I win. Again.

Well, another year, another Nano. I passed word count today, somewhere in the 50,200-something range, and I still have one more chapter to go.

If a novel is written and no one reads it, does it make a sound?

Unlike in prior years, this novel was technically nowhere close to wrapping up its ridiculous plot twists as I approached the 50,000 word arches. Thus the last two chapters became a desperate attempt to tie off a dozen loose ends, to underwhelming effect (I have not in fact written the last and final chapter, although I may have done so by the time you read this, and I can already say with confidence that it will have been a desperate affair).

Silicone Sisters boasted 2 readers, each of whom had not terribly negative things to say about its wildly ridiculous premise and wholly unlikely capers (there was a third poser reader who pretended to be digesting chapters until he was unfortunately exposed on some major matters of plot). I would like to take this time to thank those people for making the endeavor worth posting online.

Join me in bidding my third and possibly final Nanowrimo farewell.

Notes from a hack noveling death march

In August or so, I sent out a call for others to join me in the annual hack-noveling death march known as nanowrimo, knowing from long experience that the challenge would remain unheeded, owing to that universal, bogus excuse of "busyness" upon which everyone relies to, ironically, avoid being busy.

And so unsurprisingly here I am on day 26, toiling alone, scrabbling out desperate, rootless chapters with no purpose long after blowing my opportunity to write The All Important Turning Point at around day 20. Week four is terribly grim: it is that part in the Donner Party story when folks broke out their sporks and started eating their relatives. It's that part in the Titanic story when the water finally reached steerage, and little doe-eyed Irish ragamuffins were trapped behind the gates. It is the end of the train line, where you realize that your journey has only taken you so far, and that destination is not quite as far as you secretly wanted it to go.

Fools, why do you deny yourselves this annual french kiss with your own creative limitations? Why do you turn your backs on instant-onset carpal tunnel syndrome, conveniently precluding the usual months of absenteeism, physical therapy, and whining? Why do you leave me alone every November to toil in anonymous hackery while you watch "How I Met Your Mother" with your feet up on the coffee table?

I think I may have already written this exact post in 2000's 4 and 5, and none of you had a damned thing to say about it then, either.

Fine.

I write alone.

Toothless

They are after me again. The dentists. Toward the holiday season they tend to get restless, as the yearly quota for oral surgery referrals draws near, and they realize they are a few kills short of a trophy. When I go in for my cleanings, they stare in silent rage at my complete set of 32 teeth, an affront to their profession, and they vow to take me down.

"You realize that your wisdom teeth are connected directly to your brain stem, and one infection will cause brain death within the hour," goes the typical, sponteneous lecture, at the conclusion of another uneventful exam.

"But," I ask. "Are they infected?"

"Well, no." Angry sigh.

"Are they impacted?"

"Um, well, they are not, they are, arrg. No."

"I think I'll skip it," I say.

"You do realize," they threaten. "that for every six months you keep these wisdom teeth, 10 Ethiopian children will die? Are you really that selfish?"

"But," I say. "I knew this woman who was in the hospital for weird complications from an extraction, and her skin came off in sheets. They documented it in a medical journal." This is a true story.

"Lies!" The dentist screams. "My son had his wisdom teeth out last year, and he won Powerball the next day!"

"But there's nothing wrong with my teeth."

"They are WISDOM TEETH!" The doctor then proceeds to regale me with stories of my inevitable facial bone loss and lonely death in a nursing home for dental renegades.

The strange part is, no two dentists seem to agree about what exactly is wrong. One dentist claimed there were cavities. One claimed they came in sideways. However, no dentist seems to be able to corroborate the findings of any other. But they all agree on one point: I need surgery to have them yanked out of my face.

Mofo's, the teeth stay.

I hate Nanowrimo

It's late. It took me three hours to write 1,600 words today. They were garbage. Every last comma. I hate Nanowrimo. The cat bit me even. It's like she knew somehow.

Why do I do this every year? Why am I writing about a sociopath who pees in bottles and takes pictures of the backs of people's heads? Why does he keep showing up, with utterly no agenda or purpose, to wreck every scene, like he's Rob Schneider?

In case this wasn't clear, this is the worst novel ever written. It is almost as bad as Douglas Coupland's last 5 novels. I can't wait to spend the next 15 days stacking more presto-logs of prose on this heaping pile of literary excrement.

The husband says I was whiny like this last year too. He lies. You are all liars.

I am going to bed.

Shatner, redux

• There are two kinds of people in this world: people who get Shatner, and people who don't.
  
• A bald eagle flew right past my third-floor office window today. These things have a seven-foot wingspan, in case you've never seen one up close. I was in the middle of a meeting with a manager, and there it was, just outside the window. It was then that I knew I'd reached that snowy peak promised by framed inspirational business posters sold by in-flight magazines: that I had made it. I was soaring with the eagles.
  
• I can't believe everyone has turned their back on the Rubber Baby Novel. Probably you're the same people that would never acknowledge the greatness of Shatner's record "Has Been."
  
• Here's the thing: I totally called this yesterday. "I'm gettin a Wendy's chili finger vibe from this dude," I said to the husband, of glued-to-the-toilet man. He didn't believe me, which is just kind of sad in light of recent developments.

Ok, I get it. You're not buying it. Shatner, I mean. You think you're somehow above the phenomenon. Newsflash: you're not.

Luckily for you, I'm armed with debate-ending evidence of his greatness: this woefully short list of peerless Shatner moments, of which there are thousands.

Read and accept the glory of Shatner:

• Appearance on Fresh Prince of Bel Air, in which he and Will Smith were high on Novocain on the set of a TV talk show
  
• SNL skit, during which he lectures Trekkies to get out of their parents' basements and get lives during a Star Trek convention
  
• "Has Been" -- "Common People" and "That's Me Trying"
  
• Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
  
• Priceline ads
  
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: KHAAAAAAAAN! Also the end, where he is quoting Dickens
  
• Utterance of the line "No more bla bla bla" in Star Trek episode, "And the Children Shall Lead"
  
• Utterance of line "Storage compartments? Storage compartments? The what? The what?" in "The Trouble with Tribbles"
  
• Battle with Jimmy Boy, boyhood nemesis, in episode about the planet where anything you imagined actually happened... you know, where that tiger attacked Sulu... what the hell was that episode called?

Update: When driving home lastnight I realized that I'd left off the classic Shatner moment in The Twilight Zone when he's on a plane and thinks he sees a monster on the wing... so much better than that stupid 80's t-zone remake... the original had Shatner for god's sake.

Nanowrimo 2k5: The Rubber Baby Novel

Sitting next to me currently in this nameless eastside cafe are a trio of young medical students, one of whom has not stopped jabbering, dropping medical terms, and bloviating endlessly about her stress and ADD and Very Important Life even long enough to intubate a patient, likely not absorbing a single word from the imposing medical tomes serving as her latte coaster, and I realize that this woman will likely be cutting one of us open on a table somewhere in the coming decades, based on the knowledge she has accrued during study sessions just like this one. Which has nothing to do with the Rubber Baby Novel, I am aware, but it makes me nervous all the same.

Right now, I am currently attempting my third Nanowrimo novel, currently untitled, concerning a middle-aged women obsessed with two inanimate silicone babies. To this you may rightly wonder WTF? unless like me, you had encountered this article in the 11th hour of October 31st, when you were entirely bereft of noveling ideas, and had sworn to all who cared that this was the year you were officially hopping off the novel bandwagon, in favor of putting more research into the career history of Neil Patrick Harris.

Fortunately for no one, inspired by this grim scrap of journalism detailing the fevered delusions of lonely old women, I sprung into action, creating dumpsters of prose about what it might be like to be, or be related to, such a woman yourself.

Thus far I have already written myself into a tangent about a lecherous boss, knowing only that something terrible happens to those rubber babies in a future chapter, without knowing exactly what.

Welcome to Nanowrimo. This is how it always goes. So far, everyone I know is staying away from this novel in progress as though it were a test tube of avian flu virus. Alas, they are fools.

The wise dog knows herself to be a fool

Dear Tiny dog,

Why do you continue to write TV columns about Doogie Howser and CGI chickens when America's last days as a first world nation appear to be in the forseeable future?

Signed,

--Faithful reader. Or, tiny dog masquerading as a reader. Not sure. It's early.

Dear "Faithful reader,"

P. T. Barnum said it best: "Clowns and elephants are the pegs on which the circus is hung."

Signed,

Tiny dog.

Update Ah, sweet fame.

Also, there is a podcast.