I am NO slacker!

On the surface it may appear that I have slacked off on writing in the pastmonth or so. Although, it's true, I traveled a ton in the month of November;I faithfully punched away on the keyboard as well. In fact, the keyboard gotso much mileage that my five year old Thinkpad's F now explodes in rebellionfrom time to time, popping up after being utilized. And who can write without an F button?
Task #92. Do NaNoWriMo (http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/whatisnano)
I participated in an online write a novel in the month of November projectcalled, WriNamo. The concept is pretty easy: write a novel in a month, atleast 50,000 words ALL created only in November 2008. And this is a HUGEtask, which I didn't really understand fully until the end of the firstweek, when my word count was a little over 8K, and that's after writingevery day. They send an author-wanna be emails encouraging that the secondand fourth week are likely the most depressing and despairingly, and theywere right. Slain by a cold the last week of the month, my head fuzzy eitherfrom snot or from decongestant, I couldn't produce anything of value, muchless capture something on paper..
But! Alas! I prevailed! I wrote furiously and without editing (to theorganization's cheerleading: PRODUCE! Don't EDIT!) And last week, I had 51Kby 8pm on Sunday. I am now in the process of editing..
I'll send you a chapter if you like. The novel is about the life of a smallfamily in snapshots of key moments of their lives.click here for a gist ofwhat the book is about..
MY list didn't end there! Also in the month of November, I completed thefollowing:

#41 Set up Google Reader: Yep! It's official! I check my Google Reader about 4times a week! What did I do before Google Reader? Please people, if you'vegot a website you LOVE to check regularly, like this one!, email me and I'llvouch for reader! Also.what are you reading? Let me know!)

#77 (now 2 out of 3, the other was Cheuking Express) Watch a Foreign Film: Priceless, French, which was absolutely charming.Audrey Tatu, shone in a way that made you disgusted with her and yetcheering her on to change her shallow ways

#69 Go to a Comedy Routine (I accompanied my good friend Lisa to a comedyroutine in Columbia,MO while checking out the community there. What I remember from the act wasthat he did a musical number dressing up like 80 pop music stars. Andlaughing)

#31 Go to a book reading (I did even better than that. One of the most inspiringbooks I've read this year is Tales of a Female Nomad. A little similar toEat, Pray, Love, the book is about a woman transformed by her journeysacross the world. Much different, however, is that the woman's alteration isvery much externally and community oriented. She sells all her possessions,adopting the name nomad and truly living as part of these places. I attendeda book club where the author Rita Goldman, was the guest of honor.)

#17 Go to a live music event (1 of 3) Last week, Jack and I went to a barbershop quartetconcert of men singing old Christmas songs. These were just men in thecommunity with a love of music, and what it did for me was cradle me intothe spirit of Christmas.

Whose are you?

Reader, as you pause here, take a deep breathe in. Close your eyes, and make friends with the darkness that will provide the veiling for your image to slowly emerge. Project yourself into that space….

No! You are thinking too hard. Just pause. Are you trying to rush ahead?

Stop

.
Where is the real you? Have you found him/her yet today? Have you acknowledged yourself? Where has the time gone?
There’s an image, albeit fuzzy, it is streaming in at different angles. You are going to have to fine-tune it a bit. Add one splash of color and define the lines a bit. Okay, easy now, turn the knobs of your inner perception, and step into yourself. Ahh…there you are. There you are.
There you are on your first day of school, proudly clutching those crayons and waiting as a whole new terrain unfolds just for your exploration.
There you are, discovering that you were pregnant. There is that moment where your body evoked such an otherness a forgotten language of unity emerges.
There you are, watching a young life thrive and flourish even as a mass of maleficent cells rise up in rebellion and chew away at her youth.
This gift of self-knowing tethers you to something much larger than yourself. The effort of being human is really no effort at all if it is reduced down to survival. But there you are, see yourself? You live amidst the irony of always becoming something new, always adapting and changing, and yet, somehow maintaining coherent sense of you; you stay the same. What nourishes you? What feeds you?
Identity can be a powerful experience if you pay homage to it more often. But the who am I question ultimately does not satisfy. Or if it does, only briefly, before a new hunger presents itself, perpetuating a search for the larger question.
Whose are you?
To whom do you belong?
Where do you belong?
I ask you to pause here again, conjuring up images in your mind. The real and the fantasy. The memory of people or places that are tangible and those that are perhaps unphysical.

Whose are you?

As we began the harried Holiday season, may you feel grounded, capable of caring for yourself with ease and joy...but also connected...