I coined a new word: blupdate. It's so much faster to e-mail your sister and say, "I blupdated," than it is to e-mail your sister and say, "I updated my blog." Well, I guess it's not that much faster, but it works for me. Of course, maybe it's been used by billions of bloggers around the world, and I'm once again totally slow on the uptake. Or else perhaps it's been considered and rejected by billions of bloggers, which makes me not only totally slow on the uptake, but totally lame as well. Yay! I'm lame! Woohoo!

Joe said he loves it when I say Woohoo! So I'll say it again. Woohoo! He's not here to hear it, and I'm not really saying it, but it's fun to type. Woohoo! Woohoo! It's Friday!

It's nearly the end of October, which means I only get to look at the picture of Jason and Medea for a few more days. That makes me sad. Medea, as portrayed in this painting, looks like a surly teenager mixing a magical concoction with an air of self-importance. Jason is sitting watching her, barely able to sit still; his muscles are all tensed; he's ready to spring into action as soon as her charm or spell is prepared. His interest seems to lie not in her, but in what she can do for him. His eyes are fixed not on her face or her figure, but on the goblet in her hands. She knows it, and so she is dragging it out as long as possible, hoping that she can impel his interest to her. I have really enjoyed my Pre-Raphaelite calendar this year! Shall I take a sneak peek ahead to see what I get to look at during November? I shall: It's a far less fascinating portrait of Saint Cecelia being serenaded by two angels. I'd rather look at Jason and Medea for another month. Who is Saint Cecelia anyway? I guess it's Google time again.

I'm not sure why I'm so thrilled about its being Friday. I actually have to work an extra two hours today, to make up for having had two doctor appointments this week (one follow-up with the neurologist--everything's fine, see him again in 3 months--and one quick visit to the regular doctor about the sore throat--it's allergies, I have a prescription for an antibiotic in case it turns into an infection). And I have to work four hours tomorrow as part of making up in advance for being off next Friday. But it's worth it, since I'll be going to the Fantasy Convention in Austin.

I'm really looking forward to the convention. The last time I checked the preliminary programming schedule, the majority of the sessions I want to attend actually are taking place on Friday. If I had to choose to miss either Friday or Saturday, I'd have chosen to miss Saturday. I had planned to skip the banquet. Who wants to pay $50 for a dinner? Not I. And I'm still not familiar enough with the world of fantasy that I don't know anything about the award nominees. But my best friend Clover called and said that she and her sister want to go to the banquet and she doesn't want me to miss it. She asked if I would let her buy my ticket to the banquet. I swallowed my pride and said yes. How incredibly amazing is that of her???? With everything that she's got to deal with, she wants to do that for me! I don't know Clover's sister yet, but I'm sure that with the 3 of us sharing a hotel room, we'll get to know each other pretty doggone quickly. And if she's even .001 as cool as Clover, she'll be pretty great.

Work proceeds apace on the preparation for NaNoWriMo. The-character-formerly-known-as-Verity is no longer named Verity, but she is refusing to tell me her name. I've been poring over lists of Celtic, Middle English, and Anglo-Saxon names, and haven't found just the right name yet. I wish she wouldn't be so doggone stubborn about this, but my characters tend to be stubborn. I guess they take after their creator in that respect. I did find a phrase yesterday that might work, and it's one I can actually see her mother saddling her with, but I'm not quite sure yet. We'll see. Now I'm trying to figure out if my Big Bad is redeemable or not. He hasn't told me yet. He definitely has some noble qualities, and is not doing evil for the sake of doing evil. But I don't know yet whether he can be brought to a marriage of true minds, or whether the impediment will remain. I want to have at least a reasonable idea of how this story will play out before I start writing.

Today at work there's a pumpkin carving/decorating contest. I have fantastic ideas. But when it comes to actual execution, I pretty much suck. I went to the Wall2Wall Mart last night, and got a foam pumpkin (I didn't feel like dealing with the mess of a real pumpkin), some Halloween-themed finger puppets, and some crepe paper streamers. When I got back home, I covered a cookie sheet with foil, and then put some styrofoam on top of the foil and covered it with black crepe paper streamers. I drew a door and some crescent moon-shaped windows on the pumpkin, and wrote "Trick or Treat" over the door. And I taped the pumpkin onto the crepe paper-covered styrofoam. Then I got some sticks from the back yard that still had some dead leaves clinging onto them, and stuck them into the styrofoam, and strung some of that fake spider web stuff across them. And I put toothpicks into the styrofoam and put the finger puppets on top of those, to be kids trick-or-treating. It's really cute, in an extremely lame sort of way. If I had my camera, I'd take a picture. But I don't. So just imagine it. Cute, but lame. I haven't seen any of the competition--my pumpkin was the only one up there when I took it over to the judging table--but we have some really creative people here. I'm not expecting to win a prize. I'm just saying.

The Weight Loss gods must love Liz and me. See, she works in Arlington and I work in Bedford. We like to meet for lunch once or twice a month, but the only places that are right in the middle are a fantastic hamburger place called Al's (really, really great food, but not so good for the diet), a Chinese buffet (I like Chinese, but the buffets around here stink), Wendy's, and a southern cooking place (Southern cooking, good, but not for the diet). But just last week a Subway opened up in the same strip center that Al's is in. So today we're going to meet at Subway for lunch. I'm happy about that. Decent food, not too expensive, and it fits in with the plan. Tomorrow's weigh-in. It's been a difficult week, because I've been feeling cruddy with this sore throat/allergy stuff, and haven't been doing well eating-wise. So I'm expecting either no loss or a slight gain, which is cool. It's a process. I have to keep reminding myself of that. It's a process that will take time, but if I just keep plugging away, I'll get where I want to be!