To my chagrin, this was not the best week to get The Colonel's attention. He seemed hopelessly preoccupied and down-right surly toward me. I tried to pull some insight out of his secretary during lunch one day, but she was her usual cagey self. "None of your business" was stamped on her forehead. Worn out from the effort, I've spent the last couple of day surfing the net on tax-payer dollars.
Speaking of which, I was on a stream-of-consciousness stroll through the web regarding creative writing when I came across this web site. National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, is designed to stimulate writers and would-be writers to get on with the exercise of creating a new novel. Every year, people sign up and commit to writing at least 50,000 words of a novel during the month of November. There's no real prize, but you have the satisfaction of getting a good running start on a novel which could one day be published. I have so many crazy thoughts rolling around my head after the Vermont assignment, I think I might have a go at putting the whole experience down on paper (or pixels, as the case may be). This could be a great form of encouragement and keep my mind off the banality of my current work state.
I've always had some interest in writing thanks to my Aunt Trudy. When I was a little girl, my dad's sister Gertrude was one of those free spirits who traveled around the world writing for various magazines as a freelance journalist. Whenever she found time to visit, Aunt Trudy would sweep in like a whirling dervish full of stories about the Congo and the Middle East and China.With her wiry salt-and-pepper hair, crazy mix of clothes from all over the globe, and deliberate lack of make-up, she seemed so exotic compared to my boring, suburban life. Certainly the polar opposite of my straight-laced father. When she would hug me, a slightly sickening cloud of patchouli engulfed me. The scent still makes me feel sad, although I don't know why.
Anyway, Aunt Trudy's stories inspired me to write just like her, so I would go to my room and scribble down fanciful adventures in my notebook about meeting the King of Japan and helping him fight dragons or some such nonsense. When I would present her with these crazy tales, she would react to the story as if I had really experienced it. "Oh, you are such a brave young lady to fight dragons! I hear the King has a birthmark on his neck shaped just like the island of Hokkaido! Is that true?" I felt a little guilty lying to my Aunt. What a silly kid I was!
I continued writing stories and keeping a journal right into high school. Then I got into gymnastics and working on my body (mainly to impress boys). By college, I had a steady boyfriend and other interests. Only recently, with all the strange experiences of this job and unanswered questions in my life, have I gravitated back to writing. I'm hoping this NaNoWriMo will help me purge some of the brain clutter I've accumulated over the last few months. Wish me luck! Writing begins on November 1, 2010, after the stroke of midnight.
Not much else to report this week, except that I believe I finally figured out why The Colonel was so preoccupied this week. Yesterday, we were told that my old contact in Las Vegas, code name Stephen, was killed in a car accident. Based on The Colonel's serene disposition after the news was reported, I can only presume that his demise was desired and, probably, cogitated. My accusations that Stephen was likely a double agent always seemed to fall on deaf ears, but now I see that this was not true. Rather, I'm realizing that The Colonel, and in fact this whole nameless agency, works in mysterious ways.
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