Probably the cheapest NaBloPoMo trick ever

As literally dozens of you know, along with being NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), it is NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). The latter challenge is to post something meaningful every day during the entire month of November. And, since I am a contrary cuss who doesn't like streaks being broken, I bring you today the beginning of my NaNoWriMo novel, tentatively called "The Last of the Big Time Spenders".










"There's no good reason to answer the phone, I thought.
I heard the insistent buzzing. My phone was plugged in, charging, sitting on the floor. I had left it on “vibrate”, and there it was, vibrating away, asking for my attention. Nobody ever calls me who I want to talk to, so why answer it? Especially on Monday-it was surely a bill I had forgotten to pay, or one I had deliberately ignored, hoping to be able to eat food that week.
I let it vibrate, rolling over on my mattress. I called it a futon, but it wasn't, it was just an old mattress sitting on the floor in my apartment. My four room apartment, on top of a music store, full of emptiness. When Nicole was here...stop it, I told myself. Nicole isn't here. Nicole isn't interested in you. She isn't interested in your gender, frankly, at least not now. So just stop it.
The phone stopped. I stared at it, the display glowing with a message left by the caller. One or another employer, wanting me to do something, or my credit card company, wanting me to pay something. It might be a student's parent, calling to cancel, or complain about my fees-my living room was also my studio, where I wrote songs, practiced, and thought. I would occasionally try to teach sullen preteens how to play guitar downstairs, in the corner of the music shop. When people ask what I do, I usually say, “this and that”. Which is what it is-teach guitar, work downstairs selling guitars and music, work over at the same fast food place that has paid me weekly (very weakly, as the old joke goes) since I got here to start (and finish, three days later) collegiate life. This, and that. Somebody wanted something, that was for certain."