Zoom...

That's what I feel that this year is doing now - zooming before my eyes. I can't yawn without a day passing. I know, it's like this every year, cliche cliche, etc, but still. It never ceases to amaze me.

Lately it's been work, Weekly writing and art gallery visits, lots of reading, lots of Lost watching, being lazy about cooking and making cop-out dinners, sleeping early, waking up early, lots of smiling because of Rick, (as always), attempts at catching up with friends from home (some successful, mostly not - phone tag is lame), and writing ideas down for a book. Finally. This is something I've been putting off for way too long. I've got a bunch of short stories in Word files, on paper, in notebooks, but none of them follow a theme or are really related at all. I've also become privy to the fact that one cannot publish a book of short stories (usually) unless they have a novel out and (obviously) do well with it, so this is the logical progression for things. I've got 2 ideas, and one seems slightly more feasible so I'm going with that.

I've been reading Tete-a-Tete, and just finished it yesterday. It's a dual biography about the lives, (both professional and personal, although those often melded) of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre...two writers/philosophers/thinkers that I admire very much. I read de Beauvoir first in the Virginia Woolf class I took while in Oxford, and fell in love with her ideas and the way that she so seamlessly puts them together. Also, greatly because of her feminist leanings. Then I read Nausea three summers ago and was blown away, so much so that I devoured many of his other works. I must've read it in a day and a half. I love when a book makes me excited and spurns discussions and thoughts the way Sartre's work does. I was a Philosophy minor in college, but there were no Existentialist classes in my school nor did any of my other instructors really touch upon it much. So I did all the reading and research myself, and it was grand.

Tete-a-Tete, in addition to just being an informative and excellent read, really served to inspire me to get started with my writing again. For the past couple of years it's been either short stories, or daily journaling/writing down of observations, but no big idea to work on or towards. Reading about how dedicated both Sartre/de Beauvoir were about writing, re-writing, and carving out hours of every day (even after teaching) to get all of their thoughts out, just made me realize how much I'm slacking with one of my greatest passions/sources of happiness. I do write on a weekly basis for the Weekly, and that still feels amazing, but I want to make time to write for myself now too, as opposed to trying to fit it in with everything else. So, this is the goal. We'll see how I do with it.

Thanksgiving is coming up next week! Any holiday where food is the main event is automatically my favorite holiday. Well, as long as it isn't with my family, that is. I still have no idea what I'm making for the main course and dessert for our "Vegan Thanksgiving Extravaganza 2k8!" that's taking place at Rick's mom's place, but I've got a couple of things I'm mulling over. Pumpkin-cranberry cupcakes? Pumpkin cheesecake? Gingerbread apple pie? I'll decide soon enough. But this is where the funny irony comes up...people are always asking me what I CAN eat, because apparently there's nothing for vegans to eat. But whenever I have to make something, I'm always overwhelmed with all the choices I have. Poor ignorant fools.

Gonna snack then head out to write with Rick in a bit. Happy rest of weekend, all.