Well, it's taken a month...

...but the following is a report of the Nov. 14 meeting, for the three people ever likely to read this.

Rich read a crappy piece of badly written character dialog that needed a lot of work, but which was a first draft, so it's okay. It was about an angry man annoying the living hell out of another guy at a bus stop. This man had an obsession with everything costing $500, and an inexplicable knowledge of the Latin name for the genus of melons, gourds and pumpkins (for the record, it's cucurbicitae).

Toni read the first part of a novel she'd been writing as part of a month-long novel-writing contest. It was a solid start, with some interesting characters and a broad landscape on which she can eventually build her story. The premise of the novel, about a man who finds himself stepping through gateways to parallel worlds, appears to be an homage to her favorite TV series franchise, Stargate.

Gannon was there with Toni, but did not read anything. Instead, he and Toni argued a lot about whether the American Indians should continue to receive compensation for the genocide committed against their tribes during the era of the American frontier. Gannon was in favor of never dropping such compensation, arguing that you can't put a pricetag limit on the pain and suffering caused by American expansionism. Toni, on the other hand, was rather indignant about the idea of giving any particular group an unfair advantage over another, or about making White people in today's world pay for the crimes and excesses of previous generations.

Steve and Sue were there as well, but Sue had to leave early and Steve was never able to read (a first for Steve in the history of the Crew) because the Great American Indian Debate ate up a lot of time that could otherwise have been spent having a conversation less prone to causing couples to fight and making others smile at each other with an "AWK....WARD" look on their collective faces.

Before leaving, Sue read an amusing and entertaining children's story she'd written for her students, entitled "Billy, the Snot-Nosed Kid." I particularly enjoyed the illustrations, which were apparently on the wrong pages when printed out.

Paul, who proved himself an excellent host as always, was in attendance...naturally, or else we would have had to break into his home when he wasn't there...but he also did not have a chance to read.

Michelle attended as well. Unfortunately...loathe though I am to admit it...I'm drawing a blank on what she might have read that night. My gut feeling is that she didn't read anything, but I could be wrong about that. If so...my apologies, Michelle. My brain is 40 years old and not functioning nearly as well as it used to.

Joe was too busy fighting killer squirrels to make it. And Tithi got married.