PittsburghPanthers.com - Panthers History[Link disabled]

1955 - Julius Pegues becomes the first African-American basketball player at Pitt. Pegues, who came to Pitt from Tulsa, Okla., became just the fourth player in school history to score over 1,000 career points (1,047 from 1955-58).

What odd random facts you can find on the Internet! Here I am checking some background information for the novel (a couple of characters attend Pitt, and one of them plays on the women's basketball team) and I come across someone from my hometown breaking a color barrier. I wonder what high school he played for. My money's on Booker T. Washington, if it existed in '55.

I am happy because I broke the 50 page mark on my novel today. 'Course it's only first draft, and massive revisions must be made to a large part of those 50 pages because of things I've figured out since, but it is now officially the largest written project I've ever produced. Longer than my 36 page baseball short story, longer than my Honors thesis, longer even than the stupid research paper on Laura Ingalls Wilder I did for 10th grade English. Ha, take that Mrs. Rolfe! (At least a few of my readers will appreciate that.)

I have also not been out of my apartment all day. Is that weird? I spent all day typing in the latest section of the novel -- I always write my first drafts by hand, it just works for me -- and most of the evening goofing off, watching TV, and knitting. I've had my window open all day, though, so it's not like I'm not getting any fresh air. At least it means I'm not distracting myself by heading for the mall like last week.