Mostly this is my to-do list for the weekend, feel free to ignore. I know I will! (Actually this kind of turned into a decent update of what all I've got going on right now.)

SATURDAY

-Attempt to get up at a decent time. If this occurs, some of the writing tasks can hopefully be completed in the morning.
-10:00am: lynxreign and I are going to Sears to look at microwaves, because a few days ago ours decided it hated us and would rather blow fuses than cook for us ANY LONGER. My life has been very sad without my popcorn.
We're also thinking we might get lunch while we're out, which would be nice.

-1:00pm: Wyrding Studios Jewelry Party at shadesong's. Anyone who wants to come with let me or Song know and I will show you the pretty things what kythryne makes.

-Once back home, clean the bathroom. We need to prepare for our Thanksgiving trip down to see the garrity family, after all.

-IAF stuff. Still need to write up blog posts and reports for the board and whatnot, as well as get the book money sorted and dealt with. Also Wendy sent me her pics from the event, so I need to get them added to the album and tagged and stuff. Also also book review for Interfictions 2 is coming, and there is even a draft of the first couple paragraphs waiting for me back at the book blog. So hopefully I can knock some of this stuff out before we leave Wednesday.

- Book reviews in general. The "Have read, should post about" stack is REALLY, REALLY BIG. This proctoring gig means tons of reading time.

- Resume work. I might need to make a longer post about this, but the short explanation is that I had an appointment with one of the career services counselors at Simmons today, and let me tell you they are AWESOME. The lady I met with was so seriously helpful and encouraging that if I get a job soon I am sending her flowers. And then I'm sending aliwings flowers or something for being my unofficial career advisor for a few years now. So yes, I have a completely marked up resume and several samples and a lot of good ideas of what I need to do here, and I really feel reinvigorated about the whole thing, which is nice.

-More cleaning. Specifically the dining room table, which has once again disappeared under my detritus, which in this case mostly means yarn. Plus there's stuff I need to find before we leave.

-Podcast. Oh holy crap I fell down on this, yikes. I need to finish kythryne's episode and possibly do something with the Interfictions audio, which is so. good. I nearly died when I listened to it last Saturday because it just. . .yum. It came out nicely. So I need to decide if I want to try to make that a standalone special episode, and check with the authors and musicians to see if that's even something they would want, and I want to send the whole file to. . .IDK I *think* I know who at the IAF so they can do what they want with it, and also break it up into "tracks" so each author's story is separated from the others, and probably send those out to the authors so they can do what they want with that.

SO YES. Some of this can be done on the train to and from VA, and maybe a little while we're there, but mostly we are going to hang out with people and hiding behind the laptop the whole time is less than appealing. I am tired, but this is all totally accomplishable stuff.

I got the pictures from Friday night online. Here for Flickr, or on my Facebook if you're into the tagging thing. Normally I don't bother but for this, you know. It's promotional. And stuff. Audio, video, and write-ups still to come. I'm becoming more coherent about how awesome it was though! I need to do write-ups for the IAF and all of my various blogs (because look! This actually applies to all of them and that's. . .sort of weird but whatever each one needs a different write-up and that means I will NEVER BE DONE with this event. I'm ok with it.), and I need to do the financial reporting on the book sales and get that money and the checks taken care of. But things are moving along. Interesting how nobody ever tells you how much of an event planner's time will be taken up AFTER the event, lol! Not that I mind, I just keep thinking of new things I should do for this. I learned a lot though, and I think we want to do a salon at some point in the near-ish future, so I'll be thinking about that while I'm writing all the words ever about this one. :)

Tonight was so good I can't be coherent about it yet. It was awesome, it was fabulous, people had a good time, books were sold, and someone is writing a term paper for her PhD on our event. No, really.

I will be coherent tomorrow. Tonight I am still coming down off the adrenaline of being in a room full of people who are there for an event that I put together and seeing it all come off beautifully.

That's right, it's the flyer for the event Friday! Thanks ultra_lilac! Feel free to post it around or just admire it's beauty.


Also, the LA Interfictions reading that happened last night? They had DAVE FOLEY. I'm jealous, and consoling myself with some of the awesomeness we have planned for Boston. I mean, not DAVE FOLEY, but still. We will have our own awesome. *hmph*

So if you were in the market for a giant hank of crazy art yarn, now is the time to go bid. Not that anyone I know would really be that into this, but I'm excited about it. :) I actually completely love this yarn, and can't wait to see who gets it and what they do with it.

Auction link

But I got my copy of Interfictions 2 last night, and uh, you guys.

I'm in a book. Like, just on the acknowledgement page and it's because I volunteer for the IAF and put together the event in Boston and everything and they're just thanking me for that (although perhaps they should wait until the event actually happens for the thanking OH GOD ANXIETY EVERYONE PLEASE COME) but. My name. Is in an actual published book and I didn't know they were going to do that and I cried a little when I saw it. I'm on a page with Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman and other artists that I admire greatly and then there is my name. WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN. And again it's the volunteer thing and it makes sense and it's not like I wrote a story that got published or anything, like, say, shadesong (she is in the book), but STILL.

I don't even know I'm just freaking out a little over here.

And now I have to review the book for the book blog because I promised and it's not like I can even PRETEND to be objective, because really.

It's a real book that you can get at Barnes and Noble or Amazon or whatever and it was on Amazon's Top 10 SF/Fantasy books the other day and then there is my name, for some reason this is my life?

Hi.

I am eating frosting straight from the tube. This may mean one or more of several things.

1. I am depressed.
2. I feel like a kid today.
3. There is no other food in the house.
4. There was a tube of frosting left on the counter. What, you really thought I needed a reason?


The frosting is red, for the record.

You guys YOU GUYS you have to look at this. I completely forgot to take overall pics of this stuff before I sent it off, so I've been waiting for these pics to go up so I could show off better. Remember how I was spinning art yarn for shadesong's story in the Interfictions anthology? Preview pics here! YES! I love the way they came out, and I'm so incredibly pleased with how the yarn came out. So excited about this you guys, you have no idea.

The auctions started today, but they're doing like, a couple each day, and mine isn't up yet. If you want to see what is up or keep an eye on the pieces, even if it's just for curiosity's sake, they are here. Squee!

Dude. Yesterday when I got home I crashed hard. Like, planned to nap from about 1:30 to maybe 3, but was actually completely passed out until about 5:30. Got a little worried because I was coughing a lot right before I fell asleep, but I feel fine now, so I don't know? The great thing was that at 11 I was still totally ready for bed, and slept really damn well last night, and feel pretty ok this morning. So I guess I just really needed ALL THE SLEEP.

But I did get a rollicking fun chat with ivan23 between the sleepings, and there was some other goofy fun things happening, so all in all yesterday was kinda awesome. I have a half-assed Halloween costume ready to go for tonight, pie baking commences soon, and the party should be a good time.

Everybody have a fantastic Halloween!

kythryne's anniversary update and sale is live. *Whimper* Pretty things. Yes.

Ok, there's stuff. I should mention it.

1. There's this guy named Dave who's about to lose his house, and the internet will not stand for it. This is partly because a lot of good people love Dave, including friends of mine, which is why I mention it. They're not asking for you just to throw money at it or anything, oh no. There's auctions. Like, really cool ones. So go over to save_dave and find cool stuff to bid on, and get your Christmas shopping done and feel good at the same time. If you want to know more popelizbet's original entry on how awesome Dave and his place are is here.

2. You know what's awesome? What's awesome is when someone gets to the point of being so pissed off about problems in our society that their brain just explodes with a really cool idea. Enter bitchinkitchn, which is triedthistwice's brain explosion baby. Here, I'll let her tell you about it. Join! Share recipes! When the book comes out I'll be talking it up, I'm sure, and you should all buy a copy so Jacksonville, Florida can get a Rape Crisis Center.

3. ZOMG IAF EVENT IS COMING UP EVERYBODY COME. Nov. 13. At the Lily Pad in cambridge, it is going to be freakin' sweet. I made a Facebook page for it. That gives more info on what's going down, and I get that a lot of people are going to be busy or it's not really your thing, but if it sounds interesting and you're free, PLEASE come, I've put a lot of work into this event and want it to be awesome. And it *will* be awesome, but it will be MORE awesome with you there. And you.

So yes, that's what I'm thinking about today. Well, that and hats.

Today is the day! The AFSP walk is in a few hours, if you meant to donate and forgot, here's that link again: Sponsor me!

Thanks!

This is how pretzelcoatl thinks of me.



I am not displeased.

So I am currently in a "leftover cycle" of food and I'm actually kind of enjoying it! It's making me be all creative and stuff! See, not too long ago, lynxreign had an idea for a chicken dish he wanted to try making for dinner. We invited over rayan4d2 and ioianthe, because they bear the brunt of our culinary experiments with good grace and a keen eye to what needs fixin', and lynx blogged about the ensuing meal here. It was quite yummy, and we had leftovers. We forgot to eat them, sadly, and the shame of it made me quite determined to not let the leftover veggies go to waste! So lynx looked up a recipe to use with the veggies that were still in the fridge, and I'll let him tell you the rest. That recipe was made entirely from stuff we already had on hand, which made us feel very clever. So clever, in fact, that we decided to make it again, for ioianthe and rayan4d2, even though it meant actually buying the ingredients and everything. It was quite successful the second time as well!

However, all that leftover finaglin' had made me start thinking in my own directions, and I turned to one of my favorite cookbooks of all time (of ALL TIME), even though I am no longer cooking just for me. It seems a lot easier to scale recipes up than down, after all, and this book has a lot of really good advice about shopping and preparing food. She's a lot like Alton Brown with less fun science, actually, in that she wants you to understand how different recipes relate. So there's a lot of good suggestions for dealing with leftovers.

I had decided that I wanted to try making my own soups more often, since my favorite red lentil soup is always so wonderful. I decided since we were getting a bunch of veggies anyway, I'd try a carrot soup.

( Recipes and the rest of the story back here )

I have way too much shit to do and not enough time to do it in to be letting the Roman Polanski thing take up so many of my brain cycles. If you think it's no big deal, or that somehow living in luxury in Europe is totally the same as actually serving his time because he didn't even get to accept his Oscar in person poor baby, I would invite you to never, ever speak about this to me. Ever. If you try, I'll probably just be responding with these links, over and over, until you go away.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/09/28/polanski_arrest/index.html

http://www.feministing.com/archives/017998.html

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2009/09/28/puzzle-activity-time/

I'm leaving comments on for now but I may change my mind.

It's been one year since we lost Wyatt.

One year wondering why.

One year missing my friend.

One year trying to make sense of this, and make sure everyone's lives are back together the way they should be, except we're all carrying around this missing piece, and nothing fit quite like it was supposed to.

One year of making sure I can still remember the way he smiled.

One year thinking I still don't know how to do this.

I almost wish I were religious, so I could have a ritual for this. It helps knowing that Buddhists all over the world prayed for him, he would have liked that a lot.

And since I'm talking about Wyatt, a reminder that some of us are walking in his memory to prevent others from going through this. Please help if you can.

Thank you.

Ok, OK, I've been bad about this and putting it off because this is really hard still. But I've waited until it's almost too late and I really want to make this a thing, so hi.

This time last year, a good friend of mine killed himself. He was a good man, had a wife and a housemate and friends who loved him, and none of us saw this coming. Mental illness and suicide are still so misunderstood and stigmatized and he didn't ask for help when he should have, and something awful happened, and we will never understand why or exactly what did happen. It's not fair, and it will never be ok, and because of this, we are walking in the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Out of the Darkness Community Walk on October 10th. You can sponsor me here, or you can sponsor my teammates. Yes, we are Team Monkey Hugs. Wyatt had a serious love of monkeys and was always ready with a hug, so we thought it made sense. :) This is our second year doing it, and the walk is for raising money for understanding and prevention, and the walk is for exposure to the issue and raising awareness and all of that too, but you know what? A big part of it for me is the fact that we get a chance to see this huge surge of people, all of whom have been affected by the suicide of someone they loved. That sucks, on the one hand, but on the other hand it's so amazing to know that we aren't alone in this, and we can see some of the stigma go away just by talking and sharing the stories of the people we loved who didn't know they could ask for help, or didn't know where to go for that help, or whatever it is that happened.

I know times are tough right now, I don't have a job either, you know? So please don't think I'm trying to guilt anyone or won't be your friend if you can't donate, I understand that for some people it's just not an option. If it is an option though, if you have even a couple of bucks you can throw at us for this, I'd appreciate it. I'm going to be pushing this kind of hard until the walk, just to make sure people see it, but seriously, if you can't donate, just tune it out, I'm not going to be upset at all. I would also ask that you spread the word for me whether you can donate or not.

And please remember that it's ok to ask for help when you need it, because I never want to go through this pain again.

Donate here.

Thank you.

If you're one of my friends from sf_drama, you know that Wednesday is PicPost day. If you're not in there, this is news to you, and not entirely necessary, but stick with me. Since I'm not hanging out in there anymore really, and never really participated in the theme days much anyway, and recently have begun to notice a backlog of pictures that need to be uploaded to Flickr and organized and whatnot, I'm instituting my own PicPost Wednesday. I may not stick with it, but the goal is that if I know I need to make a picpost on Wednesdays, it'll give me some motivation to spend some time working on my Flickr stuff on Tuesdays, and hopefully get it under control again. I may do themes, may not, mostly it's just going to be random stuff from my Flickr. Feel free to post your own stuff in the comments if you want, or steal the idea for yourself.

( And now, peectures )

I finally signed up for LibraryThing, if anybody wants to be book buddies. When we get a house and move we're planning to pick up a CueCat and catalogue everything as much as possible into there anyway, and I wanted to find a way to put a "Currently Reading" widget on Stackscene. The first part is still off in the future, and the second thing didn't work out because WP hates Javascript, but eh, I'm in there now anyway, and I figured out a way to roll my own widget, so it all works out in the end. I was amused to add the book I am currently reading and immediately find nojojojo, who is awesome, and then went ahead and added Desideria, since I went to the trouble to write a review and all, which meant I found mer_moon. Super awesome.

Same name as here, forgot to say that. (for when this goes over to FB, that name is emilytheslayer).

I had a different post I was going to make today, but some of my college friends posted these videos on FB and now I'm reeling. You don't have to watch them, you didn't know Heidi, it's ok.

But yeah. There was a girl I went to college with who was beautiful and smart and clever and wickedly funny as well as one of the sweetest, kindest people I've ever met. If something was broken or hurt she wanted to fix it, and if something was beautiful she wanted to share it with everyone. The summer after my freshman year, her junior year, she was killed in a car crash on her way home from her summer job. The first two videos are a memorial that another friend of ours put together. Clips of her performing and goofing off, and clips of him asking everyone to describe her in one word. The third video is from the tree planting ceremony we did for her. We used to go by and leave things near the tree. I think there for a while there were little lawn statue squirrels and stuff that someone found at a thrift store. No idea what's there now, as I haven't been back there in so many years. Next year will be 10 years since Heidi's accident, and watching these videos feels weird. I almost can't understand that so much time has passed, and I can't watch the videos without missing her and being a little confused that I can't just find her on Facebook somehow.

Plus watching these videos is a snapshot of my friends and family from college, and seeing faces I haven't thought about in forever, you know? Weird, but good. And yeah, that's me rambling for a while in the second video.

( Heidi's memorial )