July 4th update: The novel and the dumb neighbors

The picture is of treats from portland's 100% vegan bakery Sweet Pea.

So I passed the 10,000 word mark mark a few hundred words before finishing chapter Six. I've been writing about two chapters a day. If I keep to the outline I'll have no problem finishing up by July. Of course the outline can only predict so much. Chapter Five was about three times as long as I expected, Novels develop a life of there own and chapter five showed me there is a whole level I didn't foresee developing. That's great. I am shooting for a short novel 50,000 to 60,000 words So I've geussing I'm 1/6 done.

As far as it being July 4th I hate this fucking holiday. The only holiday that is worse is thanksgiving which is centered around the ritualistic slaughter/sacrafice of a turkey by millions of families. One thing I'll give Thanksgiving is I can sit and home and pretend that it's not happening and it doesn't affect anyway except maybe emotionally. Thanks to dumb neighbors including one group of meth-heads to our north and group redneckds to our east we had no escape.

Here in portland in July it doesn't get dark until 10 PM, So as we relaxed trying to watch Session 9 (Awesome film by the way)Two groups started blasting us with a three hour onslught of non stop explosions.

Forget the fact that Cari needed to be up at 6 AM to leave for work. fireworks prove to me that Americans are so stupid. Forget the facts that American history is wrought with our country doing awful things, forget the fact that we waging war on a innocent country - lets celebrate by getting drunk , charring animal flesh / eating it and simulating war with explosions so loud that our neighbors have no means to escape it.

Fireworks are
1) propbably filled with hundreds of deadly and toxic fumes.
2) scary as hell to companion animals.
3) invasive to neighbors who don't like them
4) dropping toxic fumes on neighbors gardens
5) Dangerous - every year hundreds die around the country because of these stupid things.
6) Dangerous - in the west where it has been dry for weeks it is just plain stupid.

Fourth of July sucks.