Who the heck do I think I am?

So.

I still do not have a car that can get me to Pennsic.

I've been researching options.

The best option seems to be: Fly. JetBlue gets me to Pittsburgh and back for about the same price as a single day of one-way car rental. (Which, by the way... outrageous! And holding the car for a week while it sits on Steel Hill? Only slightly less outrageous.)

But. That just gets *me* there. And most of my clothes. It doesn't get my *stuff* there.

SCA-LJ Peeps (and especially those in the Boston area!) - who do we know with room in their truck, van, car, etc., who can help get my basic gear to war? I promise I'll pack light. I'll even leave the instruments home. (I can also posting a plea on the Carolingia LJ, but I thought I'd start with, y'know, personal connections first.) Contact info? Clue me. I'll gladly contribute a little toward gas, even.

This is all by way of insurance, of course: Now that I have a plane ticket, I'll likely find the right car and get it all done by July 31, right? RIGHT?

Hai.

Yeah, I was so busy over the weekend that...well, I forgot yesterday was Monday. I mean, with the coming home and all. And even though I was home last night...I was really whipped. So no Monday Meta for wee_chesters, no update from the weekend.

I suck.

Well.

( Saturday )

( Sunday )

Monday I got up, packed, and D&D and Mom drove me to the airport (BTW, they have a new RAV4 and love it, so that's a notch in its belt on the car decision). I called etakyma, who is the bestest non-spouse ever and she picked me up at Logan and then hung out with me yesterday until time to go to her rehearsal.

Then I watched Timeline, which wasn't nearly as bad as I'd been led to believe (but it was bad enough!), and then the first half of the new Andromeda Strain. Yes, it was a Michael Crichton night for me.

Andre Braugher is really looking old. Just sayin'.

BigBang - I have read through each parallel story on its own and made some modifications. I merged it back together and now I need to re-read it again. It went up 1,000 words, not down. But that's okay. One thing that's reassuring is that the "Modern" sections are only 5 pages shorter in total than the "Flashbacks" - so it's fairly even at least in terms of overall story length. I'm a little concerned that it's still light on casework, but this isn't so much about the file as the people. I'm also concerned with my John, but I think I can shut him down a tiny bit more and he'll be okay.

And the other thing? Yeah. Totally didn't do a Monday Meta. Sigh. And I had a topic, too! Now I can't remember it. Naturally.

Well. Today I started training our new Admin Coordinator! and called my doctor and convinced him to call in a Z-pack without making me come in and be seen. No, really. I can diagnose a sinus infection, doc. Just gimme the drugs.

So I'll pick that up on the way home, and I need to hit the grocery store or I won't have food.

Oh, and I got some pretty good news yesterday of a Supernatural nature, but I'm not able to talk about it yet. :^D

As far as all of you? Well, I hate to tell you, gang, but I'm probably at about skip=800. No lie. So, I'm terribly sorry, I'm declaring a moratorium on trying to catch up. I'll read LJ tonight with posts from the last day or so, but all the way back? Sorry. No. So if I missed anything major in the last 100 hours or so, I'm really sorry. Clue me. Except for Morgen and Erin's dad, because I know about that. :^(

Bring us pegkerr, mudblood428, drvsilla, and probably more of you out there.

Happy Birthday, y'all.


In other news: etakyma and I are twins! Or so our waitress thought the other day. Because, you know, we look so much alike.


Undecided about EyeCon in September. Would love to go. Just not sure financially/schedulewise it's a good move.

Cause there's still the matter of the car to settle. I guess I'm just not ready, though I'm slowly making progress. Once the draft for the BigBang fic is in (OMG, three/four days left, much to write still) I can relax a smidge. After Crown.

Argh. I need like a week off from life.

Man, I have had so much to do in the last week, I haven't had the slightest bit of time to journal about it.

Car update: Flat tire was a nail, but it was warrantied, so no cost! The body work will come in at $850. Called the woman and told her both estimates. Predictably, because the total is over $1,200, and she still hasn't got her own car fixed, she now thinks she might have to put in a claim through her insurance. Le Sigh. I really want a check. I want it so that I can apply it to the replacement for the car. Not that I don't love my Ashley! But a car that doesn't drive places reliably is just not really much good.

The reality check of the car made me reconsider reconsidering going to EyeCon. Also, no Gulf Wars this year, even if I could do it financially - schedule precludes, as it conflicts with Sound of Music.

Okay, so last night I beta'd a chapter, packed, presided over a board meeting, and *then* recorded, edited, and uploaded a 20-page fic with 10+ voices...until 2:00 AM. Took about an hour to get to sleep because of all the psyching myself up to stay awake. Alarm went off at 6, I arose at 6:30. Arrived at work at 8, worked pretty much non-stop until 4:30, at which point I hightailed it (as fast as the MBTA would take me) to the airport, got on my plane, and flew here. Thought I would sleep on the plane, but instead I typed in the longhand of chapter 11 I'd written yesterday and today, and then kept typing until they made me turn off the computer, which was only seconds after I killed a major Victim-of-the-Week, yay, go me.

Retrieved bags, waited for grouchyoldcoot, who picked me up and drove us through torrential rain to Max and Erma's, which was closed, so we went to the Sharp Edge, had deep fried cheese and then a yummy salad, drove home, admired the progress on his kitchen, helped insert the dishwasher hose into the freshly drilled hole that Joel drilled while I was watching him do it, unpacked the suitcase FULL of his Christmas presents (both his, as in for him from me, and his as in, from him for others) that he couldn't get into his luggage while he was visiting me, and now, we're catching up on email. It's 1:15 AM! I've been up for many hours, with only about 3 1/2 hours of sleep to have started me off.

:Iz ded. Okay. Girl Genius and then brush teeth and then CRASH.

We had a huge storm this afternoon.

Huge. And still coming. So the office closed early, our read-through got canceled, and I get to WATCH MY SHOW tonight!

Of course, it took a solid FIVE HOURS to get home. Left at 1:30 PM, got off the bus at Mem Drive before it turned right for Kendall and *walked* 15 minutes to Central Square. Ten minutes later I was at Harvard...where I waited for 40 minutes for a 73, and then we crawled (pretty much literally) all the way down Mt. Auburn / Trapelo. After an additional 90 minutes on the bus...I hopped off at Slade street, popped into the CVS there for milk (and eggnog) and walked the rest of the way home.... and got in at 6:30 after slogging through ALL THAT SNOW.

Jeebus. However, I've changed, I'm warm, I'm IN, and I will have SHOW in about half an hour. With eggnog.

Hee.

OH - and the wonderful and darn-near incomparable ficwriter1966 posted her response to my fic request of a few months ago as part of her marathon Christmas ficapalooza. It's called "Family Ties" and it's up here.

Go read and give her some love! Bobby! Dean! Ties!

Had an overall great weekend that descended into craptasticity by Sunday evening.

Got to Philadelphia on schedule and met blackholly and give her a picture he drew, because Spiderwyck is one of his fave books. Cool.

My aunt, Elaine, also came into town and paid for a one-day pass, and hung out with us until about 5:00 pm. Also saw awelkin briefly and throughout the day.

Charles Vess is delightful! I forgot that Michael Hague would be there, so did not bring books for him to sign and didn't feel like buying any. Also never saw the Matthewses, so I could have left my heavy Arthurian Book of Days, The Bardic Sourcebook, and Gawain home, but of course, had I not brought them, I would have seen them immediately. Likewise, ellenkushner's presence was not known to me on Saturday, and she didn't have signings scheduled until after I was supposed to be in the air returning home.

Supposed to be. Because my plane took off an hour and a half late - we taxied out later than we were supposed to have *landed* - and what with all the waiting, I accidentally left my jacket in the seats at the gate. Realized it halfway up the aisle to my seat on the plane, though, so had to get a flight crewman (co-pilot, I'm pretty sure) to escort me back and retrieve my coat. It turns out that the nice lady who had been sitting next to me planned to bring it on board with her, so I would still have been reunited with my T pass and my house keys (and my coat!), but no one can guarantee these things, so better that I remembered when I did and not as we were pulling away from the gantry.

Anyway. Flight (once we actually ascended) took 45 minutes, but it took fully 2 hours to get home from the airport. Grr. By which time I was horribly late for rehearsal, but went anyway.

I will not rant here about David. Really. Because I know it's partly that I have been tired, and partly that I'm bitchy, but God Damn, that man does not listen well. Nor do I feel like he trusts me as an actor. Different styles. Or maybe we're too much alike. I don't know. But not ranting.

So what was FaerieCon like? Well, it was a good first effort, but basically it was one big exhibit hall with vendors. They had one of the rooms on the lower floor (which reminds me, Elaine offered to take us upstairs to the bigger halls and show us, but we never did get up there), and it was large and open and had no divisions and most importantly, nothing to absorb sound. They had two stages set up, one on either side of the back of the room, but if one went further than about 20 yards away from the sound system, it was impossible to hear. It was very difficult to really hear and understand even *with* the amplification.

As for vendors, yes, there were lots. Future Relics - I got to chat with Billy and Simon and Maggie. (Apparently my replacement ring is on tap, as soon as they do another casting. Yay!) And fabricdragon - I couldn't remember who said you knew her--it was liamstliam - but it turns out we are separated by 2 degrees on like 5 planes. Because she is the one who suggested "Bad-Ass Faeries" as a title to Danielle! Heh.

Oh, and theboomboom, Tiernan Redwolf sends his love.

So, the thing is? It was a trade show / shopping mall on fantasy/faerie themes, and while there was a LOT of cool stuff, and some really beautiful clothes, fabrics, etc., it was all stuff I really have no use for. I'm not going to spend $95 on a bias-cut jaggedy-hemmed velvet skirt, no matter how pretty it is. There was one merchant who had gorgeous stuff, and really interesting: he hand-felted fabric and dyed it, he had dyed china silk camisoles, and then he had dyed camisoles over which he dribbled liquid latex in contrasting colors. The effect created some partially rubberized clothing, and as he put it, it added "boning structure". But it was seriously expensive. The felted pieces that I liked best were over $200. Um. No.

But lots of good costuming ideas. I am sorry that I didn't see the fashion show, but watching people walking around gave me a lot of great mental imagery.

I hope that next year they get different spaces for the programming, and offer a little more in the way of it. Even if I'd been on a flight scheduled later, I don't think we'd have had any reason to go back. Except for Ellen Kushner's Thomas the Rhymer. And the Matthews signing.

So here it is only Monday and I'm exhausted. I'll be dragging my ass all week to get to Friday.

But it was SOOO great to see Wendy again, and to spend time with Elaine, and to see Catherine ever-so-briefly. And it was fun.

This is mainly for me, to help organize myself as I think about what's going on for the rest of the year.

Now that I've finished the monster fic that would not be simple even though I tried, I have some other stuff and deadlines and travel coming up.

Tonight / This weekend:
-Pay Bills
-Take CD-Rom and certified mail to Post Office and get mailed
-More laundry? Clean?

Next FANFIC projects:
-ASOIAF - I owe this for a New Year's Resolution at Yuletide. The request was for Jaime/Loras angst and it's driving me buggy because so far what I have is *awful* and I hate it, but I'm going to JUST FINISH the darn thing already and get it posted so it's not hanging over my head. This means *before* the SPN plot bunnies eat my brain away entirely. It also means before the end of October because I have a self-imposed deadline for something I want done by Halloween.
-The thing I want done by Halloween.
-Supernatural / West Wing Crossover - Amy and I have written this but our beta has been unable to get it back to us before posting it.
-Supernatural / NCIS crossover - Companion (of sorts) to the West Wing Crossover
-Five Times... - I completely fail at the concept that a 5x fic is supposed to be short snapshots, but there's good stuff and it all fits together. I'm struggling with my 5th one, though.
-Assorted other SPN fics and snippets

Editing:
We're getting going with a few other anthologies. The list can be viewed at Sidhe na Daire if anyone is interested in submitting. So there will be reading and editing coming up on these. And I should probably write a story or two for at least one of them....

Speaking of which, we're promoting the book at FaerieCon and yes, I'm going. Stop by if you're there!

Which brings me to TRAVEL.

September 7-9: Bards & Bows, Sterlynge Vayle
September 14-16: Coronation, BMDL
October 5-7*: Crown, Thescorre
October 12-14: FaerieCon, Philadelphia
October 26-28*: Birthday Tourney, BMDL (very tentative)
November 9-12: Site Visit, Orlando

Thanksgiving? Christmas? No idea yet.

*Maghnus, the 8th is Columbus Day which means I'll have a holiday on your birthday! Depending on Cara, we could extend the visit? If not, I might stay in Rochester an extra day to be with Mom (and to dig out comics and books to take with me for authors to sign at FaerieCon....)

Lots of stuff going on. Oh, right. I'm supposed to be auditioning for *shows* somewhere in all this. Meh.

I'm back from Prophecy and Pennsic.

Prophecy was great - exhausting, but exhilerating at the same time. The auction went really well, too - we raised over $2,300 for Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. Thank you, fandom! From what I could tell people really enjoyed the programming and other activities.

Pennsic was...well, Pennsic. Hot, sticky, humid, rainy...not the best year, weatherwise. And I hated that it was so short - I barely got acclimated and it was time to go home. I did have fun, despite getting heat exhaustion Wednesday (though the Wakefield plays went very well, they were sadly underattended due to all the heat), but I wish I'd had more time and more voice.

Got home Sunday afternoon, immediately unloaded all the crap from the car, took the rental back to the Marriott, where etakyma picked me up and ferried me home. Then I showered for 20 minutes - 20 glorious minutes of continuous, steamy water. Bliss. And caught up on email.

But I have not caught up on LJ. Sadly, I've lost two weeks. So if there's anything major that I missed and should go check out, let me know, y'all.

Okay, back to work, where I am *buried*, btw.