Lewies Blog

I stayed a little late at work tonight so that I could go directly to the Cat Vacuume Society tonight. My trusty directions from map quest sure helped me out a lot. Everything worked out great except that it was hard to find a spot to park. I finally gave in and parked in the garage. I didn’t have any cash, but I figured I could find an ATM after the meeting.

I went into the Barns and Noble and was suprised to see it was two floors and seemed to be huge. It gave me the feeling of upper-middle class. I looked around and didn’t see any rooms. I asked an employee where the event lounge was. She pointed to a group of people setting in a circle near the windows.

I hadn’t been in a situation of meeting new people in a while. I felt a bit shy and uncomfortable. As I looked around, these people were different then the normal groups of people that I meet when entering a new job. The age range varied. A few looked like my stereotype impression of “artsy-cool”. I was setting with mothers, grand-mothers, and perhaps colledge students. Most were women. Since I get along best with women on a social level, this makes me feel more at ease. And since I am not the only male, I am also feeling good about that.

Jennifer, of whome I talked with on the nano forums handed me some papers from last week. A speaker had come last week and discussed something dealing with spiritual writing and experiences. The paper mainly had information for doing a workshop on this to help write more detailed events so that your readers will feel the same experiences that you felt.

Just before the meeting began, I noticed that half the members had small typewriters with LCD screens. I inquired about them and they mentioned that they last about 25 hours on the battery and run on the Palm OS. Hmm… I wonder if I could run SETI on one. The memory is simply a memory card you use in digital cameras. I’ll have to look into affordability sometime soon.

Listening to some of them speak about plot ideas and such, I could catch on that some knew something about pagan-based religions and would tie it into there stories. Some would come rite out and practically say it. Others were religiouse and not so religiouse. Either way, its cool and it makes me feel a lot better about where I am.

Halfway through the meeting, I received a short-story that they were critiquing. I read through it, but had a hard time since I was also trying to listen to people speak. I must say it was really funny and pretty good. It had a lot of people and I couldn’t keep track of who just said what - but that was probably because my mind was focusing on two things. I would say more - but I would be shot. Actually, I don’t know what I can say about anything, so to play it safe, I’ll keep all the details to myself and give high-level reviews that don’t tell you anything. I finnished by the end of the meeting.

I looked around afterwards and found a small dream book. I figured it may come in handy and purchased it. I got my garrage ticket stamped by the cashier and proceeded to look for an ATM. I walked in many directions and kept backtracking. I was looking around every corner for an ATM since the group mentioned that it was just around a corner. It was dark and my glasses are still broken, so everything was pretty blurry.

After 20 minutes, I gave up and started walking back to the car, hoping that I had change. I found an ATM on the way back and got a crisp twenty dollar bill out of my checking account. I pocketed the bill, took my card and was on my way back to the garrage. As I approached, I noticed on the floor above that there was another ATM. This must have been the ATM they were talking about that was just around the corner. I did not realize that I had to go up some steps to get to it.

I got to my car and looked over my maps from map quest. I spent some time trying to commit the streets to memory. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and turned the ignition. Arriving at the ticket booth, the guy asked for only one dollar. I looked at my dash board and picked up some change and handed it to him. “All of that walking for nothing”, I thought to myself. At least I was able to get some exercise in, but the night was really cold and the rain mist didn’t help make things any better.

I would rite more but I’m going to vacuume the cat.

Tags: Cat Vacuume Society, Cat, Vacuume, Society, Map Quest, ATM, Barns & Noble, Event Lounge, Shy, Uncomfortable, Meeting New People, Artsy, Cool, Stereotype, Impression, Jennifer, Nano, Forum, NaNoWriMo, LCD, Palm OS, Typewriter, SETI, Memory Card, Digital Camera, Plot, Ideas, Pagan, Religion, Religiouse, Critique, Funny, Dream, Book, Glasses, Blurry, Excercise

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 21st, 2004 at 10:48 pm and is filed under Entertainment, Finances, Friends and Family, Hobbies, Life, Programming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.