Samhain and NaNo

Apparently I live in THE neighborhood. You know-- that cool neighborhood that all the kids hit for candy on Halloween? Not sure what's up, but the kids were out in force last night. We went through about 7-8 pounds of candy between 6 p.m. and 8:30. I'd say we had somewhere between 120 and 150 kids.

Hot damn.

Around 6:45, the kittens were getting extremely rowdy and gave me a "shit, I don't need to be herding cats while trying to give out candy" thought, so I decided to move myself outside. Our front door is kinda shitty for trick-or-treating anyway. We don't really have a landing, so whenever kids came up, I'd have to ask them to step back down the stairs so I could swing the door open. Not good. It was an absolutely beautiful evening for trick-or-treating. Mid-50's, no wind. Coats not required. I plunked my bruised witchy ass on the steps with my fake air-powered burning cauldron, the huge bowl of candy, a Biggie Diet from Wendy's, and an old Time Life "Mysterious Places" hardback (hey... it was an appropriate theme), and just waited for the kids.

Adorable costume award goes to two sets of kids-- one, a pair of twins dressed up in complimenting ladybug and bumble-bee costumes, complete with felt and fuzzy ball antennae. They couldn't have been more than three. The other was a brother and sister pair in dinosaur costumes. But not any dinosaur costumes-- these were bright, bright colored and poofy and made them look like living Puffalumps (remember those?). I almost melted. Sooo... cute.

I met our state senator last night, who was out - in costume - with his kids. While the kids did the few houses right around me, we chatted briefly. He seems like a very nice guy, and not overtly politician-ey at all. Lots of other parents welcomed me to the neighborhood last night, too. I don't remember names, but I was amazed at how friendly everyone was. It really is one of those close-knit neighborhoods where people at least recognize one another and say hi. All ethnicities and religions blended together. Lots of adults waved to one another as they walked their kids around.

It was awesome. :)

By 8:30, it was all over. I took a bit of time to relax and stretch out before going to work on my computer for NaNoWriMo's Young Writer's Program. There is a backlog of students who need to get their accounts verified and activated, and despite the servers being obnoxiously slow with the NaNo kickoff, I did get some work done.

At midnight, I opened up a Word document and scribbled about 850 words in a half-hour. I'm playing with my co-worker's idea to write about myself. I'm setting it up in a daily diary format, and will talk about different aspects of my pagan geek life. Doing it this way means that basically all of my entries that have any length to them (read: non-meme) can also be incorporated if I choose.

Like this one, for example.

So yes... I'm playing with an idea now. It definitely fits under the "No Plot, No Problem!" monkier, since I have no clue what kind of a plot I can pull out of this. But it's writing, and it's working for now. I'll see where it leads.

Busty lesbian pirate ninjas may make an appearance by day 15 out of writing desperation.

If used, does anyone want to have one named in his/her honor? :)