Well begun is half the fun, or: See you in another life, brotha

Word count: 24,842.
Should be at: Let's face it, it's Day 15, I should be at 25,000 and somehow I can't bring myself to write the 158 words to get me there. But we'll just let that go for now.

I ended up not going in to work. I woke up and felt really run down. Which I've done to myself. So I called in to get some rest. I've been pushing myself pretty hard since, oh, August. I've also had this cough for like a week which I wish would either go away or just become a cold.

I watched six episodes of Lost today, one of which was the finale so that took up the entire afternoon. But it's good inspiration. I mean, what an amazing show. Anything that can make you care that much about that many characters has some great writing. I cried all over again at the finale. It was like I was watching my friends get back together with their long-lost loves. That was one of my very favorite elements of the last season: that no matter what, plane crash or no, they were meant to be in each others' lives somehow and find their way back to each other.

I'm trying to give the novel I'm writing a sense of that. I do think that there are people who show up in your life at sort of appointed times; or maybe they were there for a bit and their role gets stepped up when it's needed. Of course it's up to you how much a person is in your life, and you gravitate towards certain friends more depending on different things. But there are those people who suddenly show up and it's as though they were supposed to be there. Not fate, necessarily; just--good timing. I'm working with the idea of a saying that my dad found when we were in Ireland that he gave to my stepmom. It says it much more eloquently but basically it's the idea that there are people who show up in your life at exactly the right point. I'll have to find it. Hmm, it could bump my word count up if I work it in as a quote...

I, of course, worry that will never happen to me. (Not to sound like a babycrier.) In the relationship sense, I mean. Certainly I have friends that showed up right on time. As a writer I can create ideal people for other people but I am woeful of when it will be my turn. And I know that I'm young, and I know that I'm awesome and that I can take care of myself, and that I have people who love me. But of course there's that wistful romantic part of me that hopes I find the Des to my Penny. The Sayid to my Shannon. The Charlie to my Claire. The Jack to my Kate. The Sawyer to my Juliet....I watched like five hours of the damn show, OK?