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Feels like I should put something here, cus I hate to think my site has died all the way dead.

No, no; it sleeps like a dormant volcano.

I’m participating in National Novel Writing Month- getting off to the usual anti-productive start of indecision, babble and procrastination. Wheee! … Feels like old home week.

Interesting to me how people who are peripheral to all that deep, dark writing intent seem to be inspired to write. While I vacillate around a pile of disparate words, I’ve received the pleasure of absolutely beautiful writing from others through e-mail & blog entries. None of these people are doing nanowrimo, but want somehow to also make writing a priority for November.

I am much more impressed by their output than my own.

It’s been fun to connect with a few on twitter who are also giving it a try. You can tell the veterans because they gamely dig in, in a low profile way, knowing today’s ideas will mutate & knowing they might lose steam in the middle or drop off & fail of their goal.

It’s the process, not the hype. Someday I’ll learn that. (But the hype is kind of fun.)

Hope you’re all well out there in blog-land. I won’t mention the elections right now. I don’t want to jinx my darling Kitzhaber whose still in a neck & neck race for Oregon Governor.

Hoping. Hoping quietly.

Tell me, if you feel inspired, what projects you’ve taken on for November, the beginning of the gloom we dub wintertime.

Hoping the hearth-fires stay warm for you,
A.

** addendum: John Kitzhaber won! Yay, and welcome back, governor.

Longhand

What if I wrote a sentence that didn’t end but stretched on and on and revealed something about the human heart, but not some over-reaching universal truth about the human condition, just the particular essence of us, crystalized with all our flaws and struggles open to the elements so that the wind gets in and hollows them out bigger, exploits our crags and irregularities till there is only that pattern, silhouetted for a slice of eternity, like a pock on the pavement.

Pancakes

Ingredients: 1 cup of flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 egg
buttermilk
vegetable oil or bacon fat (not a heart healthy option but more authentic)

Put skillet on burner, heat on medium or just over medium.

Sift flour into bowl with baking soda, add salt, combine dry ingredients. Pour buttermilk over ingredients (just some. No exact amount) and let sit for a couple minutes. Do not stir.

Use a pastry brush to apply vegetable oil to skillet. If using bacon grease, cook pancakes after cooking bacon. Drain some of the excess fat into a container and add to pan as needed.

Add egg to mixture, stir with whisk (bubbles important). Add buttermilk until consistency is about like cake batter. Do not over stir.

Pour small amount of batter on skillet and flip when popping the bubbles in batter leaves an indent.

Serve warm. I like homemade jam but my daughter insists upon maple syrup.