This morning, I spent two hours hanging with Alfonso at the Worx Salon (an Aveda salon) in Cedar Hill. Jeremy – if you were hispanic, he'd be you – same features, same facial expressions, same mannerisms. Very spooky. But also, it put me at ease.

I went in for a simple cut and color, to hide the-color-we-don't-mention and he talked me into highlights. My hair is lighter now than it was, though still dyed, and there are threads of red and gold woven through it, which sounds fake, but looks sun-streaked and natural. I love it.

(Also had eyebrows done. Eyebrow tech Kayla said, “No way are you 35. I thought you were 28, tops.” We love the Kayla. Muchly.)

At any rate, I'm now greeting the late morning/afternoon/rest of the weekend with my mood altered in a good way. Amazing what a salon morning can do for the attitude. Also, salon services there come with a fifteen minute chair massage. And comforting tea.

Am now going to de-Halloween-ize the front yard (the pumpkin lights are still up, though not lit), and make lunch, and then, then I have two articles to write and a flyer to design before I can even BEGIN any novel writing today.

You know – I LIKE being busy :)

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Happy Birthday!
May this day, and the coming year, be full of success, and wonderful surprises.
And chocolate. Lots of chocolate.

I finished reading The Hungry Ocean, by Linda Greenlaw, last night, and have started reading The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova, which is about Dracula. I'm only four or five chapters in, and already I'm dreaming about vampires.

(I never dream about romance novels, but I dream about vampires and mermaids, so maybe this whole romance novel idea is stupid and I should write the things in my dreams?)

Of course, the dream and book have reminded me about Fred Saberhagen's Dracula series (which includes An Old Friend of the Family and The Dracula Tapes, among others. These aren't great books, though they are entertaining mind-candy reads, but they do point out exactly why Dracula could NOT be dead at the end of Bram Stoker's Dracula.

The first time I read his reasoning, I went back to the original text, of course, and checked the “death scene.”

If you read it carefully, it becomes obvious:
Saberhagen was right.

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Linda Greenlaw

Made famous by Sebastian Junger's book The Perfect Storm, and the movie that followed, Linda Greenlaw was the captain of the Hannah Boden, a swordboat out of Gloucester, MA. In this book, her first, though I read her others long ago, and only just finished this one, she tells the story of a typical month aboard her ship, and explains how swordfishing really works.

As much a story of the sea, as it is a story about the people who work as commercial fishermen, this book is vivid and engaging, with equal amounts of action and humor, the latter most often represented by Greenlaw's own dry wit. At times, I could feel the waves, and smell the salt air, so good was she and drawing her readers in.

I'm looking forward to re-reading her other work, just for more of her voice, and the flavor of her life, and I hope she continues to write.

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I've had a nasty flu that has lingered for days – yesterday morning I described myself as feeling like acid was being poured down my ear canals, and that my hair hurt – I've spent much of the week so far in healing sleep, with the exception of an interview at a BigMortgageCompany in Plano on Tuesday, for a position doing help-desk support stuff for their loan officers. I felt that my interview was weak – also, the interviewer had a really limp handshake – has no one ever told him that your handshake speaks volumes – and I walked away thinking that a) I wouldn't get an offer, and b) that the room we walked through, the actual call floor, seemed to suck the energy out of everyone on it.

As it turns out, I arrived back home at 4:45, had a call at 5:15 offering me the job, and I told them honestly that I have another interview for a different division of BigMortgageCompany on Friday, which is for a processing position, and not an hour away from home on a good day. I had reminded them that they knew about this going in, and that I needed to go through that process before I could decide.

Despite this, they called me before eight AM Wednesday, and pushed me to make a decision. I have no patience for people who push others to make choices without all the information, but, as I said, I already didn't like the job, the location, etc. So I spoke to Fuzzy, who said, “Lovey, I'm not worried about us not having money to live, I'm worried about us not having money to do everything you want to do.” (Can you see why I love this man to death?)

And then I turned it down, both via extremely polite voicemail, and via email, asking them not to contact me again. (They called again anyway, which pissed me off.)

As if it was a sign, I received a loan app in the mail yesterday, from the OldCompany that I freelance for, and then, we have our first Mexico loan, which we're not even approved to DO yet, coming today or tomorrow.

But I'm still going to the BigMortgageCompany interview on Friday.

And right now, still feeling horrid, though less so, I'm going back to bed for a bit, with a mug of hot tea and Linda Greenlaw's The Hungry Ocean for company.

Haven't touched my NaNovel since Day 1….am not liking the plot, or rather, the voice….but I think it's an “I have no energy thing” really, not the plot itself. Enh. I'll catch up when I'm ready.

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Judith Ryan Hendricks

Hendricks' second book is a departure from the cozy Seattle she wrote about in Bread Alone, and returned to in The Baker's Apprentice. This time, the setting is New Mexico, primarily in and around Santa Fe, and instead of bread, the main themes are art, herbs, and family.

Avery James, raised in an orphanage with only an embroidered t-shirt as a memento of the family she never knew, comes face to face with a painting of her mother while working as a caterer for a prominent artist. He befriends her, and offers to tell her about her mother, who died several years before, and she grudgingly accepts the offer. Swirling around the pair are rumors, old lovers, and a collection of old Mexican women who took Avery off the streets, and gave her a home, and their knowledge of herbs.

Like Bread Alone, Isabel's Daughter paints vivid pictures of both people and food, but unlike Hendrick's first book, this one's ending is somewhat more bitter than sweet.

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Last night: 75 people, some who knew each other already, the rest, friends who simply hadn't met yet, gathered at a restaurant to celebrate the beginning of NaNoWriMo, which starts for me in about 63 minutes.

Tonight: $75 worth of chocolate has been distributed to local kids in various scary and comical states of dress. My favorites: The rapping inflatable baby, and the young Raggedy Ann experiencing the end of her first trick-or-treat, borne aloft in her father's arms. The latter actually caused me to utter the word “precious” aloud, and in front of witnesses.

Tomorrow: A trip to Plano (there's a 75 reference there, really) for a 2nd interview for a job that, if offered, and accepted, would mesh my mortgage skills and my (somewhat rusty) computer support skills. The money's good though.

Right now? A 75% chance that I'll be asleep at midnight, and not actually writing.

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