This is my dog, The Noobers, in possibly the greatest costume ever.

I'm going to look for a Mogwai costume for next year. I am convinced that he is a gremlin.

I went as Marv from Sin City. I nearly got in a fight with some cops, just to stay in character. No, I wouldn't do that. I did speak to a couple of officers when they came to our Halloween party (The Nightmare Off Elm Street). They were pretty friendly. When I first saw them I wondered if they were guys in costume because one of them was named Officer Bacon.

Their weapons looked real enough so I tried to show a little restraint.

The costumes at the party were great. My roommates, Brian, Virginia, and Molly, went as Sin City characters as well: Hartigan, Nancy, and Shelly, respectively. Kelly was dressed (or rather, undressed) as Marv's parole officer, Lucille. There was also a Jack Skelington and Sally, Skeletor and She-Ra, a flamboyant I-Pod with working speakers, Donnie Darko, Ali G, a slew of women in costumes that weren't really costumes but were certainly provocative, and, my favorite, Mike dressed up as The Most Fabulous Rainbow.

I'm proud to have such intelligent, creative, genuine friends that will unabashedly don their wife's formal wear. Brings a tear to my eye, it does.

PS. Blogger's "Recover post" option is one of the greatest ideas ever.

At lecture for my creative writing class, my professor brought up rewriting. "Do you look at something you've written and want to rewrite it?" he addressed us all. There was murmur of confirmation. His eyes darted around the room. "Why is that?"

I raised my hand. "I think that when you first write something, you still hold a lot of the assumptions you've made about the character, the motivations, that sort of stuff. But as time goes by and you grow away from what you've written, you forget a lot of those assumptions you made before and you can see where you might have taken shortcuts or written something out of character..." I trailed off.

"Wow, that's good stuff," he said as I tried not to appear to pleased with myself. "That's pretty deep. Have you taken like an advanced composition class or something?"

I shook my head. "No, but I did take English 102 three times."

The class murmured in laughter.

I contemplated hopping onto one of the long desks and doing a little soft-shoe, but I remembered G-Man's suggestion that it is better to leave 'em wanting more. I took the advice, but I was reluctant. I so seldom have a decent segue into a good soft-shoe.

I didn't finish my story on time. I got an extension. My new deadline is in 4 hours and I am pleased to say that I have just met it.

I was in Los Angeles (the city of Angels, although I didn't find it to be that exactly) this weekend for the wedding of my friends Jody and Ben. It was delightful. I'd never been to a Jewish wedding before. It seems that a little culture goes a long way.

Open bars also go a long way. In this case, from the wedding to the reception hall to the hotel bar to the honeymoon suite until I finally ended up at Verina's home around seven in the morning. Or maybe it was eight. Daylight savings time kicked in that night, so 2 am became 1 am and I had the novel experience of two last calls in one outing.

I must go and make copies of my story. There are many miles before we sleep.