Liese, you can do your word count under "Edit Novel Info."

The Nanowrimo site is slllooooowwwwww at the moment.

Or is it just me?

It's slow. Really, really freakin' slow.

You know, it's just as well the site loads so slowly-- it keeps me away from the forums because honestly, I just want to thwap the 25 year-olds in my regional forum who are calling themselves Jurassic-era relics.

Oy.

Oh, yeah, because everybody should start early like Truman Capote, become a drunken, self-loathing wreck and spend the next forty years with people wondering what the fuck happened to you. Not that I'm rationalizing starting late or anything. Much. But starting early is no great guarantee.

The fifteen and sixteen year-old babies crack me up though, they're so damned earnest.

Yeah. At that age, I felt sure I'd be a big star at twenty-five. But that seemed really old to me too.

First bit of NaNo-ing that I'm tickled by.

• *

Time had completely slipped away while I'd walked. I'd managed to slip out of the apartment undetected, for the most part, with nothing more than a quizzical glance from the maid manning the coat check. I'd left the building behind with every intention of going home. I think. Wherever home was. But then, rather than hail one of the many cabs that streamed past, or descend into the steaming, claustrophobic confines of the subway, I'd simply continued walking, weaving in and out of the weekend revelers, out celebrating the holiday season. Ignoring the cat calls and the invitations from outside the bars to join them for a drink. I'd just kept my head down and weaved my way through the small knots of people, the couples the others who were as alone as I. Along Central Park West, around Columbus Circle, down Broadway and into the crazed, seedy bustle of Times Square, with its flashing lights, and the cab horns honking, and the prostitutes hovering in the shadows brazenly calling out to the jaded regulars and smirking at the shocked tourists, offering a hand, a mouth, any and all orifices, for one, or two, or three participants—anything could be had, any dream or fantasy, if only for the right price.

It was as if I was seeing it through the glass of the globes I'd adored as a child, except I was trapped inside, sparkling snow falling about my shoulders, reflecting the myriad blues and reds and greens of the lights. Like a dream, I walked through it all, protected by the translucent walls of my bubble, the sights blurred and distorted, sounds muffled into an indistinct rumble and hum.

Wow. Great atmosphere there, Barb.

A last-minute drabble for "in the dark".

Mrs. Kinderman pays her a nickel to walk to the grocer’s and collect her weekly order, and Charlotte suspects it’s cheaper than the tip the delivery boy would expect. She doesn’t care. Today’s nickel, added to the others she’s earned, makes twenty cents, and the minute she’s said goodbye, she runs the four blocks to the Rialto.

It’s Grand Hotel today, but it doesn’t really matter. She likes the rustling silence before the film starts, the smell of damp wool and dust. In the dark, she disappears, and the world is only silver and shadow, beauty sharp enough to hurt.

Last week's challenge is closed.

This week's challenge, in honor or NaNoWriMo, is rush.