re already on there, and you’d rather not be, now’s the time to tell me.

Of course when I post things like this, I only end up with more hits for these strings.

The latest interesting google search strings:

>  >  >Dispose of the dog pooch Los Angeles

>  >  >Rusty Dishwasher Prongs

>  >  >The Smell of Fiction

I wonder if they stayed or got disgusted and left.

LA Blog’s LA Insight was conceived by lil’ ol me. Mostly because I know we all have stories. Man, do we have stories.

1. Have you ever been ticketed for a moving violation?

Yes. Once. Running a red light. Going down Beverly Blvd. through Beverly Hills to work back in ‘96. He got me dead to rights as I blew through a stoplight that changed from yellow to red.

2. Have you ever been able to talk your way out of a ticket (just getting a warning)?

I was stopped one other time, New Year’s Eve in (I think) 1988 up in Arcata, CA. I was on my way to a party by myself and sat at a stoplight (one of only two in town) and when it turned green I went. A cop was sitting opposite me in the left turn lane and swung a U-ie and pulled me over. He said I ran the light. I was just puzzled (honestly puzzled, not talking my way out of it or anything) and said, “Why would I sit there through most of the cycle and then blow through it? It obviously turns green on my side before yours because of the left turn lane.” He kind of stammered and asked if I’d been drinking (I didn’t drink back then.) and sent me on my way.

3. Have you ever fought a traffic ticket?

Nope. I’ve wanted to fight parking tickets before, but it seems that the law of diminishing returns dictates that my time is worth more than the price of the ticket.

4. How did you fulfill your traffic school requirement?

I went to Chocoholics traffic school over at Rose’s in Venice. The teacher was an ass (we got into an arguement about gun laws), but was an otherwise painless experience.

5. Have you ever gotten a parking ticket? Did you fight it?

I’ve gotten two parking tickets in the last 13 years. I didn’t have a car before then. One was for parking the first week I lived in LA in Venice - the meter had NOT expired, yet the meter maid insisted that we’d already parked on that block (we’d not, but I suppose it was easy to confuse my light blue Camry with the 22 million other light blue Camrys back then). The other ticket was in Glendale for an expired meter. I’m paranoid about getting parking tickets so I try really hard not to get them.

6. How much do you think youíve spent in your lifetime on tickets?

Both parking & that one moving violation including the fee for traffic school - probably $500.

7. Have you been ticketed in other cities/states/countries? How does that experience compare?

Well, being stopped that one time up in Arcata. I was once picked up for curfew violation when I was in college too. That was weird, because it was 2AM and I was only 17, so I suppose I wasn’t allowed to be out. But then again, I was in college and not living at home anymore (hell, not even living in the same state/time zone as my folks.)

8. If you had it to do all over again, whatís the one thing you would have done differently when it came to a run in with The Man?

Well, I think that running that light was probably good for me. It’s good for everyone to have a little dose of the system if you don’t hurt anyone else.

Today’s smell is matches.

There was a blackout here at work today. Almost two hours. Now, it being daytime, we had no trouble making our way around until the lights came back on. But the bathroom has no windows and therefor not natural light. So we lit a candle and put it on the shelf in the bathroom. It was one of my nice scented ones. But of course the overwhelming smell when you first light it is the sulphur from the matches.

Tonight I raced home from work because the sky looked rather clear. However, the clouds were hugging the horizon and I couldn’t quite catch the moonrise.

I did get a few shots off while testing the camera of the full lunar eclipse.

I’m still hoping to get a few more. We’re in totality at the moment, so I’ve got another hour or so to catch a clearing in the clouds, but it’s raining again.

UPDATE: I posted a pretty cool early shot on blogging.la and a lot more on buzznet.

Today’s smell is brought to you by the commissary.

Today’s smell is French Dip. Which here on the lot was always French Dip and was never called Freedom Dip. (I actually don’t know if that’s true, but it sounded good.)

Platypuses. Platypii?

They’re just strange creatures.

First, they have cloacas (only one opening for eggs, urine and feces to pass).

Second, males have venomous spurs.

Third, they lay eggs.

Fourth, they have some freaky genes going on. Nature reported that “a platypus has five chromosones determining sex, not one - like the rest of the species in the world.” That’s like some alien stuff going on. It’s not like it’s a non-mammalian thing to do, it’s like it’s a non-earth thing to do.

Of course Nature also reported that hobbits used to live in Indonesia.

Okay, I went to Amazon today. Usually the front page has something to do with stuff that I browse or buy.

Today the front page had something else. Philips HeartStart Home Automated External Defibrillator (AED).

First of all, who named that thing. HeartStart? Please!

Second, external defibrillator? I hope it’s external. I hate the anal ones. Or worse, the ones where you have to crack open the chest. Although that one comes with a carpet cleaner.

Third, what have I been browsing lately that led them to believe that this was something I’d be interested in?

I like to do stuff to spur me to complete my novel. Chris Baty suggests this in his book and on the NaNoWriMo website.

Signing up for group blogs and blogrolls helps me quite a bit. Especially when I check my webstats and see that I’ve been getting referrals from other pages.

To that end, NaNoBlogMo has listed me among the participants. I have no idea if anyone actually clicks on that stuff or looks at that page.

But I’ll just pretend that everyone has high hopes for me.

EDIT: I had the URL down for nanoblogmo down wrong (I put blogpsot.com instead of blogspot.com) which apparently takes you to a mega site of bible study which I can only assume took the domain name because of the inadvertant traffic.

Today’s smell was fabulous. It’s a smoky barbecue. I don’t know who was barbecuing, but I loved the feel of walking to my office, navigating puddles and that scent wafting by.

I wanted leaves to kick or be scattered around in the breeze. But this’ll qualify for a nice way to start the day, too.

Today’s smell came to me before getting to the office.

Today’s smell is bleach.

Yes, bleach so strong as to make your eyes water.

I don’t know why my back yard smelled like bleach, but that’s how it was today.

As it stands right now, this is what I’ve got:

Title: An Alphabetical Order

Genre: Literary Fiction (Light Humor?)

Story: Main character finds that her lack of success in life is caused by her unfortunate name. It’s not a bad name, it’s just always left her in a bad position. So she researches how some successful people were helped by their name (the letters they begin with, not too uncommon, not too ordinary, not too ethnic, but not too whitebread). She changes her name and changes her life. Or maybe it doesn’t change her life at all.

As you can see, I haven’t even picked out a name for her yet. I’ve got a long way to go.