Hey!

I forgot to tell you about our TNXgiving! I know you want to know.

It was wonderful. Dr. Skull cooked, everything except the sweet potatoes, which I make every year, mystically creating my own recipe anew each time (this year it was vanilla, salt, ginger, cinnamon, and lots of clarified butter, they were perfect); and the stuffing and brussel sprouts, which Uncle Charger's sister made, also wonderful.

Art Boy and Musical Genius Girl also came -- we hadn't seen MGG in some time, since she got a scholarship to faraway U, so that was nice -- along with Uncle Charger's sister's huband, and Uncle Charger's mom. Dr. Skull made turkey and butternut squash soup, his lovely French bread, green bean casserole, two kinds of pie, and ginger ice cream. We drank I forget how many bottles of wine and talked until quite late at night.

We still have leftovers. Thanksgiving might be my favorite holiday!

Saturday Afternoon

When I was a kid, Saturday afternoon was my favorite time of the week. Nothing to do, and no one leaning on me to do it. I would usually wander around in "the woods," a scrub area out back of our subdivision in Metairie, Lousiana. In the spring, snakes were everywhere out there; in the summer, bugs and rats and nutria; in the winter, just me. Or sometimes my brothers and their friends, notorious for starting fires with stolen gasoline, or shooting at one another with B-B guns. I'd climb trees and poke snakes with sticks, capture bugs and caterpillars, try to figure out what kind of insect made that pod and which that. The "woods" was actually a giant landfill, so anywhere I dug, I'd turn up rusting trash and filth, old shoes, boxes. My first archeological event! Every hole filled with soupy red water, stinking and foul.

I made up epic stories as I wandered around, of course. When I was with my friends, as I occasionally was, these stories were less interesting. Their stories always had current television stars, or worse, local boys in them. Plus, they wanted to direct my plots. No, I would say. No, no, no. That can't happen. Because it doesn't make sense for her to act that way, that's why.

Saturday afternoons are a little less fraught these days.

I spent the morning at Aikido, and all morning I have been working on Triple Junction. Made some turkey soup for dinner, and did some laundry. Now it is back to work on this epic novel. It is raining and raining here, perfect weather for soup and writing.

I need some woods to wander around in. And many, many Saturday afternoons!

Watch This

I watched the video clip at this post last night at two in the morning, with my kid circling me nervously, demanding, "Why do you keep watching these things? Why? You know it's the same thing! You know the police are going to keep hurting them!"

"I know," I said. "I know, I know. But I have to know. They're fighting for us, baby. They're fighting the revolution for us."

And at the end of this clip -- well, you have to watch it. You have to see what happens at the very end of the clip. Feel free to fastfoward through the middle bit (Cut back in around 6.30) though I watched the entire thing, and it's worth watching the entire thing, I have to say.

The end is glorious. I cheered aloud in my living room. I felt like dancing.

Mic Check!

I've been obssessing, just a little, over #OWS.

Well, how could I not? It's the Revolution!

Anyway, here's hoping it is.

This morning, the kid asked me, wistfully, "Has there ever been a revolution that turned out well?" and I listed for her, zealously, all the ones that had, I mean, you know, both of them.

(I keed, I keed.)

Meanwhile, did you see that shit at UC Davis? The students and faculty there are now my heroes.

Though all those involved in Occupy are my heroes, really. They are giving me hope when I thought hope was lost. A different world is possible!

Good Reads GiveAway of My Book!

Free book/My Book! Good Read is giving away Broken Slate.

Let me see if I can get this clicky/Pasty thing right....

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Broken Slate

by Kelly Jennings

Giveaway ends November 22, 2011.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Not Actually a Post

Been working working working here: editing for Crossed Genres, also revising this fucking novel (oh yes, we're at this point in the revision) also it's just past midterm, the time in teh semester when all seems hopeless, so. Also the weather here has just sucked this year and I am tired of of it, tired of heat and wet and heat and rain and heat heat heat.

Also I am tired of being so fucking poor.

But! This morning as I was driving to Aikido, the light was so lovely under the slatey clouds, and all the leaves were blown off the trees, so even though the weather is still warm and damp, I could see that maybe winter might be coming, eventually. It cheered me up a tiny bit.

Maybe I will post something besides whining tomorrow!