What, me? Afraid of Lobsters? Pshaw!

I've been afraid of lobster for a long time.

And by "afraid" I don't mean a mild aversion.

I mean an extreme and fundamental fright in which even the lobsters themselves (if I ever walked too closely to a tank or if a dinner cohort had one splayed lifelike on his/her plate) would talk to me.

They'd mutter things under their lobster breath, like tiny prisoners of fate whispering to me from the next cell over:

"You even think of taking a bite out of me, I'll haunt you every moment of every day until your last breath pushes life from your body."

It was serious.

Back in Illinois, the lobster fear was easily managed. It just didn't come up. But here in Maine, it's an obvious character flaw.

And I've carried the shame with me these last three years.

I did try a lobster roll two summers ago at Two Lights Lobster Shack. But what my accomplice didn't realize at the time was that I'd piece by piece replaced the chunks of lobster meat with french fries. So as I posed for pictures and bit down on my sandwich, I really wasn't eating anything more than bread, fries and a tremendous amount of mayonnaise.

Thus, when I was invited to a lobster feed this week, I hesitated a bit. I figured it could only culminate in one of two outcomes: A new-found lobster adoration or permanent metal scarring. Either way, it was time to find out.

Maybe it was a bad idea, but I had to have a look-see at the underwater creatures I intended to split open. It's a tricky thing, meeting your food. (So I discovered this summer when I met a pre-slaughter 4-H pig at the Cumberland County Fair.) But the lobsters just lie there, piled atop one another like a football team just after a tackle.

Harmless, right?

Of course, when someone pulled one from the bin and it began whipping its tail back and forth like a shellfish ninja, I started inventing reasons to leave.

Knowing that any excuse I might muster would be whole-heartedly rejected, I opted to calm my nerves with a drink or two instead.

A couple of good-looking fellas in the kitchen didn't hurt either.

I watched as the lobsters met their watery execution in the pots of boiling water. And for the record, I didn't hear any screaming - from the lobsters or the chefs.

My friend Jesse was kind enough to walk me through the lobster-cracking process. She's the proud daughter of a lobsterman - and is tragically/ironically allergic to the crustaceans. But I couldn't have had a better ally in the endeavor.

And there, amid the steaming plates, glasses of wine and warm conversation, I ate my first lobster. It was Maine utopia. It was the quintessential New England experience that even I didn't believe really existed.

And I'm proud to report that I didn't bow out at the last minute.

I didn't freak out or spit lobster meat into my napkin. I didn't spill butter in my lap, fling a claw across the table or commit any other lobster-eating sins.

It was an all-around lobster success. And now I happily check "eat a lobster" off my list of things to do.

Thanks to kind host Mason and everyone else at the table who were obliging enough to not point and laugh at my naiveté.

Now, have I ever told you how I'm afraid of shrimp?

It ain't Christmas 'til the fireman climbs a tree

If hurricane-force winds mark the start of the holiday season for you, then welcome.

This week's mind-numbing chill makes me think winter might really take off this year.

But before the Dec 21st winter solstice comes marching in with a season's-worth of snow and cold, we have some holidays to prepare for.

The "official" start of the Christmas season is different for everyone.

For my pal Melanie (and me, a little), Christmas began its slow takeover two weeks ago during a wreath-making shindy up in Bangor. You remember when I went to Bangor, right?

Well it wasn't all pub crawls and Dysarts. We had some serious holiday magic going on. A little Martha Stewart action, if you will.

Melanie cut fresh boughs from the trees in the yard (and some from the neighbor's yard) and I learned how to make a wreath with the help of Melanie's gracious family.

I thought I'd hit the "my mom will die when she hears I did this" peak two years ago when I learned to knit AND made her a scarf for Christmas.

So yes, I can make wreaths with Melanie's mom and go out drinking and cursing afterward. I'm multidimensional like that.

But I digress.

Maybe the sight of the Christmas tree is Monument Square sends your sleigh bells ringing.

If so, you've been in holiday mode since last Wednesday when the holiday tree sat up from its truck-bed slumber to stand proudly over the shops and passersby in Monument Square.

[Avery was on-site for the tree installation: A tree rises in Monument Square. Interesting pics of the tree going up, and little-known tree facts like how it's actually installed in a manhole.]

Maybe you consider the lighting of said Christmas tree the starting gun for the holiday marathon. That way you can give Thanksgiving its due, instead of treating it like a forgotten stepchild, as most retail stores do. [FYI, the tree lighting is Friday.]

I've made the tree lighting a tradition for the last few years. It's always freezing and it's cheesy as all get-out. But a thermos of hot chocolate and amaretto brings peace and warmth to my soul (and it makes me hug everybody, including the mice from The Nutcracker who are usually in attendance). Then, of course, it's off to $3 Dewey's for Christmas in a bottle.

But truly, the Christmas countdown doesn't formally begin until the season's first firefighter-in-a-tree spotting.

I caught a brave fella atop a fire-engine ladder last week stringing Christmas lights. Looks like the holiday season found a welcome home at the 380 Congress Street Fire Station. (Sidenote to Santa: I said firefighter "under" the tree, not on top of it.)

Whatever marker you go with, I have only one request: pay some attention to Thanksgiving, too. Sure, there's no Thanksgiving tree with a Wii underneath wrapped in shiny paper and ribbon that you can pull off and wear on your head like a bright holiday crown. But Thanksgiving tries so hard every year, only to be trumped by retail store blowouts, craft fairs and puppy photo shoots with Santa.

Have a heart for the little guy. Let Thanksgiving ring this Thursday.

Velvet: good gala, poor posing

The nice thing about writing this blog is that I have 100 percent control over what goes in it (the downside, of course, is that I can't blame anyone else for it).

I get to decide which pictures show up (read: the flattering ones) and which ones don't (read: the ones in which my arms look like bloated watermelons).

Of course, I'm not the only one out there taking pictures. And I have no control over any of those.

You know what I mean. We've all been victimized by the Facebook bad-photo-tagging phenomenon. We've all seen three-chinned, lazy-eyed, stupid-grinned pictures of ourselves show up online thanks to the kindness (evilness) of friends. And we may have used "remove tag" once or twice.

It happens. We should be better trained to spot those roving cameras and know how to handle them.

Last Thursday, local photog Samuel Cousins was out at Velvet doing what he does: taking multitudes of photos. He did a nice job capturing the event, the fashion show, the dancing, etc. [view them all here].

I failed to bring my own camera that night (too consumed with making sure my skirt wasn't tucked into my pantyhose to remember to bring it). So I'm thoroughly appreciative of this nice pic Sam snapped of some friends and I hamming it up a wee bit for the camera.

This picture is good for the memories.

I'm similarly appreciative for this photo==>

It's good for teaching me how to stand like a moron in a photo.

Ah well, can't win 'em all. But I can refuse to include the third photo (in which my arm does, in fact, look like a bloated watermelon). It's my blog, dang it!

[In case you missed the previous reference, see all of Sam's photos from Velvet X on Flickr]

Velvet's back, sans the porta-potties

It's Velvet time again - the annual fundrasier for Rippleffect. And if I were forced to quote 'Heathers' in my effort to describe the event, I'd say, "It's only, like, the social event of the season."

This is Velvet's 10th year - and is sure to be a reinvention.

I've been lucky enough to attend the last two Velvets at Portland Company on India Street. Sure, it was a sparse warehouse space, but organizers and volunteers always did a bang-up job transforming the place.

The room would soon fill with swanky people-about-town, dressed to the nines and tossing money to the cause. Of course, the leaky roof and porta-potties were always a treat, too. But hey, it was part of the experience.

This year, the Portland Expo will witness the transforrming effects of the Velvet crew. Yes, it will look stellar. No, it won't look like the gymnasium you rocked out in during your senior prom.

I volunteered yesterday to help with some of the set up. Four of us tackled some monster backdrops that will stand tall along the walls.

They look cool, but after wrestling four of them over the course of an hour or two I have to admit I'm still holding a slight grudge against them. (Why do you have to be so difficult, backdrops?!?)

The folks from Moonlighting were busy setting up an intricate lighting system.

And of course, what would Velvet be without the piles of incredible auction items. I got to peek at some of the goods and had to step away from the table to stop myself from man-handling everything.

There was still much going on when I left, but you could already see how the place was going to come together.

Tonight will surely be talked-about experience. If you don't have tickets already, GET THEM.

Tickets and more info are available on the Velvet web site.

And if you don't want to take my word for it, check out some pics from last year. Good-looking group of folks, ain't they?

Overcoming Bangoraphobia

Bangoraphobia sounds like a serious condition - some severe mental trouble requiring therapy, medication and lots of positive self-talk.

In truth, Bangoraphobia is entirely fictitious. It's a made-up word I recently came up with as I readied myself for a weekend visit to the Queen City (a.k.a., Bangor, Maine).

But if I were to invent a definition for my invented term, I might describe Bangoraphobia as "the subtle but genuine anxiety Portlanders express about traveling anywhere in Maine north of Brunswick."

It's true, Central Maine has a different feel. And it's true, a number of folks farther north think Portland should be officially lopped off the coast, floated down stream and reattached to Massachusetts.

But Bangor is not a place to be feared. To prove it, I headed up there this weekend for a first-hand Bangor experience. I felt safe and confident in the hands of my Bangor guide and friend, Melanie (but kept a large stick in the trunk of my car, just in case).

If your Bangor knowledge is limited to Stephen King and pervy "bang 'er" references, then it might be time to learn about the lesser-known joys of the area:

1. The chewing gum
Thank Bangor for your Bubble Yum. Commercial chewing gum was invented in Bangor in 1848 by John B. Curtis. His "State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum" gave birth to the Wrigley's and Eclipse we chew today. If it weren't for Curtis, we might be sticking mashed potatoes to the underside of restaurant tables.

The gum was derived from the sap of spruce trees. Unfortunately, "in the 20th century, commercial spruce tree processing turned to paper manufacturing in order to meet demand from the newspaper industry, thereby reducing the availability of spruce for other purposes, including spruce gum."

It seems video killed the radio star, and newspapers killed the spruce gum.

(The big conspiracy is, of course, that while everyone blames the Internet for killing newspapers, Spruce Gum has been pulling the strings all along. The Internet is just a front - deployed solely for Spruce Gum's revenge against the tree-monopolizing newspaper industry.)

2. The Dysarts
It's a truck stop. It's a restaurant. It's a place to fill up your tank and your belly. And meatloaf just tastes better when the grill of a semi tractor trailer is mounted to the wall behind you.
[www.dysarts.com]

3. The Brownies of chocolate
The earliest documented recipe for chocolate brownies referred to them as "Bangor Brownies." And it's the chocolate brownie that ultimately elevated the church bake sale to the colossal fund raising powerhouse it is today. Brownies make the bake sale go 'round.

4. The fiberglass Paul Bunyan
It's a 31-foot fiberglass statue of Paul Bunyan. Need I say more?
[www.roadsideamerica.com]

5. The deer-skin moccasins
The lumber industry gets all the attention in Bangor. And sure, I guess lumber was sort of important to the area's prosperity. But what about the moccasins? Nineteenth century Bangor was the leading producer of moccasins, shipping over 100,000 pairs a year by the 1880s. Where's the museum for that, huh?

6. The bestest TJ Maxx ever
My more fashion-conscious friends insist that the Bangor TJ Maxx is the finest of all the TJ Maxx stores in the state…the country…maybe the world.

I can't speak to that, but I did see an awe-inspiring amount of polyester blend.

7. The unhindered drinking
The state of Maine went dry after the "Maine Law" was passed in 1851, prohibiting the sale of alcohol. But not Bangor. Thanks to the wonders of bribery, local police and politicians were persuaded to "not notice" the raucous boozing. The system of ritualized fine payments became known as "The Bangor Plan."

Bless you, Bangor, for knowing that booze trumps state law every time.
[For more on prohibition in Portland, check out Avery's Portland Prohibition Tour]

See? A little chewing gum and a barrel of whiskey is all you really need to quash that pesky Bangoraphobia.

NaNoWriMo? I don’t want to remember NoMo!

It's darn near halfway through National Novel Writing Month, which means I should have around 25,000 words written.

I'd love to say that I do. But I don't.

I'd love to say that I'm close. But I'm not.

I've been hovering steadily around 8,000 for several days now. That's still near two dozen pages worth of hard-earned typing. But it doesn't compare to the 15, 20, 25K word counts of some of my NaNoWriMoing pals.

Day after day they continue to shame me.

I tried to chalk it up to the fact that I write a good deal for work - so my creative stockpiles are tapped out by the time NaNoWriMo hour sets in.

Of course even I know deep down that my theory is just a poorly designed excuse intended to hide an inherent and obvious laziness.

But the NaNoWriMo effort hasn't all been for naught. In fact, I've learned a few things over the last 14 days. For example: I was an evil, evil child.

Two weeks ago I had plunged headlong into a work of pure fiction. But somewhere around word 2,179 a memory began to creep forward from the quiet corners of my brain. There was no time to ruminate on the memory before I watched it retell itself on the white Word doc canvas in front of me:

I was six, maybe seven, and my best friend Sarah was diabetic. And I, like a good friend, was jealous. That's right. Jealous. I wanted to be diabetic, too. I wanted special sugar-free cookies and I wanted the kindergarten teacher to glance empathetically in my direction.

I insisted Sarahs' mother check my blood sugar on a regular basis. Sometimes she humored me. Sometimes she'd refuse, so I'd talk loudly about how thirsty I was all the time. And always the tests proved that I was Diabetes-free.

When Sarah's little sister Beth was then diagnosed, I was livid. I threw Barbie doll heads at her in the playroom when no one else was looking.

A year or so later I tried to convince my neighborhood friends that I had polio. I'd uncovered a set of once-used croquet mallets in the garage, grabbed two, flipped them upside down and tucked them under my arms like crutches.

I limped up and down the street for the better part of an hour before the aching in my armpits compelled me to give up the endeavor.

Then, of course, are the horrendous ways my older brother and I tried to punish each other (he with hazardous wrestling moves and me with sharp objects and a package of Twizzlers).

I can chalk it up to kids being kids or to the adolescent perspective that doesn't quite comprehend the consequences of anything.

But I also think there's a reason I'd forgotten some of my early evildoings. Who wants to remember that stuff?

Let me stick with memories like the near-dead bird I attempted to nurse back to health in the back yard (sure, it died anyway. But at least I tried). Or the time I told my mother I wanted to be a gold digger when I grew up.

"Gold digger?" She asked, probably concerned and wondering where she'd gone wrong as a parent.

"Yea, I'm going to dig for gold so I have a ton of money so I can cure Sarah's diabetes."

Sweet, right? I was a good kid, right?

At least I wasn't any more awful than any of my young cohorts. I mean, I remember a kid who trapped his infant sibling inside a makeshift cage constructed out of laundry baskets.

Ah, kids.

So who knew National Novel Writing Month also doubled as Psychoanalytic Month?

Thus, for what it's worth: Beth, I'm sorry I chucked Barbie heads at you. And Cliff, I'm sorry I tried to kill you…a few times.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a phone call to Dr. Phil to make.

The Internet is a gift you give yourself

When you're younger, birthdays are day to ask for things. It's a time to shamelessly make lists of all your toy box yearnings - Barbie accoutrements, dirt bikes, Game Boys and whatnot.

Sure, there's Christmas. But the magic of the Christmas wish list is soured by the knowledge that you also have go buy/make/do things for other people.

The birthday wish list is the purest of all lists because it's 100% self-indulgent. They're Toys R Us fantasies mapped out on paper.

My lists often centered on the acquisition of all things Cabbage Patch. But I do recall asking for some rather absurd things too - like the year I wanted a bowling ball engraved with my name. And no, I wasn't really into bowling. I just thought a personalized bowling ball sounded "rad."

My parents, not shockingly, didn't get me one.

I remember asking for a robot that would clean my room. And I think I may have once requested a Jetson car that I could drive to school and then fold into a briefcase.

I asked for these silly things and no one ever scolded me for being selfish. Because when you're a kid and it's your birthday, there's no such thing as "egocentric."

But somewhere in your teens people stop asking you what you want. Maybe they've stopped caring. But who cares, they give you cash! They write checks!

I'm at the point now when I just get birthday cards. No cash. No checks. No money whatsoever.

Just "birthday wishes" that aren't redeemable for a small fry, let alone an indoor s'more-making kit (which is, truth be told, what I really wanted).

So I went proactive this year and got myself something special: I got me the Internet.

No more leaching off the neighbor's wireless!

It's not that I've grown suddenly weary of using a service I'm not paying for - really I'm an ardent supporter of sponging whenever possible. But wireless in my apartment had grown fickle. For months I could only pick up a decent signal in my bathroom. Then not at all.

And I need the Internet. Don't roll your eyes - you need it too. We all do. It's an all-consuming force.

Besides, if I'm going to successfully swap smoking with a debilitating addiction to online gambling, I'm going to need 24-hour web access. Goals, people!

And while the Internet is the gift that keeps on giving, I'm starting to think cable is a curse.

After serious consideration, a long list of pros and cons and a consultation with a spiritual healer, I opted to get cable too. I haven't had cable in any apartment I've ever lived in, but it just felt like the right thing to do.

So the cable guy came yesterday, bringing with him the Internet and over 100 channels of God knows what. Last evening, as I readied to head out the door, I found myself captivated by the made-for-television thriller "The Perfect Tenant" on Lifetime Movie Network.

I mean, this woman rented her guest house to a murderer! She'd just let danger in the door and there's no telling what would happen!

That's not true. It's a Lifetime movie, I think we can all guess what happened.

At any rate, it took a concerted effort to off the TV and leave the house.

I'd thought my will was stronger, but cable's grip is not to be taken lightly.

I turned 30 and I have the song to prove it

It happened.

Some time between when my tired noggin hit the pillow last night and when I awoke early this morning to the sound of "you ain't much fun since I quit drinking" crackling from my cheap clock radio, I turned 30. (For the record, I don't like country music. But in an effort to be contrary, my alarm clock refuses to play anything else.)

I grew older in the night and I didn't feel a thing - slept right through it. Though I must've had aging on the brain because I did have a disconcerting dream in which I turned, limb by limb, into a giant block of cheese.

A quick investigation in the mirror this morning led me to conclude that I didn't look any older than I did yesterday, when I was a mere 29. And my feet had not, in fact, morphed into soft triangles of brie.

So I'm 30. Nice.

Of course I've had all weekend to get used to the idea, what with 30th Birthday Observed being on Saturday (because people just don't drink on Mondays like they used to).

And I'd decided that's what I wanted: good friends and drinks. That's all.

So we gathered at Brian Boru's where good people and birthday drinks were aplenty. Even better, Portland-based Travis James Humphrey was playing upstairs and was kind enough to offer a Johnny Cash-inspired birthday song.

Who doesn't love hearing their name in a song? But it was a fill-in-the-blank kind of tune, one that Mr. Humphrey no doubt sang the night before to a Janet or a Frank or a Joe.

Besides, nothing could compare to my real birthday song.

Allow me to digress a moment. Remember my friend with the turning 30 song? A Minnesota musician had written him a personalized song over the summer that just happened to be about turning 30. I'd thought it quite the coincidence, of course, so I wrote a little blog about it.

Well, my friend must've had enough of me sharing his turning 30 song, because he went out and got me my own.

I can confidently say it's the best birthday gift I think I've ever gotten (not that I don't also love the magnetic dress-up Jesus).

Have a listen to the Shannon is Turning 30 song:

I think turning 30 was worth it, if just for the song.

It all started when I quit smoking

I had intended on writing a light-hearted entry today about the impending 30th birthday. It isn't technically until Monday, but by the time I'm back in the office the change will have already occurred ("I'll have aged by Monday," I was going to say, "but no more than you will have. The difference is I'll be drinking for free all weekend.")

But the gods had a different plan, it seems.

It all started when I quit smoking on Monday. I didn't want to blog about it until I had at least a week under my belt (in case things - ahem - didn't work out). So I kept quiet.

The first few days were a breeze, but yesterday I had a minor "emotional outburst" that led to a raging bout between me and a sweater that just wouldn't listen. Darn thing wouldn't fit right.

So I swung it around, cursed a bit and let the old temper flare.

When I got into work I joked to a colleague, "Well, at least now the worst is over. It's all downhill from here."

I was wrong.

Last night I met up with a friend at Top of the East for a mini-write-in to catch up on my NaNoWriMo word count. Just as I hit the 2,000-word wall and reclined back in my seat, content with my productivity, I noticed some moisture had collected on my phone.

Perplexed, I wiped it off. I hadn't noticeably spilled anything - where'd the water come from? But at least the phone was still working...wait. No it isn't.

Annoyed, but still in good spirits, I left it on the counter to dry out overnight.

But when I awoke this morning my phone was still defunct. Even worse, I was smack in the middle of a menopausal-strength emotional breakdown.

For no adequate reason, my eyes started watering. My cheeks flushed and I felt that nagging tug at the back of my throat.

I drove, frowning and near tears, to AT&T.

In the midst of explaining what had happened, the welling tears broke free. First one, then another, sailing down my face. "It's just frustrating because I really need my phone this weekend," I said, wiping my nose with my sleeve.

The AT&T guy looked scared.

"I'm sorry. I'm okay. It's just that I recently quit smoking and today I can't seem to stop crying. Pay no attention. I'm good." Insert awkward, snotty smile.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much he could do for my phone in the store.

I went back to work, still weepy but also laughing at the ridiculousness of it. My coworkers were appropriately empathetic (and appropriately laughed at me).

I started to mellow out and ate some birthday snicker doodles (thanks WEA). But then a creditor phoned my work line (seeking money I had already paid off), called me me a "smart ass," threatened to screw with my credit and hung up on me.

More crying.

Long story short, I managed to get the credit issue resolved after forking over $166 and Nate at Advanced Wireless Solutions in Portland was able to get my phone back to 90% working order for a mere $40. And I took many deep, cleansing breaths.

Guess my money-saving venture hit a snag. But I'm happy to report I'm still not smoking (so yay me!). That jerk Nicotine can shove me around all he wants. He can tick me off or make me cry, but he's not going to boss me around any more.

Eventually he'll get bored and leave me alone. Until then, I'll keep the tissues handy.

We can talk about turning 30 on Monday, when I'm further along in the detox process (and hopefully more emotionally stable).

Must I say "adieu" to the fund-looting fun?

Three cheers for President-Elect Obama. His optimism runs freely on the streets of Portland this morning.

Though once the revelry mellows down, he's going to have his hands full. What, with the economy in the crapper and all.

It'll be nothing but finance reviews and spending restrictions for months - and there's nothing merry about that. I should know, I've been elbows-deep in a budget myself (on a slightly smaller scale).

See, I'm in the market to buy a house. And while there are first-time home buyer grants to help me out, I still need a little more out-of-pocket cash for a down payment.

After talking with my mortgage lender friend I established a savings goal. Looking at my income versus my expenditures, I should be able to save a nice chunk of change in a jiff.

Why, then, am I not rolling in cash now?

I mean, I wear the same clothes I've had for years. I don't drop $80 on snazzy dinners. I don't own any cool toys like surfboards or kayaks or boats. I don't travel to Europe every year or own an exotic bird.

I honestly don't know where all my money goes…

Ah, yes. That could account for some of it.

So I vowed to reign in the spending, eliminate special-interest loopholes and deductions and protect tax cuts for the middle class.

Wait, no. That wasn't my plan at all. Must've heard someone say that recently.

Instead I wrote out a budget, including the necessary rent and utilities, food, gas, etc. I even included some spending cash every week so I could still eat and/or drink in public every now then. (Stole that idea from a friend who takes out $100 cash every Wednesday so she's not lured into superfluous spending by that cheap and easy friend Debit Card.)

"This is it. No more frivolous spending," I'd said determinedly on Tuesday.

And for the last 24 hours I've done a tremendous job.

Except for the drinks I bought at Empire last night (it was an election watch party at a bar….what was I supposed to do? I was practically strong-armed...you know, emotionally.)

And then there were the Munchkins I bought for this morning's editorial meeting at the office. (You've heard about the layoffs at Blethen, so yea, I'll go out of my way to secure my job. If new owners don't see the talents I bring to my role as content producer, then hopefully they'll still keep me around because I'm "the broad who brings the donuts.")

So the budget has a few kinks. But I'm determined to be a 30-year-old with a house. I think I can forgo a few happy hours for that.

Goal chaser or outright failure? Only NaNoWriMo knows for sure

A 30th birthday can be a good time for a hearty self-assessment. An opportunity to look at your list of "I wills" and see if you can't knock a few off.

In our 20s, we're the ultimate procrastinators. Accomplishments can always be tackled later. Running that marathon? Yea, one day. Taking those three months off to travel the Outback? Sure, when I have money.

And it's no big deal - 20s were invented for worry-free entertainment. No need to get bogged down with heavy aspirations just yet. We'll follow our dreams…eventually.

But I've come to realize that some goals require a less sedentary approach. Some goals require effort.

For a long time, one of my lofty aspirations (that I never saw fit to seriously pursue) was to write a book. (Yes, me and about 800,000 other people.)

I have no delusions about being the next great American author. Or being on a best-sellers list. Or even publishing it at all. But I wanted to write a book anyway, even if it never went further than my laptop.

I've made some meager attempts over the years. When I was in elementary school I wrote an outstanding short piece titled "The House on the Hill of Oblivion." I don't think I knew what "oblivion" meant then, but I cut the pages into the shape of a house, so there's that.

In college I built up an impressive collection of first paragraphs. None of those efforts made it past the 1,000-word mark and all of them stunk.

But I'd always start off so well inspired. I would tap the keys for an hour or so, come to an eventual stop and think, "I'll have plenty of time to write when [insert future date, season, age or other arbitrary cornerstone"].

What a happy coincidence, then, that I recently heard about NaNoWriMo. The lengthy abbreviation stands for National Novel Writing Month, and the "month" just happens to be November. The event began 10 years ago in San Francisco when a fellow named Chris Baty decided writing 50,000 words in 30 days was somehow a good idea.

The event is international now, and thousands participate in the 30-day mess of words and coffee and anti-social mania (including over 600 of our fellow Mainers).

Between you and me, I think my introduction to NaNoWriMo was fated. Destiny. Meant to be.

So with confidence ablaze I signed up on nanowrimo.org.

If you haven't done the math in your head already (and why would you? That's what calculators are for. You think you're better than a calculator?) 50,000 words in 30 days breaks down to just over 1,600 words a day.

There will be days you don't write at all and days you write more, but 1,600 is a good gauge of progress. And the goal isn't to have a finished masterpiece at the end. Just 50,000 words. The intent is to kill off (or at least temporarily comatose) that inner critic who's regular insults usually prevent you from writing more than a page. Just type. Don't fret over it.

I sat down on the morning of Nov 1 bloated with enthusiasm. I sipped my poorly made coffee and started typing.

After typing and sipping and typing…and pausing and rereading and pausing longer…and typing and stopping and starting a load of laundry…and doing the dishes and making some phone calls and washing the bathroom floor…I checked my word count:

700.

Damn.

(Just for reference, this blog entry is approximately 700 words. I wrote it in about 30 minutes, which means I'm 100% capable of churning out the text. So the problem, I ask, is what?)

Sunday I sat down to go at it again and wrote another 100. But then I decided to write a blog about how I can't seem to write. (Okay, so I haven't mastered NaNoWriMo just yet, but at least I have Irony down to a science).

I'll keep you posted on the NaNoWriMo progress. Unless, of course, I fail. In which case we'll never discuss it again.