Yes, I'm Alive

It's been a busy few months. One that's been filled with working, writing, tweeting, facebooking, working, writing ... and all of the other stuff that does not include blogging. Sorry that I've been neglectful ya'll. In short, I've been doing great and 2010 is off to a great start. Here's a longer rundown of what I've been up to:

• Writing: I'm up to draft three in my new novel. The pieces are slowly coming together. I think I've found a title and I've finally committed to names of some of the major characters. Maybe it's just me, but naming folks is one of the hardest parts of writing for me. I guess that's just cause I feel like names and nicknames should have meaning. *shrug*
• Reading: I've become totally obsessed with the Clan of the Cave bear series. I finished book one quickly and nowI'm approaching the end of book 2, Valley of the Horses. There are six books in all, and thanks to my obsession, I own all six!! And I hear that the writer will be releasing another book sometime this year. Hooray!
  
• Tweeting: Yes, I've discovered Twitter. But I'm more of a Tweet watcher than a tweeter myself. The thing I like to do is follow celebrities on there, because I just often imagine what there lives are like. I'm following Erykah Badu, Aisha Tyler, Questlove from the Roots, Rainn Wilson, Chrisette Michele, etc. Erykah Badu has the most entertaining tweets by far, like -- "Whose baby is this, on my chest? Oh yeah, it's mine."
• Facebooking: Yes, it's that website that I both love and hate. I love catching up with old friends, but all the site is is a high school reunion 75485748 times a day. On my friends' list, there's been what I've dubbed a 'love war' in the status updates. One friend is going through a pretty nasty divorce, so each day there's an update about that. On the other spectrum, there's my madly in love friend. He recently got engaged, so each day I have to hear about his Beloved (yes, he calls her by a pet name that's similar to that) did this or that. She calls him Smooches (again, a name equally similar) and responds back in love haikus. It's interesting.
• Bobbing my head: I continue to keep my cd collection up to date, and I've been waiting patiently for the release of !!!SADE!!!! But I've been enjoying the latest releases from Mary J. Blige, Robin Thicke, Mariah Carey and Corinne Bailey Rae. My buddy Tbyrd hipped me to St Germain's Tourist cd, which has several smooth tunes.
  
• Shoveling: My region of the world was hit with a massive snowstorm recently. I'm talking 20 inches and up. Although I enjoy the snow when I'm tucked safely inside with no place to go, the fact is that eventually, I will have a place to go, and in order to get there, I need to shovel. Ugh. But it was a true bonding experience for myself and my three or four other neighbors who came out to get the job done ahead of time.
• Being neighborly: I had the pleasure of shoveling beside my favorite neighbor, I'll call her Dana, because I don't know her name. She has a little girl and she's the only other single woman living in my building. We've commiserated when Mr. Bad Element moved in, and made subsequent complaints to management. So I couldn't help but laugh when Dana was shoveling her car and Mr. Bad Element walked in the path she just shoveled. She gave him a firm cussing out and told him not to even THINK about walking anywhere near where she just shoveled. He grumbled, but he listened. Tee hee. He deserved that and so much more. But more about him later.
  

Anyway, that about sums up my life story at the moment. Be sure to tune in next time when I'll be sure to add more blogging into the mix.

(Photo from http://www.snowcrest.net/pine/shoveling.jpg )