In a divine bit of synchronicity, Friday 13th happened to be:

• the day after my latest performance
• the deadline of my latest project (delivered on time and on budget)
• the office Christmas party
• my last day at work

I was pretty chuffed at this, so I settled down that afternoon to put a pretty big hole in the company's alcohol budget.

Naturally, I spent the first day of my break suffering the sort of hangover best described in epic Dwarven poetry, preferably of 40 stanzas or more.

Oh dear.

Friday was a touch busy. The client had demanded a proper hand over meeting--a compete waste of time because I had had them involved the entire time so the meeting was spent saying things like, "and this hasn't changed from yesterday, although I may have added a comma."

Mercifully, they had had their office Christmas party on Thursday night, so they were in no mood for a long tedious meeting either.

I was just exhausted from performing. The gig on Thursday night was FABULOUS. Apart from dancing quite well (I felt), there were Ethiopian acrobats, African dancing and drumming and fire twirling to Japanese drumming. Spectacular!

The only downer was the arsehole who showed up and felt that any girl in costume was obviously up for grabs. Literally.

Worse still, he was really fast on his feet and was always out of range before I could whip around and slap him into next Tuesday. Aparently he was terrorising the whole venue. Fuck-knuckle.

And in true holiday fashion, the minute my body slows down and relaxes, I catch the ebola virus. Well, maybe not ebola. I haven't completely disintegrated into sludge yet, but my sinuses have and my voice has magically turned into that of a drag queen.

Still have to face the frenzy out there and do some Christmas shopping. If I disappear, just follow the trail of used tissues to find me.

AHHHHH-CHOOO!

Fifty thousand words in thirty days. That's the challenge I accepted when my friends Chiliflower and Strawberry Fields sent me a link to the National Novel Writing Month page.

Hell, that's only 1667 words a day (or so). That's do-able. As long as you don't have a life of any description and are not the crowned queen of procrastination.

But you can see how this story ends.

If you are feeling extraordinarily brave, here it is to read. But you must read the following disclaimer:

I, the reader, hearby acknowledge that this work was written under extreme duress and has undergone no form of editing whatsoever. I understand that some passages were written in sheer desperation to get the author's word count up and would be hacked out by any decent editor. Some parts of this work were even written without the benefit of Earl Grey tea and/or chocolate. in acknowledging these conditions, I undertake to structure any feedback I have on this work accordingly.

According to Ghost, it's not even complete shite. I'm not convinced, but he says it's a bit like a screenplay, he can see it in his head. Which is a good sign. I'll share it with Chiliflower and Strawberry Fields after December and see what they say. I may even post it up on my site, but I'll have to be feeling pretty damned brave for that.

So much stuff has happened recently, I'll break it down into snippets:

We put up the Christmas tree on Saturday. It's so pretty. A real tree, so the house smells gorgeous. It's all decorated in red and gold and lit up.

We managed to pull together a reasonably authentic Thanksgiving the Sunday before the actual date. Mum did the turkey and an apple pie from Ghost's grandmother's recipe. I made a pumpkin pie that turned out pretty damned good. We decorated with one of our wedding gifts. A friend sent us this:

I'm performing again on Thursday. Been rehearsing like a crazed thing, dancing to a remix of Amulet by Natacha Atlas (the TJ Rhemi remix for the curious.) Did tech and dress rehearsals all day Sunday. Am exhausted already.

Finish up work this week. Holidays! Woo! No money! Boo!

Lunch with Deevaa last week. So good to sit and chat with someone who has been the places I've been and understood them. She is a hoot and her paintings are DIVINE, so go check them out. If all goes well, there will be lunch with she and the excitable MouBou tomorrow. YAY!

And just to give you a taste of what it is like in Chez Tree&Ghost...

A couple of weeks back the pair of us were snuggled up in bed. We were facing each other and he was stroking my cheek with his thumb, gazing gently into my eyes. He opened his mouth. I waited for soft words of love from him. What did I get? "You know, I could pop your eyeball right out."

Sigh.