HAPPY DECEMBER!

yeah... no.

sorry. not yet in the Christmas spirit, even with Christmas music playing 24/7 at work. i think in a few weeks, either everything will be absolutely awesome, or i'll be crying on a daily basis thinking of how i screwed up my life. either way, i just want to know the outcome...

sorry to be vague, but i just don't want to delve into the craptastic life i'm leading right now.

in other news, the vols beat the wildcats, the steelers LOST to the ravens (sorry Rodell), and the saints wiped the field with the pats. blissful sports weekend, indeed. now if xavier will start rocking some basketball, my little sports life will be complete.

admittedly, one of the things i'm most thankful for this holiday season, aside from my awesome family in which i get to be the screwup, is that i'm no longer caught up in the jon and kate deal. really, i pity their kids for having those two as parents. ugh, i hate to think of how screwed up they're going to be.

unfortunately, i'm getting caught up again in the brangelina ordeal known as 'The Tourist', the movie in which angie costars with johnny depp. why i care, i don't know. johnny's always been one of my favorite actors, not because he's incredibly handsome but because he's incredibly talented and everything he does is so well done. i think for me his standout role was in "From Hell" because i'm fascinated by jack the ripper. i wanted to see this movie like 13-year-olds want to see 'twilight' or whatever movie they're on now. and for me, johnny made the movie.

i did see 'edward scissorhands' before that, fyi. one of my favorite movies in the world growing up and probably the reason i live in a fantasy land now. i loved the magic of that movie, the ambiance, the story... the snow globe... johnny was awesome.

not really sure why i even got on this tangent... oh yes. the rumor going around is that angie will try to get with johnny. two reasons why this is ridiculous:

1) johnny and his wife have been together FOREVER.

2) they have two beautiful kids he adores and he is not dumb enough to give that up.

there. my reasoning and mine alone.

on to reasonably important stuff.

still searching for the mystical agent. i've found a few that i'm highly anxious to query, but i'm not even going to think about that until revisions are finished. i got about a quarter through my material, mostly cutting out unnecessary words or parts that just didn't fit. i need to get my word count down by about 18,000 if i'm to even have a shot. i'm actually back in high school edit mode, where i really had to sit back objectively and look at every word to find its relevance and value in the piece. God bless you, ms. carroll for showing me that everything i wrote was crap. she actually got the good stuff out of me. anyway, i don't even know how many words i've cut just within the first 10 chapters or so i've revised. there'll be a few parts i need to add in, but that shouldn't add too much bulk. i hope.

i've been reading a lot lately, too, which has helped me get in the mood. suzanne collins is a freaking genius. my boss let me borrow the novel "The Hunger Games" last week, and i just couldn't put it down. her writing style is similar to mine for the novel i'm working on in that it offers enough detail but doesn't go to extremes, so i ate it up. my current protagonist is too analytical for flowery descriptions, and so was hers. but the DRAMA is soooooo thick in that book alone that i had to know what happened. when i finished it, my boss brought in the second novel yesterday for me and i finished it last night. yes, it was THAT good. i literally caught myself saying things like, "peeta, are you serious?!!" and "poor katniss, this friggin' SUCKS!" i haven't spoken aloud to a book in i don't know how long. it was great. i felt like i connected to the characters, and, even though i know that every word was carefully chosen, it felt like collins made the whole thing so easy. that's what i want to be able to do, make the entire process of bonding with my characters so easy for readers that they begin to love and care for them like i do. fingers crossed, i guess.