i have used every dare so far...
1 - one of my characters says, "according to the prophecy" at the end of every statement
2 - one of my characters carries a mouse in their pocket, mouse is named, 'mousey' and gets petted
3 - one of my characters has Anosmia
4 - i wrote 1000 words about lanyards
5 - i am writing 1000 words of conversation only

Pick a lick had a lot of fun this weekend.  I think he looks sound.  He knocked that last bar because I was veering out of the way of the ring post.  Should have converged...duh. 

Little Hundaloo was kinda bad yesterday and today.  Just when I thought we were getting somewhere.  He ran away and wouldn't let me catch him yesterday and today he stopped doing a down at class.  It was my fault though.  I tried to train too long doing the same thing (CAN'T do this with Hunda's) AND then when he gave up on doing the down it became a power struggle (DO NOT get into a power struggle with vallhunds, they are stubborn).  So we ended on a good note but it was only after I put him up to train another dog and gave him a break.  I am going to set my alarm for 15 minutes next time and stop BEFORE it goes off.  He just can't do the stuff all these dogs are doing: down stays for 5 - 6 minutes from 30 feet away.  BUT Hunda CAN climb up the light pole backwards...none of those GSD's and doberman's can do that, so hah!  Class was so bad that I was going to be good and have a tuna sandwhich and tea with Kathy at Camille's, but instead I had a beer and chocolate cake.  The mound was very happy.

Have some character development for my story: the familiy pet, named Pirata.  He/she is a hermaphrodite chihuahua with one eye.  Hence the name Pirata (pirate in spanish).  Who knows what adventures might befall an animal like that.  And I think I will give the main character an imaginary friend, even though he is still in high school.

Also, the main character lives in Nadaland, CA which I drove by today on my way to dog training and I googled it when I got home.  Check it out!

Get it?  A book titled no title, about nothing, where the main character lives in a place called nothing land.

Went to the nanowrimo kickoff party today.  It was fun to meet a bunch of freaks like me!  One of the things we did was write our novel title on a card and the plot and pass it around and everyone wrote dares on the card.  Mine looked like this:

 

One of my fav dares on my card was to write 200 words about locker fungus!  Woot!  So then I had an idea to write 200 mroe words about toenail fungus, and maybe belly button lint, and maybe another 200 or so about ring worm or ebola.

My favorite dare that I wrote was on Becky's card.  She is writing a novel about a serial killer.  My dare was: use the word 'spank' 50 times!  LOL!

2008 year of the mound is almost over.  My mound is pretty much gone, but it still hovers just below the surface and is ready to come back at any moment.  2009 year of the spank here we come!

In a moment of madness I signed up to do nanowrimo again. I like the thought of spazzing out while trying to do the things I normally do AND write 10,000 words a week! Super cute pic of Pick below. Two things to think about...a quote from the promise chocolate that I ate yesterday, "Test your limits and then keep going." AND in order to meet your goal you have to let go of it.

 

 

First Date

By: ffluffy

Do you pee in the shower?

Yes or no.

Does it matter?

We didn’t know each other from jack, but we met at the boardwalk for an evening of corn dogs and walking into the sunset.

My shoes clicked on the planks, the cracks filled with sand and cigarette butts. The sun glanced off his goatee and I saw him pick his nose out of the corner out of my eye.

“So you like your job?” he asked.

“It’s a job. Sometimes I wish I had gone to school to be a nurse or a firefighter. My friend grew up to be a firefighter, I guarantee she isn’t sick of sitting in front of a computer typing other people’s want ads for the metro paper,” I imagined hauling a fire hose up a flight of stairs, smoke billowing into my face.

He stared into the future while I tried to step over every third crack. I counted silently to myself and did a little hop to miss the crack. My pony tail bounced along with me.

I wondered if he was going to kiss me goodnight and wished I had gum or a mint to mask my hot dog breathe.

He inhaled sharply, tasting his own pork flavored tongue and said, “Next time we should go out to dinner.”

I looked up from the cracks, the sun was almost down and our shadows stretched out long beside us. I couldn’t tell the difference between his and mine, except for where they attached.

In my mind I wrote a want ad: lonely shadow looking to meet same for walks on the beach, dinner and…

This is our grand prix run from this weekend.  The bar knocking is going to kill me. I swear it is my handling but then why doesn't Pickle always do it when I decel or front cross? And it still seems to happen more on the eye side, which sucks. Maybe I should poke out that eye too? Ha ha ha. Just shows you that I am a sloppy handler so when Picke can't see me he is doing better than when he can see me. I can't believe I thought we were WT material. I think I have a lot to learn.

Got eaten alive by mosquitos last night. I hope they like the taste of twinkies and ding dongs!

The Yard Sale

By: fluffy

Gas was only four dollars a gallon so I stopped, but I wished I hadn’t. I didn’t see the yard sale until it was too late. At first it was just the usual stuff, junk someone no longer needed or needed more in the form of the money that it represented and the beer/food/meth that the money could buy.

A rusty bike caught my eye, it was an old three wheeler with a basket and I thought of my brother. I remembered the Thanksgivings and Christmases that we spent riding circles around the Safeway parking lot at my grandparents. That was back in the day when stores were actually closed on holidays.

And then there were the fenders, flash back to Poop Dog and Zoid and wandering through the swap meet at Volkswagen shows. We dug through boxes of greasy and rusty parts looking for that OEM brake cylinder for a 66 “because that was the last year of the single chamber, 67 had two” or searching for the prefect t fan shroud with intact louvers, “for better cooling”.

My eyes wandered over the junk. It truly looked like this guy had taken everything from his garage and dragged it to the gas station for the yard sale. Old tires, a wheel barrow, random boxes of crap graced the dirt lot. He barely made eye contact with me, and I could tell there would be no conversation. He saw me for who I am; a random white chic wandering through, on my way to somewhere else.

I couldn’t see anything that I would want. And then I spied the dog. I swear it was the family pet, a fat lab mix with a ‘thump thump’ tail and it was sitting in a bird cage. It was a big bird cage, but it wasn’t a dog crate. He had a nice bed of sawdust and water and an index card that said $25 on it.

I wanted to ask if it was $25 for the cage or the dog but I didn’t have the guts. What kind of person sells their dog? In this day and age I wouldn’t be surprised if they were selling him for food. He looked so content in that cage, like he had been to every yard sale with his owner and didn’t quite understand that his life was held in a balance between this life and the next by the price on the card hanging in front of his nose.

And what could I do? Buy the dog and add him to my collection? Give the guy $20 for his next drink/burrito/fix? Drive away and think about if for the next 900 miles? I did the later. And I have been thinking about it for the last 900 miles. And I feel guilty. All I can see is his tail, thump thumping and his wet nose stuck through the bars of the bird cage.

Rock Scissors Paper

by: ffluffy

On 3.

Ok does that mean at 3 or after you say 3?

At 3.

1,2,3.

You always do scissors first.

Well so do you.

Ok, let’s do it again.

1,2,3.

Oops I was late.

Well that isn’t how we are going to solve anything.

The mountains were so close I could smell them. I glanced their way and nodded. Z looked over her shoulder. I love you I thought but didn’t say it. The mountains nodded back. As I walked away scenes flashed through my mind and I turned back to see the foot prints where my shoes had bent the grass. True to form, the cell walls were doing their job and the grass was popping back into place. My steps could only be traced a few feet. I could feel the presence of the mountains, their shadow touching me.

Next time we arm wrestle she yelled at me I could only imagine the mountains on my side, forming a rock instead of the scissor, or making my bicep into a rock so that I would win. Win. Win.

I waved and kept walking, smashing the grass to the best of my ability and dancing with the mountains shadow. If there was a god it would be found in that mountain, or in mountains everywhere, or lakes or rivers.

Do people who look for god look outside?

Do they look around them?

My Jesus can kick your Jesus’ ass.

In any game.

Rock, scissors, paper.

20 questions.

Mud wrestling.

Burrito making.

Love making.

Some other stuff.