We had 15 at the Write-In today. That's the single largest write-in I've ever been to.

Total word count as of now, since I'm not going to go back and look for the widget: 40,221.

22,374 right now.

17*1,667=28,339

Therefore deficit is about 6,000 words.

UPDATE: 25,038. Still low.

If you don't come to Fashion Week with an extra look already designed, with yardages and list of notions, don't bother to come.

Lame, lame, lame-o, lame.

Why is there no way to search the history on your computer? Eh, Mr. Firefox? Hmm, Mr. Gates?

It's happening yet again: eleven year old children outgrow me.

Little Lady is now just about even with me. If I don't blink, I might actually see the moment that she's the same height before she passes me up.

Therefore, I cannot call her Little Lady any longer. At her suggestion, she is now Taller Little Lady.

TLL is currently NaNoing. She's written over 1000 words today.

I'm barely cranking along at 4900. She's beating me.

While living in the Soviet gulag, Alexander Solzhenitsyn was not permitted to write, so he memorized thousands of lines of his own writing that he later wrote and published.

If you can't write, at least you can create. God will honor that.

D'Argo and I chatted today about how creative our minds become during Divine Liturgy. I find the same thing happens to me, especially right after we sing "Let us lay aside all earthly cares" in the Cherubic Hymn. My best plotting is taking place right when it shouldn't. I think there's a logical explanation for this: we are worshiping the Creator. Doesn't it make sense that in His Presence we would manifest creativity as well. But it is surely distracting.

I'm not entirely sure why it's called a competition, as there's really no head-to-head I'm beating you - it's strictly a ratings event. ED's band received a superior rating, which I'm sure you must have heard wherever you are.

Whatever engineer who thought that metal seating for football stadiums was a good idea - needs to go sit on them in cold, cold weather.

NaNo has come, but after a day on the road, sitting in the stadium and the ride back, I'm just too tired. I'll be at the write-in in the afternoon with my pen and paper. No laptop yet.

The Greatest Question Ever Asked: a Freakenomics question about Jesus.

There's the graphic tag.

Now I think I'm ready to start writing. I need an idea for a forum that con men might use to contact each other, but wouldn't be obvious in a google, nor would it attract non-con artists to seek to join the community.

Suggestions welcome.

D'Argo was home for fall break this past weekend. I had hoped for some family time, and we got it.

With the swine flu.

Four of six of us have been sick since last Saturday. D'Argo was sick a month ago with the same symptoms, so we strongly suspect he had it as well. I'm the sole survivor.

Yes, what a shock - nanowrimo.org is down.

Is anyone on my flist nanoing this year?

For the purposes of this exercise, the "trophy" is a painting that was done by a con man. The victim of the swindle found out and acquired the painting and thinks of it as the symbol of his victory over the bad guy. Concurrently with the swindle, the owner found out his wife was unfaithful and he dumped her. Therefore, the painting also represents getting rid of someone he hates.

The painting currently covers up a safe. It is in a room that is in near constant use. Stealing it is not an option - security on the safe includes security on the picture.

How would you convince someone to give up a trophy?

1. A trophy is only as valuable as the event it commemorated. I can remove the emotional attachment to the painting if I can prove the event was not what he thought it was.

2. He may be motivated to get rid of the painting if he thought it was hurting someone he did love now. I'm open to suggestions.

3. The painting could be proven to be harmful in some way. That's a huge stretch and I can't quite figure out how a painting could be harmful.

4. The painting could become a liability. How could I work that out?

5. If the painting was not able to be upgraded with this picture, how would I convince the owner to give it up rather than hang it someplace else?

This is not an exhaustive list, just some random thoughts. Give me yours.

It's the best way to plot.

NaNoWriMo, here I come.

Peter Finley had three sisters but only one brother - Harold. Finn grew up surrounded by cornfields and dreams of basketball stardom - the average Hoosier dream of the 1950s. When Harold was drafted, they threw a big party for him down at the grange hall, and Finn expected to follow him the next year. But Harold didn't get inducted, nor did he return home.

Finn served for three years in the Army, mostly cooking stew and getting the expected nickname. With the GI Bill, he got a teaching degree and acquired a wife and daughter. Wife died in 1987, a few months after he received his last letter from his brother.

Finn takes his time, he studies what he wants to know. When it was time to deliver Harold's bequest to Ammie, he waited three days in the Ammie Love sandwich shop before approaching her.

Finn's no more and no less honest than the average man, but he had a clear sense of how he runs his life - until he met Ammie.

Spoilers under the link for Lie to Me.

How did I know?

He answered to all of them. He hasn't answered for more than 20 years.

Ammie's partner first picked her up when she was expelled from nursing school in San Francisco in 1962 only a month before graduation. Unwed mothers might not be welcome in college, but she was the perfect lure for Harry for a doctor in Encino. They split a hefty $10,000, more than Ammie's father had earned in any year of his entire life.

They were never lovers, Ammie and Harry. More like mentor and student. She soaked up everything he had to teach her, never failed him once in a scam or a rescue, and fronted him a thousand whenever he needed it. That wasn't often. Harry was one of the most successful men in the game. At twenty-eight (he lied) he had almost a half a million dollars invested somewhere - he didn't tell Ammie and she didn't ask. But when she needed something for Eve, Harry always came through - money, jewelry, a dress for prom or her wedding, he paid gladly. He would have walked Eve down the aisle, but there was this mark in New York... Eve was secretly relieved.

Harry's most important con took place in 1975. The woman left a diamond bracelet, easily 10 karats, rather than risk explaining to her husband what Harry was really doing. Too hot to sell, too pretty to break up into separate diamonds, he held onto it until cubic zirconia, the stunning fake diamonds, gave him a brilliant opportunity for a new scam. Having an exact duplicate made, he and Ammie spent three weeks in Miami, Los Angeles and Dallas, and took in nearly a quarter of a million dollars. Harry lost most of the money in Monaco the following spring. It wasn't often he found a mark with enough money to play the bracelet job, and Ammie always played it with him.

In 1986, Ammie got her last letter from Harry. He complained about Atlanta, about the heat, about the Olympics and the traffic, about a new mark that was heading for Florida. She never heard from him again. She keeps all of his letters, even if she knows she shouldn't, but she can't give them up. The last time she looked at them, she put them back into the firebox under "Insurance files - closed."

Or Amy Beth Gallagher. Or Rosalie Williamson. Or Katie Keilly.

It doesn't matter which name you use. She might answer to any of them, if she doesn't first wonder how you know it and what it means that you do.

Ammie Love is a sandwich shop across from a hospital in Minneapolis. She's owned the shop for almost 20 years, ever since her daughter and son-in-law settled with Ammie's grandchildren. Only grandchildren could take Ammie off the road - and out of anyone's open pocket.

The Wire? The Sting? The Pay-off? Ammie knows them all - every con in the books and maybe one or two that aren't. From 1963 until 1989, she supported herself and her daughter with one scam after another, usually with a partner. She keeps her skills sharp - the sandwich shop doesn't make enough to stay open without a semi-annual boost of capital.

Eve came along at a time when being pregnant and 22 was a bad thing, but Ammie did everything she had to for her daughter. When it was time to settle down, Ammie found a good home with a Norwegian bachelor farmer in Iowa and lived there for several years until his death. After that, Ammie hit the big scams, making enough money in a weekend for the two of them to stay put until Eve graduated from high school.

Now Ammie finds ways to keep from paying her rent and listens to her customers over tuna salad and broccoli soup.

Ammie knows how old she is, knows her birth name, knows when her parents died, knows where her brothers live. But she won't tell you. Or if she does, know that it's a lie. The statute of limitations may have run out on the jobs she would be most worried about, but when you're in the life, you don't give away anything that can be used against you. Or identify you.