Instead of writing here, I�ve spent my time gambling in St. Louis, walking down old paths in the country, hugging a faux-nephew as he wiggles like a cat to get away from my squeezes, hugging my best friend in the entire world and then having it hit me rather strongly a week later how very much I miss not having her in my everyday life (although we haven�t been in each other�s everyday lives since 1995), mapping out some more of my novel for NaNoWriMo (which starts tonight at midnight!), using up the last of the little bottle of lotion at work, riding the train to and from Benito�s house as much as possible, grabbing onto that wonderful man the first moment I can once I return home from a weekend away, kissing him like crazy too, wondering about friendships and how the morph, riding the big-kid suburbs train to be picked up and driven to Wisconsin for a weekend, dressing up in a non-slutty costume (unlike dang near everyone else around), attending a retched night of Halloween festivities, wandering through a gigantic corn maze and wondering how a human made something on such a grand scale possible, flinging mini gourds into a lake with the help of a huge slingshot, eating at the Wisconsinite-loving Culvers for the first time, avoiding cheese while in a land of so much of it, wearing a skirt with my knee-high boots as much as possible, drinking tons of water, running a bit and having my knee start hurting slightly, buying overpriced soaps from Lush, cleaning my oh-so-pretty ring with Windex and pipe cleaners, getting my hair cut really short for the last time before growing it out again, cheering on Benito�s completed project and all of its success, darning that I can�t tell one and all about it because I really enjoy bragging about my man and his amazing accomplishments, slathering on lotion because the air is really dry all of a sudden, shopping at the lovely Wal-Mart, drinking a lot of wine with Benito while lounging on the couch, enjoying having his hand on the small of my back or our heads leaning against each other, laughing like crazy when we make trips to Best Buy for covert reasons, craving sushi like crazy, avoiding grocery shopping, watching Netflix instead of so much Law and Order, mourning the approach of winter, knowing that it�s gonna be cold and dark at 4 o�clock for the next several months, wearing earrings that match my outfits, petting my cat Hambone as much as possible, talking to a friend in the middle of the workday while we both sit bored at our desks, being busy at work and feeling like I�m accomplishing lots in a rockstar fashion, losing the craving for Diet Coke or Gatorade, snapping my finger joints, and pretty much just enjoying myself along the way.

And now I find myself out of time since writing that above paragraph (without stopping to take a breath, no less!), so I need to head out.

I hope everyone�s past ten days have been good ones.

G�nite all.�