Witness me melting the hell down.

I've ignored a lot of laptop stickers.

I've gazed past Tshirts and pretended to be paying attention to traffic when faced with window clings.

I've conducted my blog-following life in Reader and so have been widely ignorant of web badges of all types.

In fact, I've made a practice of being outwardly ignorant about all these blogging and webby monikers and acronyms.

NaNoBloMo? What is this thing you speak of? Surely *I* don't know. Sounds sort of erotic, if you ask me.

NaNoWriMo? Is this something made up by Apple? I see product placement all over this.

365 Days? OK. I realize that's not an acronym, but what does it mean?

I'll tell you what ALL of these mean, folks, WORK.

Hard, busy, slaving, soul-crushing, self-doubting, finger sweating, anxiety-inducing, sleep-sucking, creativity-sponging, daily time-rationing WORK.

And because I have finished the training and running of two half marathons already this year and have only the hehe I'm not training for that 5K Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving upon which to set my goal-driven sights and apparently need something personally and mostly uselessly stressful in my life, I finally gave in and admitted that I knew the meaning of one of these nerdy acronyms.

And by "gave in" I mean, I stopped ignoring emails from close friends encouraging me to take part in said acronymic event, stopped searching my calendar *to the bone* for somethinganything that would keep me legitimately tied up for the month of November and unblocked the websites in my browser that had been hiding behind the firewall as though they were full of porno and I was my own eight year old kid.

Which makes no sense. And also I didn't do that last one because, can you even do that?

Anyway, what I'm saying is that I held out a really, really long time and feigned ignorance until I was weak and impressionable and finishing up my second week of the glorious Post-Race Break Week with just a little bit of guilt wandering in and out of my goal-free mind when I finally decided to stop being such a fucking pussy and just sign up already.

Sign up for what, you ask? Well, hop over from that reader or just lookie at that sidebar and you'll find out.

Finger too tired to click? Eyes too worn out to look right ----> over -----> there ---->?

NaNoWriMo.

I signed up for National Novel Writing Month.

Finally. After three years of pretending I didn't know what it was. Pretending that people on the Internets were all crazy and who has time like this and what would I write about and oh please as though I can work, run, sleep, blog, eat, garden, have Thanksgiving aaaaaaaaaannd write 50,000 words in a month. Please, now. Don't say crazy things.

Well, the crazy is out of the bag for you all to see. I've succumbed to peer pressure for the whateverTH time in my life and, rather than trying a new gateway drug or going under the bleachers with a football player (sadly - never happened), will be torturing myself to the tune of 50,000 words in November with the expressed written intent of being a "winner". Which means I actually write something with 50,000 legitimate words in it.

The prize? I think there's some sort of web badge. And, hey, I'll have 50,000 of my own words to keep me warm at night when Bubba's out of town. And, uh, I can scramble them all up Lorem Ipsum style and print them onto fabric at Spoonflower and then make myself a straightjacket?

Yeah, so there's not really a prize.

Unless you've thought that one day you'd maybe if you get a good idea or have a life-changing experience or an epiphany or witness something unbelievable write a novel and then TEE DAH! have managed to turn 31 without writing more than what one would consider readable squat and could really use written proof that you're not a total lost cause.

THEN - that is the prize. Proof that you're not a lost cause. Good enough for me.

Also, then, I maybe won't sign up for any more long distance races this year because you know how I get.

So, what this means is that my posts in November may cover topics like the merits of quiet Mac keyboards vs super clacky ThinkPad ones, the maximum recommended daily dosage of Excedrin when combined with black tea and those so-good-they're-fucked-up truffles from TJ's, whether any of you know how to train dogs to type, if you know where I can find a fuel belt with a laptop attachment and whether there's an app for NaNoWriMo and whether it's worth trading in my Blackberry to get an iPhone so I can use it.

It probably won't mean I'll give up blogging, though, even though it seems like one couldn't possibly average 1,800 words a day PLUS blog PLUS work PLUS whine like a snively bitch, but I'm here to tell you that I think I can.

Mostly because my snivley bitchitude is pretty strong. And I believe that it can fortify me in times of stress, much like some runners gain strength from the adrenaline of other runners in a race (not me, I cry inside instead). And also because you well know that I can't bear public shaming and this is pretty public when the counter is right there (or will be) for everyone to see and judge.

JUDGERS!

Now, what happens to my 50,000 word digital fish wrap come December 1? Dunno. I guess we'll just have to see if I live through the experience and have any hair left. Why is hair important?

When is hair NOT important?

I don't know why I feel so strongly about that last part.

Wow. I just realized how poorly this might go. Yay for December.