PAgent’s Progress

Today is my daughter’s birthday. Under the heading of “special relativity” I must confess that it feels like she turned thirteen sometime last month, not last year. I know I have lectured her countless times that she “is thirteen now, and we have higher expectations” of her. Well, that lecture is now obsolete.

Have I mentioned that she’s almost as tall as I am now? And taller than her mother? Oy.

When I have not been pondering my daughter’s rapid ascent to maturity (and my own concomitant slide into senility), I’ve been worrying about NaNoWriMo.

As you probably know (or suspected), my own favorite genre is sci-fi, followed by fantasy. This should not be surprising. There’s a reason the stereotypical geek/nerd/man-boy is always shown on television LARPing his Elven Ranger, or wearing his homemade Mandalorian battle armor. So my first impulse is to write some Epic Space Opera, with FTL drives, hostile planets, and Machiavellian interstellar politics.

And with luck, three people might read it. For whatever reason, sci-fi fans tend to be prolific writers, and in the inevitable and predictable way of Gaussian distributions, most of what they write is utter crap. Even if I were to produce something readable, or even a shining gem of prose, it would never get anyone’s attention buried in that steaming pile of excrement.

On the other hand, I’ve always fancied myself a fairly humorous fellow. I think I can tell a joke well, and I love wordplay. Unfortunately, my sense of humor has rarely translated to the written page. My poems and short stories, even when intended to be a farce or satire, quickly turn grim. Most of what I write ends up in a place that’s very dark indeed, either through the raw emotions involved, or because someone ends up getting eaten by something horrible. Mind you, there’s a place for that kind of literature. It certainly worked out well for Stephen King.

But for this, my first attempt at anything longer than a short story, I thought I should definitely try for something lighter. It remains to be seen whether I will succeed. I’ve been rolling ideas around in my head for about a week now, and have a rough outline with some of the major characters at least initially sketched out. I have a title, and I even mocked up some cover art for my NaNoWriMo profile:

I was nervous, but optimistic about the whole thing.

Then I get an email today that includes “a guide to NaNoWriMo”. It features a timeline for the month of November, which includes such gems as:

As the first full week of writing comes to a close, you will be at 11,666 words. This is more fiction than most people write in their lifetimes, and you did it in a week.

Wait. What?

After the second week of writing, you will be at 25,000 words. This is the approximate length of such legendary works of fiction as The Metamorphosis, Of Mice and Men, and Twilight: The Complete Illustrated Movie Companion

Hey, I’m not trying to draft War and Peace here, just some little piece of fiction to prove to myself that I can. Suddenly 50,000 words is looking insurmountable. Now I’m not just worried about typing that many words, but I’m worried about coming up with enough story to justify that many words.

I guess we’ll see how it goes. T-minus 34 hours and counting.

On the advice of a friend, I picked up a copy of “On Writing” by Stephen King. This was one of the most useful books on the craft of writing I’ve ever read, and I heartily recommend it to anyone who even daydreams about putting words together.

Last Saturday the house was a little quieter than normal, because my son was off on a Cub Scout camping trip. He’s almost ready to transition to Boy Scouts, and these last few outings are setting the stage for selecting a troop and making the jump to the Big Boys.

Since the weather was beautiful, I idly said something about taking the dog to the beach. Of course the Girl jumped all over that, and I immediately panicked at having created an expectation I couldn’t fulfill. But after the Wife and I discussed it a bit, we decided it would do me, the Girl, and the dog a world of good to get out of town. So off we went.

So what does an Australian Shepherd do at the beach?

He chases the ball. He brings it back. He stands expectantly, waiting for you to throw it again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Eventually, he collapses into a gasping heap.

We found a strand of kelp washed ashore, and I started cutting it up to show the Girl the inside. Somehow we ended up carving a Kelp ‘o Lantern:

Gus can be highly photogenic sometimes. Like when he’s riveted to the ball in your hand:

And finally, some video of the pampered pooch in action:

When you’re walking through the parking garage, look up at the overhead fluorescent lights and think “I really should shoot those things out”.

Related post: “How to tell you’ve been playing too much Zelda”

Have you ever had avgolemono? It’s Greek egg-lemon soup — very basic, very simple, very delicious. You can make it with rice or orzo pasta, and it’s simply delightful. It can be a bit tart for some folks, so perhaps the lemony goodness is best in small doses. Kind of a palate cleanser.

I made a batch on Saturday. Unfortunately (but not unpredictably) I was the only family member to really enjoy it. More for me!

It’s difficult to find a recipe for avgolemono that’s at all complicated, but I tried. I used this recipe with orzo. The recipe calls for separating the eggs and whipping the egg whites before incorporation. A word of caution: Don’t get too crazy with the whipping, or you’ll end up with a lot of foam. It doesn’t hurt the flavor, but it looks pretty silly.

Anyway, with the weather getting colder, a nice lemony soup with chewy orzo pasta is just the ticket. Try it and see if you like it.

I just committed myself to writing a 50,000 word novel in the month of November.

From scratch.

That’s 1667 words each and every day.

May God have mercy upon my soul.

I had occasion to visit my alma mater the other day, and took the opportunity to wander around a bit.

It would not be inaccurate to say that Reed played a major role in shaping the person I turned out to be. If I want evidence of that, I need only consider how often I dream about the place. In my dreams I wander from the Commons to the Student Union, searching for a progressive dinner that isn’t progressing, or I’m desperately trying to find someone’s dorm room, going from floor to floor.

My most common Reed-related nightmare involves the mail room. Throughout my years at Reed, I shared a mail box with another student, a mail box that had two knobs, each with a pointer that had to be aligned to the correct position in order to open the door. My combination was something like “first knob halfway between H and I, and second knob three-quarters past L”. I had some small difficulty remembering this. In my dream, I usually wander down to the dark campus mail room only to realize that I haven’t retrieved my mail ALL YEAR — and I can’t remember my combination.

Although the Commons and Student Union buildings have been extensively remodeled, I was pleased to see familiar bits and pieces here and there. Where the mail room USED to be, I found the current incarnation of the MLLL. I was thrilled that it was still in existence, still providing an escape for stressed out students via an extensive collection of bound comics and music.

Above the MLLL, the Student Union building remains intact. To my amazement, a large red illuminated “R” was attached high on an interior wall. The last time I saw that letter was 1987, in the Russian language house. I was friends with the RA (aka “Dorm Dad”) for the Russian house, and I remembered a farewell party we had there shortly before graduation, where the front room was bloodily illuminated by that giant glowing R. I’m afraid it made me a little bit giddy to see it again.

Nightmares aside, and despite the decades that have passed since I actually lived and worked there, I will always consider Reed to be my home. While I was visiting the other day, walking around campus, I felt a lack of stress and tension that is entirely unlike my normal state of being. It’s difficult to explain. They can change the buildings, they can change the faculty, but they can’t change the community. I have a link to that institution forged slowly over four intensive years. I share a bond with those students that starts with the poems of Homer, ends with a Thesis Parade, and is bound throughout by intellectual rigor.

I will always be a Reedie.