I crossed 8,000 words last night. Congratulations to me! Just kidding, but having a deadline sure is helpful. I’m restructuring my days to make sure I have time to hit 2,000 words. Plus, I’ve gained a little confidence in the direction of the story itself, which is helping. Whenever I attempted to write anything in the past, as soon as I had decided on the plot, I would immediately feel like the story was old and predictable. I always had difficulty understanding how someone could remain energized about writing a story to which they knew the ending. The reason being that I would constantly imagine the reader having the same knowledge, or that every word they’d read up to that point was obviously pointing to a very predictable conclusion. Does that make sense? I’m slowly coming to terms with this and getting better at separating the writer / reader roles.

There were some surprises in the elections held around the country yesterday. The New York ones were most fascinating to me. Inspite spending almost twenty times the amount of money has his opponent, Michael Bloomberg only received 52% of the vote in NYC. He won another term but the results were a slap in the face to someone who expected to win by 20 points. Further upstate a seat held by Republicans since the Civil War (when Republicans weren’t of the scary variety they are today) was lost to a Democrat due to infighting in the Grand Ol’ Party. Elsewhere, Democrats lost a couple of governorships. The big news locally was that umbrella smoke-free legislation passed for St. Louis County and St. Louis City. These laws have some pretty ridiculous loopholes in them, and this is where the best news comes in. Given the overwhelming support for this health initiative, some of the original opponents of the legislation are now joining forces with unlikely partners like the American Cancer Society to remove the exemptions, which mostly apply to small bars and casinos. Pro-smoking advocates realize their position is weak so they’re now working to make the playing field level, which is commendable and best for everyone.

The weather looks great going into the weekend so I hope to do some of my travel this weekend via scooter. And my wife and I will be planting a tree tomorrow. Her friends got her a tree for her birthday earlier this year and tomorrow’s the day it goes in the ground. We all have enough stuff, so this was a fabulous idea, tear-inducing in fact. For her, not me. Grrrrr, me likey tofu dogs and recycling, me manly, me no cry.