I’ve spent the weekend largely hunkered down with my notebook and my multi-pens, writing away. I’ve managed around 5000 words so far in the two days, but I’m feeling good about where it’s going and I now have plenty to type and edit next time I run into a wall and get a tad plot-stuck.

So, because my muse is otherwise engaged, and I’ve done nothing interesting:

1. What do you order in a bar?

Depends. Tarpon Bend? Mojito usually.

Dives? bottle beer

Restaurants attached? Wine (White during day in summer. Red at night or in winter. Not that funky rose stuff, ever.)

Pubs? Bass, Guinness, or a black & tan.

2.  What’s your favorite holiday?

Hands down, Halloween. Always was, likely always will be. Any excuse to dress up in a costume, I’m down (minus anime conventions because I only found out those existed in my twenties and by then I was far too old to think this was a good idea.)

I’m also a fan of the candy, the drinking, the darkness (I’ve been a night owl since childhood)… What’s not to love about Halloween. I mean, for pagan influences, modern Christmas celebrations are loaded so the peeps I grew up with who hold that against Halloween just leave me scratching my head. And Christmas you’re expected to spend with your messed-up family and a pile of commercial Wal-Mart junk no one really wants or people have been begging all year for — either way, lame.

Halloween, you get to spend with your friends and it’s the start of my fall baking season so it also means apple-spice muffins and cat- or lobster-shaped gingerbread cookies. Besides, it’s often meant a test of my extra-special home-decorating skills.

Besides, I make a cute witch.

This past year, I also really enjoyed the 4th since it was low key and relaxed. In the past, the 4th has meant sweaty beach days, bickering hot people, tainted meat grilled to charcoal. This year was my second one meat-free and it was raining so Hubby and I went to our favorite Thai restaurant and then watched fireworks with a bunch of locals on top of a usually-deserted mall parking garage.

Come to think of it, last year’s belated-4th celebration was pretty good too. We happened to be in a tiny town on Crystal Lake in Maine where they were having a small fair — you know the kind with cotton candy and rides to make little kids hurl the candy — followed by fireworks over the lake.

2.  Least favorite?

For its expectations and implications: Valentine’s Day. I do not want to be made to feel I must expect overpriced, imported, pesticide-ridden roses or I am not loved. I do not want Hubby feeling he’s being pressured by society to buy such things since we have perfectly-good, pesticide-free roses growing in the yard and what does society know about us anyway. (Although, we usually do have a good time cooking something at home — you couldn’t pay me to try to get reservations and wait around for over/undercooked food on the hearts-&-cards holiday.)

For the obligations and commercialism: Xmas. (Yes, Xmas. The X dates back to a time when most Christians didn’t speak English and/or Spanish and the Greek letter that began “Christ” and sometimes stood for “Christ” resembled an “X.”) I don’t want to buy a bunch of plastic crap. I don’t want to explain for the third year running that I’m not going to eat the turkey. I don’t want to argue over whether I’ve spent too many nights at this person’s house versus that one. I don’t want to have the religion of Wal-Mart shoved down my throat. Do not want.

Are you sensing a pattern of me not wanting to be forced to do things and/or buy things?

The thing is, I’m honestly a generous person at heart, but because I am not because I’m expected to be.

4. Where did you grow up?

Here:

Okay, I’m kidding. Here.

5.  What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?

Defying gravity. Leaping tall buildings. Living underwater without air.

Seriously, the older I get, the more I have the confidence to do the things I honestly want to do. I’ll never be a great painter, but I like doing it as a hobby. I bake a pretty mean muffin, but I know I’d hate it if I had to sell them for cash.

I want to go back to school and get a PhD. (I want to do well enough on the GRE and have a good enough CV to get a fellowship before I apply.) That’s possible if I study hard enough and focus on my goals.

I want to finish this novel and find an agent. The first part is all on me, but hey, 5000 words so far this weekend isn’t shabby. The second part is part me (the query), part luck (being what they’re looking for at the right moment), part the state of the industry (which is in a state of flux as are most industries these days). Also possible.