{"id":730,"date":"2010-11-16T12:28:20","date_gmt":"2010-11-16T18:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/?p=730"},"modified":"2010-11-16T12:28:20","modified_gmt":"2010-11-16T18:28:20","slug":"its-party-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/?p=730","title":{"rendered":"It’s Party Time"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

16. A photo of you at a party. 6\/11\/2005. I turn 30. <\/p><\/div>\n

The amount of effort that went into throwing this party for me still boggles my mind. It was an amazing mesh of friends from different spheres. Here we have Karen & Dan, Margaret & Michael and me. Then there’s Dave D, Sean and Sarah. And much joy and love.<\/p>\n

Some folks have been asking about this photo-a-day thing and how it relates to NaNo, so I’ll put it out here in case anyone else is wondering. You might recall (or you might not) that a few times I’ve done photos of myself every day during November, just as something else to do in conjunction with writing the novel. This year, I came across this meme<\/a> which lists 30 photo subjects and I thought that would be more interesting to do than posting what amounts to the same photo of myself for 30 days. So there you have that.<\/p>\n

Up over 30,000 words (around 30,800 as of this writing) and I get an idea that makes me want to start all over again. I think I’m going to shoehorn it into the thing I’ve already been writing, but I’m afraid of ruining it for future use. I think it’d be really fun to write though. It’s called Me Talk Zombie Someday<\/em>. Tentatively.<\/p>\n

Anyhow, you’re probably sick of these, but I’m not, so here’s another bit of witty repartee between Paul and Arthur.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

We headed outside, into the night and parted ways at our cars.<\/p>\n

“See you Sunday?” Paul asked. He was planning a barbecue for Sunday and his wife had promised that some of her few remaining single friends would be there. The idea of a set up excited and frightened and terrified me. It was an amazing opportunity, rife with possibility, but somehow juvenile, unattractive. I had agreed to go, to give it a shot, to make the effort.<\/p>\n

“Of course,” I said. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153And be on your best behavior,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Paul reminded me.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You know, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not always an asshole,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I protested.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Be on your best behavior,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he repeated.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Alright, alright. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll leave the clown shoes and the taser at home,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But your kids are going to be sorely disappointed.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get over it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Paul said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be nice for them to see Uncle Arthur behaving like an adult for once.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They call me Uncle Arthur?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I asked, shocked. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t call me Uncle Arthur.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Paul sighed, caught himself, like he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d let something slip he hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t wanted to. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No, man, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just a figure of speech.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

My eyes widened with realization. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They do call me Uncle Arthur. Holy shit!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Impulsively, I threw my arms around Paul. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is the greatest thing ever!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yeah yeah,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Paul said, escaping from the hug. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hooray for you, my kids think you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcshinzle\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, or whatever it is they say these days.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shizzle.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Shinzle, shizzle, what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the difference? They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re all ridiculous words. Everything they say is gibberish, what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s it matter if I can accurately reproduce it or not?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The amount of effort that went into throwing this party for me still boggles my mind. It was an amazing mesh of friends from different spheres. Here we have Karen & Dan, Margaret & Michael and me. Then there’s Dave D, Sean and Sarah. And much joy and love. Some folks have been asking about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109],"tags":[257,16,230],"class_list":["post-730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nanowrimo","tag-aphotoaday","tag-excerpt","tag-word-count"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}