November = summer

Happy Thursday! This has got to be one of the best Thursday's I've come across in a while. Lemme tell you about my journey.

Here is a link to a map of my adventure. I started in the parking structure downtown, dropped off my books at the library, trekked over to Rocket Fizz (IBC Black Cherry and a Look!), and then made the long walk over to where my band hangs out.

Or hung out, because they ripped most of it out? There's a road that dead ends there (you can see it on the map) and at the end of the rocks (which is officially where my band hangs out) there's like this little electrical building? Well. Not today. They ripped out that building and the road and leveled everything in between that and the edge of the surfer's parking lot.

I think they must be putting in a new/better bike path, because years ago, they built a bike path there that goes all along the board walk, and out along the beach to the river where it turns up and goes up the valley into Ojai. But forever ago, the ocean washed out that stretch along the beach, so they'd routed it into the parking lot there until it met up with the river. So now that whole parking lot is gone, as well as the frontage road that ran between it and the back of the fairgrounds.

I took pictures.

So that was a little bit of a shock. Especially since the weather was sooo nice and just like the summer I never had. I was going to hang out there and do some writing, but there was all that chain link and also a biker. So I just took pictures and moved along.

I did end up chilling off the boardwalk for a while. Listening to all the Linkin Park albums on my Zune. I was halfway through Meteora, and if I wanted to get through Minutes to Midnight before I got back to my car, which was loaded with A Thousand Suns, I needed to stretch out my walk a little longer.

So I went down the pier. There I met Fisherman Albert.

"What are you listening to?" he asks.

"Linkin Park," I say, taking off my giant headphones.

"Oh yeah?!" He's shocked, because what adorable 16-year-old girl listens to such a hardcore band like that?

"Yeah," I say.

"Which one?" he asks. He's very friendly.

"Minutes to Midnight," I dutifully reply.

"Oh, you like that song?"

".......yes."

"That's cool. I saw you rocking out to it," he says, clearly having no idea about Linkin Park. He mimes me smashing my headphones to my ear, which I had been doing.

"Oh yeah," I say, "I was listening to the bass part, trying to see if I could learn it."

"I bet you can," he says. He's very confident in me. We have a little conversation about fishing (the tide is out super far, but when it comes back in he'll be rolling in fish), and about Halloween (Transformers and Tinkerbells were all the way out here until like 2 in the morning), and about how nice Ventura is (what he considers Midtown I consider Downtown; what I consider Midtown he considers the East End). When I say my Halloween was quiet, he asks my age. How old do I guess he is? Turns out I'm a month older, and we're both surprised. He also guesses my weight at 90-100 pounds (while commenting that if I wanted to jump off the pier for a swim, he's got a net he could pull me back up in), so he's a charmer.

Tomorrow should be a 7.0, whatever that is, and the water should be about 64 degrees.

I had to re-listen to Minutes to Midnight on my way back down the pier.

The internet said I walked almost 4 miles. It was a great day for strolling and meeting strangers.

And I did do a spot of writing, foooooooooooooor...

NaNoWriMo!

Yep, it's November AGAIN! Crept up on me! Time to write another novel! Or finish the one you started last year and never touched again!

I actually want to tell you all about my process and this year vs. last year, but I just told you all about my epic summer, so maybe it'll wait til next week.

Basically, so far it's gone deceptively smoothly. Maybe I just know how to deal with the pressure this time? Maybe this part of the story is easier to write? Maybe sitting on an idea for a year gave it time to marinate? Maybe I don't care about the quality of writing anymore? I know it's only four days in, but I'm quite optimistic about making this 2 for 2.

Guitar class today was a joke, now that I've had two weeks off to learn by myself. 9-year-old was back, but I basically ignored him. Class was real small, just me and him and Middle Schooler and Overzealous Mom and Blind Girl and Confused Dad and Thinks She Can Play and Youth Group Girl and College Guitar. When he showed us something new, he eventually stopped checking in on me and Niner, because he knew I had it and the kid was a lost cause.

We learned the riff to Pretty Woman and it confused the heck out of EVERYONE but I was all doot doot doot bass line weeee and mostly just wanted to punch Thinks She Can Play in the throat.

Well. Only one more class. I'd say it was worth it, over all, though. I've picked up The Times They Are A-Changin' and it uses almost only chords he taught us. So I have to say the class taught me how to play the guitar. But the rest of it I can do on my own, just by playing, you know?

Over the weekend me and Carolyn saw the Owls of Ga'Hoole or whatever it's called, and Despicable Me, and I don't know I'd recommend them. Owls is super violent and the story is very very very poorly explained; but Owls are freaking adorable and some of that computer graphic work is outstanding. Despicable Me was cute enough, but the jokes were not that funny and just made me angry because the theater we were in was BUSTING UP every thirty seconds. No. Just no. The secondary characters were also rather bland and I have narrative objections to how the third act played out.

But speaking of bad movies, Twilight III is coming to DVD December 4th and I literally cannot wait. We're playing the trailer nonstop at work and I just keep looking over at it and giggling. Oh Edward. Oh KStew.

Okay. Unless something majorly exciting happens this week, look forward to an in-depth look at how I feel about writing a novel for next Thursday. WAY EXCITING YAY.

-Steph