Sto-Vember....

Sto-Vember...

"Me and November are homies..." --Me. Via my twitter feed.

November? Sto-Vember? I greet November with a bit of a wary eye. I've spent a goodly deal of time at my store in 2009. More than I've spent in any other year. And now we enter the holiday season. Eh. It should be good. Just have to steady myself for the next few weeks. Get my head right. Because I'll be spending more than a healthy amount of time down at the salt mines. Sto-vember, indeed....

As such, I'm not doing nanowrimo this year. Considered it, for the third straight year. But, considering that toward the 12th or 14th of the month, it starts kicking into high gear in the grocery business, I find myself without a shitload of free time. I'll be writing (and have been...it's actually been a constructive fall). Just not toward nanowrimo....

As things stand now, the old vacation candle's melted down, and your old pal Tommy finds himself in the last few hours. It was a good one. Productive, some, as I managed 16,000 words produced (the biggest part of that coming in one manic, sleep deprivation produced day). Got to see friends I don't get to see often enough. I got to see Mickey Dolenz in person.

Wandered out to Nashville this past weekend. Got to see my friends Julie & Jason. Got myself a Reuben and the St. Charles Porter at Blackstone. The food and the beer were excellent...the service left a lot to be desired, which was a surprising and disappointing first. It's one thing to forget a request like, I dunno, a basket of bread. It's another to forget the bread, the ketchup we asked for, and to neglect to ask if we were interested in another beer.

Saw my first Predator game in three or four years. I've gotten back into the hockey a bit. Following isn't the easiest thing in the world, when you've got a cable system that devotes seventeen channels to all things biblical, three to high school football and throws Vs. in there up there in the nosebleed sections of channels I never surf, even in the midst of a marathon of Jimmy Football commercials....

Good seats, near center ice, maybe 15 rows up. Made even better when a co-worker of Jason's invited us down to the empty seats next to him, three rows up from the boards, right behind the goal the Predators attacked in the first and third. Just one of those things I'd forgotten, how much I enjoyed seeing the game in person. I could see how a person would derive a great deal of enjoyment from such a pursuit.

Helps, too, that the Predators won, 4-2.

Made it back to East Tennessee late this afternoon. Watched the Titans get their first win of the afternoon, though it should be noted that Maurice Jones-Drew broke out for his first big run not two minutes after I'd turned the television on.

And did a fair amount of laundry, toward the idea of returning to work wearing clean clothes.

First time for everything, I guess.

Anyway. I am going to work a little more toward putting shit up on this site. I'm nearing The Big Seven here in 12 days or so. Seven years of this blogamathing? Dayum...