The Lair of the Emerald Serpent

Every year the local university has what they call Orientation Day. This is organized by the student union and is basically a feast of freebies where stall holders representing various businesses, political parties and student clubs and societies try to get students to sign up for their ever so worthy cause.
There will also be entertainment such as music and sausage sizzles. This time featured a pizza eating competition. So that kind of crass consumerism is still alive and well
Had been a student there back at the start of the century but was working at the time so rarely managed to turn up any time before 2pm. And then for some inexplicable reason would often get landed with a 3pm shift on that particular day so there was no point in even turning up at all if the mission was to snaffle freebies

( Scrooge serpent on the scrounge )

So another month of nano nuttiness comes to an end. This one was very different to all of the others. Every other time had at least two weeks holidays from the mad house and no other dramas or distractions. It turned out that developing a regular habit of squiggling overcame those particular obstacles. Good habits got the runs on the board but this time the muses remained sadly absent. Not once was there ever the experience of having to grab bits of paper and squiggle furiously while the muses dictated page after page. They simply refused to linger any longer than a few minutes at most.

But without the six months worth of training would not have been able to put two words together at all so this was a minor inconvenience. Took four days off completely so still managed to maintain a daily average of 2,000 words for those remaining 27 days.

Had also introduced the incentive of a bribe and today was time to collect the prize.
Having raided several nest eggs, the serpent was in a position to splurge on some decadent indulgences. Decided to allow such wickedness but with strings attached. A fascinating book about gardening and the politics of food written by some one who knows her stuff would sit there looking ever so inviting on the shelves of the New Edition book store. Small little store that it is, they had more decent books than all of Borders that must have been 30 times their size.
This book shop now includes a cafe. Not only do they have decent coffees and real loose leaf teas but they cost only $3 a cup for the coffee and the same for a small pot of tea. They also have the daily papers. But to sit at an old wooden table amongst shelves of books and little stands of assorted yuppie Moleskin journals and notebooks is just the sort of location for inspired nano squiggling.

So a copy of “Outside the Magic Square” could be ours on condition of reaching the 50,000 word count at Camp Nano. And today it was time to pick up the prize. This book is so good that the ma will be getting a copy too for her birthday which is just over two weeks away.
Just been ordering a bunch of heirloom tomato and chili seeds so that will make a nice present too just slipped in between the pages.

One side effect of the recent toxic toad drama is the realization that this serpent and caffeine just do not mix. Should have worked this out ages ago. The signs were obvious but was just too naive and stupid to read them. With a bit of joining the dots, nearly all the times where the Izzie has had serious almost psychotic episodes or panic attacks were almost always accompanied by several large cups of the evil brew. Not an espresso drinker but a lover of big fat bowls of smooth creamy milky coffee, so just did not realize that the lack of black bitterness was no indication at all of the lack of caffeine.

It was after drinking two enormous bowls of cafe au lait back in April last year and then coming down with stomach aches and the head ache from hell that the serpent started putting two and two together. Slinked off to the serpent sack at 8pm that night and did not even have a glass or two of red for another two days. Discovered later that a cup that size would have contained three ‘shots’ of coffee.

So if coffee can produce such nasty effects without underlying stress, figured that it was time to stop tempting fate by drinking the stuff when there is good reason to feel psycho, paranoid or just basically neurotic. It certainly worked wonders. Even got a bit adventurous today and tempted fate with a mug of the stuff at the New Edition Cafe of course while perusing the freshly snatched copy of “Outside the Magic Square”

It was delicious like ever. But at least this time when the old green cells started buzzing, knew that it was not everyone out to get this poor innocent serpent just a bunch of overloaded brain cells in overdrive. So kept away from crowds and drank lots of water and the craziness went away.
New Edition does have decent loose leaf tea and marvelous chai masala but not every cafe has such interesting options. Too often the low or no caffeine options include tea bags in water at coffee prices or proper loose leaf tea which tastes foul due to an awful water supply.
So only one hour left of August’s Camp Nano adventure. September will take a bit of a break from squiggling and start catching up on that online cryptography course. It might even provide some inspiration for November. Some one has already mentioned a novel with the most intriguing title “Cryptonomicon”

Also finished reading “The Omen” today so evil inspiration is everywhere. We thinks it is time for Damien to get himself a twin sister and her name is Dolores