18,583 words. It has me slipping off page 5 (last night I enjoyed a brief respite on page 4, but then the East Coast has three hours of today on me).

I keep wanting this to be a fun, silly little exercise that i can slap random side-dares into and congratualte myself for my inventiveness, but darn it, the story keeps getting semi-serious on me despite RHPS references, insulting trees, and planets with dress codes.

I want light-hearted rambling fluff so I can pack in the wordage and impress myself and all my friends by having my name on the first page of word-rankings. And all the other little darelings will tremble before me and cower before the enormity of my word-count.

yeah.