Confession time: My Favorite Deadly Sin

So when my kid was around four or five, one of our favorite games was "Zoo." Each of us would pretend to be a different animal, providing appropriate actions and habits and sound effects. As I recall, plastic food was often involved. Or maybe I'm thinking of a different game.

Anyway, my kid often chose to be either a wolf or an owl, since those were her two favorite animals. I started out being an otter, because I love otters. But being an otter was a lot of work because, you know, they're pretty much always moving. Swim, play, swim, play. And I was pretty much always tired.

So somewhere along the line I took the low road. It's a road I'm not very proud of taking.

I became the sloth.

Because, you see, pretending to be a sloth (complete with appropriate actions and habits and sound effects) meant, well, it meant lying on the couch. On my back, doing nothing except maybe curling my fingers like sloth toes. And I think plastic food may have been involved. Or maybe that was a different game.

So that's my favorite deadly sin: sloth. And should you doubt the absolute coolfulness of the sloth, then I dare you to watch this, forwarded to me today by my fabulous, talented, and incredibly forgiving daughter.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the sloth:


Meet the sloths from Lucy Cooke on Vimeo.

This is not a test.

Excuse me for a little bit while I try to manage the unmanageable. I'll be back momentarily.

Wow. What a feeling.

Oh. My. God.

 

Ohmygod!  I just made the last tuition payment on my kid's fall semester! My share: a little over five grand, which I rustled up over a period of four months. A year ago I wasn't sure I could even keep the lights on. 

Okay, so I'm still digging change out of the bottom of my purse. But talk about progress!

Yeah. This feels good. Damn good.

Lazy-Ass Librarian Saturday: Herman Cain on Foreign Policy. Epic Fail.

I've got a lot going on today, but I did want to pass on this must-read article about Herman Cain's "seven biggest foreign policy blunders," compliments of PBS's Need to Know.

This guy makes W. and Palin sound like foreign policy brainiacs. Even if you give him a pass on the sexual harrassment thing (which I most definitely do not), the idea of Cain being our head honcho is, well, a really bad one.

Here is the list itself, but be sure to read the details, too.

1. Cain worries that China is developing nuclear weapons – 40 years after China’s first nuclear test

2. Cain says he would negotiate with terrorists (then immediately takes it back)

3. Cain says a missile defense system would have stopped Iranian assassination plot

4. Cain questions the existence of the Palestinian people

5. Cain doesn’t know what the Palestinian “right of return” is

6. Cain doesn’t know that the government targeted a U.S. citizen for assassination (then flip flops on whether it’s okay)

7. Cain doesn’t care who the president of Uzbekistan is.

And this guy wants to be our president.

UPDATED: Occupy Wall Street Library. Wow!

Oops! I totally screwed up the last post about Occupy Wall Street Library. So, let's try this again.

Just in case you were wondering why we should care about public libraries, visit Occupy Wall Street Library here. And watch YouTube clip from the library at Occupy Portland, below.

Gosh, it makes me proud to be a subversive librarian. Librarians really are seriously cool, if I do say so myself..

Today happens to be day two of National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short. The basic idea is this: a whole bunch of crazy masochists create an online community and spend the whole month of November slaving over individual manuscripts with the goal of writing 50,000 words by the end of the month. It's all about quantity, not quality, which can be pretty liberating.

I actually gave this a shot a few years ago. It probably wasn't the best timing, considering I had a full-time job that required a four-hour daily commute, and I came home each night to a pack of five dogs, five cats, six horses, and a shitload of chaos. Still, I did whip out 11,500 words, which gave me a respectable start on a young-adult novel. Several years later, my little manuscript is now at... uhh... about 11,525 words. Which goes to show you the advantage of doing the whole frantic NaNoWriMo thing.

Anyway, the nonprofit parent company of NaNoWriMo also does some other cool projects.  Most notably for my purposes, they have a Script Frenzy event every April. The goal there: write 100 pages of script in 30 days.

I mention all of this because I get to write a show -- a script -- for our local 2012 LGBT recovery roundup. Since I can't affrord to wait until April to pound out a first draft, I'm cheating. For me, November will be Script Frenzy.  My goal is to write a draft script of 45-60 pages, plus three original songs.

In any event, my posts in November might be a little spotty. Which is to say, it'll be just like always, but with a few more Lazy-Ass Librarian posts to keep things moving along. Meanwhile,I'll do my best to keep watching your blogs, though, and interact with some of my readers there.

Let the frenzy begin!