A tree might grow in New Jersey.

Just got back from exercising my civic duty. It's a beautiful day for an election, way nicer than last year, when so much more was on the line and we had the feeling that we were on the right side of history, doing the right thing. That was a nice feeling. I do like voting, but that's partly because I like being in control.

GRE and a job interview (for holiday retail, but beggars, choosers, etc) tomorrow. I went running for the first time since I got that cold yesterday and was pleased with the results; we'll see if it holds up when I go again today. I honestly don't know if I'll be up for the 12K Sunday week, though, since I was sick for the weeks I should have been building from 4.5 to 5.5 miles per, and the race is 7.5. NaNoWriMo is coming along--haven't started in for today, but I have thought about where I'm going to go when I do crack open the word processor. Currently I'm at 6465, which puts me ahead of the curve, where I'm desperately hoping to stay. Seeing as I really should be writing my umpty-bajillion personal statements for grad school, we'll see how long that holds.

I read The Red Tree by Shaun Tan yesterday--it's a picture book, though the term seriously undersells the sheer giddy mastery of Tan's art, to say nothing of his storytelling--and I found it to be scarily applicable to my current situation. Tan just won a World Fantasy Award for Best Artist, and it was completely deserved. My copy of The Red Tree is a Canadian import by way of the divine Wild Rumpus Books in Minneapolis, but The Arrival and Tales from Outer Suburbia, which are even better, are widely available.

I just came here tonight to say

Not "Merry Christmas, baby" (sorry, Bruce!)--

No, what I wanted to say is that I am looking at the draft PDFs of the CLAMP 20th Anniversary fanbook that we as the clamp_now community and particularly nokiirat, fearless leader and tireless editor, have spent months putting together, and you know what? We have done an awesome thing. Fandom has problems and it is not always a metric or even an English tonne of rainbows and sparkles, but that does not diminish the fact that at times it is a space where people can come together globally and do awesome things.

N, we should totally try to get something about this in Transformative Works and Cultures. Maybe I'll ask you for an interview. :-)

And I still really need a fandom tag.