I ran away to the circus.. er, Renaissance Festival today!
It was pirate weekend, so I got into a pseudo-costume (I wore jeans), and met Donna, Jon, Lando and some friends.
It was a long drive, by the way. Geez. It seems so much shorter when there is another person in the car.
This is us in front of the waterwheel by the carousel, which was the designated "let's all meet here" location.

This is actually not so much a report as a Yay! Photos! post, with occasional commentary. That link goes to my Flickr set, which will in turn sometimes sync up to the Azkatraz Flickr Pool.
Here's my Mug Shot:

( Further adventures under the cut )

I've forgotten the LJ usernames of half the people I met already, but if anybody wants to pop in and remind me, feel free!

I think I need to make blogging a daily habit, although I'm using Twitter a lot more now that it's part of my job.

Yesterday I went to get a new glasses prescription.  I had forgotten that optometry takes three zillion more hours than my regular doctor. They did all kinds of things that I don't think I've ever had done before, like dye drops to check pressure and various scopes to peer into the depths. The guy doing the exam was very nice and willing to chat and joke about the various machines, which is always nice. I like a doctor (well, in this case a student) who is willing to explain things. He dilated my eyes, which takes about a half hour to process in itself. 

So while I was sitting around letting my pupils grow, another student came in and asked me to take part in her research project - it would be very brief, non-invasive, and I could do it while I was dilating.  So I said sure, and went and looked inside a big box at some glowy lights, telling her when they changed color. Then my student doc and the supervising doc took turns peering into my eyes again, and at the end of the exam they said, "Your astigmatism is gone."  Hey, cool.  Turns out that if I don't wear contact lenses for two years, my lenses/corneas/whatever don't warp as much. No mention was made of whether warps in the soul bounce back, too. Fun times.

I'm leaving for San Francisco on Wednesday, and starting my packing this weekend. I'm beyond worrying about costume pieces, now.  I have a hat, that will have to do. My art is printed but not yet in the frames. I need to run a final back-up of my data before traveling with the laptop.

This is the extremely busy and stressful time at the office, and with the con just past and the one coming up I am not in a good place to be worried or stressful about fandom stuff. It's just not worth it. So I'm skimming most things, concentrating on getting back into a creative mode so I can do my art, and not worrying about anything but getting to Azkatraz and meeting all the cool folks I hang out with online.

In other fandom news, by the way, I've suddenly become completely addicted to fanfic in the new Star Trek 'verse. Mostly Kirk/McCoy. This has not been exactly my cup of tea in the past, but it's entirely too much fun now. I very much like most of the fics' take on Uhura, in any pairing. She's a mad genius. Also, I've noticed that fandom seems to have taken a huge shine to Sulu/Chekov, of which I really can do nothing but approve, right? My question is, why is there no love for Scotty, in any verse? Show me the Scotty fic, folks.

Here I am at my lunch break, thinking that I have not been doing much blogging lately.
Things have been happening, thoughts have been thunk, writing has not really happened but a lot of art has gotten done...

I've been calling on my parents a lot for help with the apartment, arranging and unpacking and such. I have some stuff from IKEA that hasn't yet come out of the box - perhaps I should have that Flat Pack Party after all.
I think that this evening I shall go buy a television at last, and maybe put some books away.

Lately I've had lots of meetings and Meet-ups and a seemingly overwhelming amount of volunteer commitments, mostly online. How did I end up working on two back-to-back cons? Urgh.
I haven't got a costume for any of them, either. Although I may go shopping for something to wear to the dances, at least. 
I'm test-running some less-demanding-than-Adobe art software on my Mini, so that I won't have to lug Ginevra and all of her expensive software to San Francisco for the art demo I'm supposed to do. Does anybody out there use openCanvas regularly?  Got any good tips? Tutorials?

Other randomness:
Read The Graveyard Book, and it was excellent. Haven't yet managed to finish any of the other books I took from the library. Rereading the Enchanted Forest Chronicles omnibus instead.
Ran through the entirety of Avatar: The Last Airbender again. The finale chokes me up, man. Beautiful stuff. I may need to get DVDs.
Still re-watching Merlin, too. I'm easy.
Really, really wish I had Ghostbusters  on DVD.
I've made a lot of grilled cheese lately.  Also used almost every pan I own. Now I just need to make cookies (or pizza) and I think I will have used all possible kitchen tools at least once.
Have made minor progress on the current quilt, but won't really get far until the sewing table stops being the "put everything down here when you come inside" table. Working on it.
Been keeping a better food diary for the past few days, along with a general journal. I've stopped trying to separate everything and am just keeping everything in one book now. This combined with regular check-in with the Wellness Counselor at Rice should help me get a better handle on things. I hope.

And that's enough for now. Lunch break is well over, and I have things to do.

I love going to see movies with my parents. They are a riot.
( slightly spoilery riot within )

Also, there was a preview for G.I.Joe: The Rise of Cobra and I squealed in excitement in the first three seconds, which made everybody look at me funny. Sorry, but I recognized it immediately by the menacing Christopher Eccleston surrounded by evil types. Yay!

Mom did comment that so many of the movies we saw previews for were dark and violent. I was horrified by the preview for the new Tarantino film, and the ones for Transformers and Terminator both involved a bit of robot apocalypse so they were also really dark. Terminator moreso than Transformers in terms of actually being almost always dark and dreary with guts and explosions, but... can we maybe make a few good SF movies that aren't marketed solely to video gamers?

Packing, shopping for a bed, figuring out that maybe I'm hypoglycemic in addition to the stomach issues because I almost passed out and was shaking Friday night and had to miss a birthday gathering for a friend because I didn't trust myself to drive.  :(
But Saturday was much better and I watched what I ate and there were birthday people to greet and a party to go to. (Why is almost everybody I know born in March?) Donna and Jon and Lando the Magnificent Walking, Babbling, Playing Boy met me for Donna's birthday lunch, and have now seen my apartment, empty and echoing. Lando christened it with drool and laughter, so yay.

Then I went to my cousin Dave's birthday party, which was a live action role-playing card game called Long Live the King.  It was pretty awesome, although I was still trying to control my headachy symptoms (plus even I get a couple weeks when the pollen wreaks havoc with my sinuses).  I played the Archbishop with a 3-minute Mitre made of construction paper, while there were vast levels of costumery among the other folks.  From simple tunics and capes to full-on Henry VIII style gear, it was a good night for costumes.
I didn't know most of the people there, because this cousin was one of the ones that I used to see only for Christmas each year, if then.  But he's discovered that I'm a geek and a gamer, so now I get invited to these things. :)
It was a fun time, but as with many of these games, I think that the next time it's played, things will go much more smoothly.  Last night we were a bit confused about what we could and could not do, and nobody knew exactly how to win. It always takes at least one round for the players to really grok the strategy.  So, I can only hope we find excuses to play again!

Also, another cousin had a birthday last week (and I should have e-mailed him or something - bad me.) and Peter and Hillary are Tuesday and today, respectively.
March - a popular month for being born.

Today mom and I have made it our mission to buy me a bed, and then I have to get the rest of the assorted misc junk off my floor and shelves and into boxes, because the movers are coming on THURSDAY. Yeep.

Here are the caveats:
I don't tend to watch TV, so I have seen neither the show nor any clips.
The web site video doesn't work if you're logging in outside the UK, so all I had to go on were the character descriptions and stills. 

Transcript of chat below:
( a plenitude of snark and a lack of saxony goodness, or evilness as the case may be )

For those who are interested, I actually labeled the photos from Julie's excellent visit to Houston a few weeks ago.

We spent a day and a half exploring Houston's museums and gardens, including the Cockrell Butterfly Center at the Museum of Natural Science (where I discovered that I love the idea of insects but not so much the reality of them. Eek! Shiver! Cringe!).  And two days at the Texas Renaissance Festival.

This is the Flickr Set.

We're having a good time!



So are the Storm Troopers!



More photos to follow when I get a spare minute to process them. Plus of course we're going back to the Festival tomorrow.

I'm working a College Fair at Lamar today, and Vassar sent me all kinds of brochures and things for the event. It's rather awesome and intimidating at the same time. I don't think my application would cut it today. Kind of scary, these kids. Really scary, the cost of a year at school. Extremely scary, the vital stats of their admitted students. 
I feel old.  ;)

But I'm wearing my X-Wing fighter pendant to stave off feelings of age by engaging my inner 12-year-old geek. I don't feel like a grown-up most of the time, either.
Speaking of being a kid on the inside, I should have had somebody take a photo of me in my pink flower hat when Mom and I were cleaning out the craft closet. A friend's mom made it for me when I was eight or nine, along with the stem-and-leaves tunic, and the hat, at least, still fits. Hey, now I don't have to do much Halloween prep!
(When I say pink flower hat, I mean my face sits in the middle and these big quilted pink petals stand up for the length of my forearm around it. It's awesome. We were the cutest elementary school flower children ever.)

I am running late on everything, it seems.
Too many holiday deadlines.
Not doing Nanowrimo this year, which is a relief.
I have no idea what to wear to a costume party.
Politics continues to suck.
eSlate training in three weeks. What joy, I tell you! (Fair warning: that web site takes ten billion years to load, and then links will open randomly (and slooooowly) into PDFs, video presentations, or other multimedia without telling you first. I love it! Not.)
Gastro appointment next week! Fun with my insides!
College Fair (appearing for Vassar, weird) the week after that!
Office 40th Anniversary Gala the week after that!
Wow, October is full of stuff. I haven't even mentioned my three classes a week AND Meet-ups.
I would really like to also make the Bayou City Art Festival this year. We'll see, as it's the same weekend as eSlate and Apollocon stuff.
BUT! Excitement and squeeing shall commence, because when October is done, it's time for...  The International Quilt Show! Yeah, baby.

Because I am really good at memes but not at life stuff...

- medical stuff is going ok, have continued referrals, no real firm diagnosis yet but will continue with gluten-free diet until told otherwise.

- still out of shape. really really really wish the tai chi class was closer to me, or later in the day. considering yoga after work. has that worked for people I know? really? (my brother expressed interest in fencing. I could go out to the back yard and do my old college fencing workout. that would totally make me fall over.)

- I have cut back severely on my art exchange obligations for the autumn, mostly because the deadlines are all in Oct or early Nov and I have two Sept wedding weekends out of town, three classes at Rice, three portrait commissions (hm. is it still a portrait if it's of fictional characters?), and my regular meetings and meetups. Too bad more of the exchanges don't post for Epiphany or something.

- I picked up a bunch of hot patterns for costume pieces for something Steampunkish, which I will start muslins on as soon as I finish my Snape Quilt. (The Snape Quilt has to be done by the end of the month so I can ship it to its recipient, so perhaps I can get started on a jacket come the end of September.)

- I'm debating buying a Macbook Pro. Opinions? I can get a sweet educators' deal if I buy the machine and CS3.3 together. (I want Design Pro, of course.)

- DUDE WTF AM I GOING TO WEAR TO THESE WEDDINGS????
(And on the topic of what to wear, a quote from a great movie I just watched for the zillionth time:

Would you be prepared if gravity reversed itself? ... The only thing I can't figure out is how to keep the change in my pockets. I've got it - nudity!

and here, just because I LOVE THIS LINE:

We had, what, no one at the mutant hamster races. We had one entry for the Madam Curie look-alike contest, and he was disqualified later. Why do I bother?

I'm sure most of my flist knows the movie, but if you don't, get thee to a DVD store. Or my house, we can have a double feature with WarGames. And yes, before anyone asks, I'm aware of the WarGames 'sequel'.)

- I find what little I have seen of the Olympics to be completely saturated by sexism blatant and subtle, and it's actually extremely off-putting. Not even just the uniforms, although that is the most immediate symptom. I'm not really watching the games much, though, although I'm watching some of the fringe political and human rights stories engendered by them.

- I can't even be coherent on any topics of political or social import. Daily doses of Democracy Now! tend to shift me toward despair rather than hope, these days. But, everything gets a wee bit lighter when we listen to Rev. Gaddy on Air America. So I guess there's a teeny tiny bit of me that can imagine a world in which random detentions without recourse are not the norm, but rather the exception decried by the masses and punished by the courts. This country is doing nothing to ease my anxiety levels.

- Also, I really don't like the presidential candidates offered by the mainstream. I like them less and less the more they're allowed to talk, especially when they're allowed to talk to an Evangelical Christian pastor as if questions of religion were legitimate in a campaign for public office. Aaaaarrrrgh!

- You know who's cool? Cynthia McKinney. Doesn't really change my vote, unfortunately, because I'm committed to ousting the Republicans first and foremost, but it's nice to dream. And listen to someone genuinely progressive. May her voice be heard well into the next term as well.

This time with more luggage than usual. Seriously - so many shoes, and a giant plush snake.
I'm spending the weekend at Portus 2008 in Dallas with a bunch of other nuts.
Should be a grand event.
Lots of excellent food, interesting presenters, and awesome costumes! All Harry Potter, all the time!

So, wish me a safe drive, and I'll see you folks later!

We're spending the Fourth quoting movies and singing musicals (badly) on the patio.  Peter is grilling up steak, shrimp, kabobs, brats, and veggies. We're all playing Chicken Feet (a vicious, vicious game! hee.) with a round of Cranium in the future.
I finished the muslin of my cloak and will be fabric shopping tomorrow.
I hear rumors of sparklers for the back yard, as well.
There was Babylon 5 earlier, and there will be more later. Plus a marathon of The Twilight Zone, and some channel is supposed to play 1776.
Yay for holiday weekends.

Somewhere in this house there is a bin of muslin. My task for today is to find it and draft my cape. Egads.
Mayhap when I get started I'll take photos of the progress.

The only two decent photos from ApolloCon:
Demonic Robot Toasters in the ConSuite:

The one on the left is a Cylon with a moving LED light and sound effects.
The one on the right is a Demonic toaster and I forget what its sound effects were.
ETA: Chuck has corrected my sound effects: Actually, the Cylon toaster says "By your command," the classic BSG Cylon line.
The Amityville Toaster does the little Foamy the Squirrel song from the end of the cartoon, "Amityville Toaster."
Thanks, Chuck!


My new hat for Portus.

I'm wearing my "I'm blogging this" t-shirt so I suppose I actually should.

Friday was set-up and I spent several hours being a loyal minion. Also got to meet some cool people, played the Audience Plant and then the Voice of the Zombie Horde during the opening ceremonies, went to the Artists' Reception, and sat in on some kaffeeklatsches and panels.

Today has been busy. Went to the Arists' Workshop with Brad Foster this morning. Awesome. Really great time, although there were your usual conversation-hijackers in the group. Seems you can't really escape those at any con.
Went to a few panels, then of course I had to do my own. Fun times. The board room actually filled up, and several people stayed until the very end of the hour to talk tarot and storytelling. It was great.
The other workshop I did was a costume DIY activity that was poorly attended, so we closed up early and I went down to wait with the hordes for the masquerade.
Great music, fun costumes, funny MCs... it was a good time.
Now I've been doing various running-around and some sitting in my room decompressing before Scotch Tasting.
Speaking of which, I should get going to that.

More to come.

Oh, and I acquired a *rockin' awesome* witch's hat for Portus, guys.

So much loveliness!
The one quilt I wish I could share was Invitation: The Quilt of Belonging which was tremendous. It has squares for every world nationality and indigenous group in Canada. It's huge and gorgeous and so so very impressive, but photographs were not allowed. Instead, here is the website for the project.


Best in Show - a dream of the children of the world gathering around Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Gorgeous beyond belief. I got a little choked up. Seriously.


Red and Black Dress with Skull & Dagger Panel. Totally amazing. I want one.


Ladybugs! Detail of a bigger quilt. Beautiful stitching lines. Amazing color.

See my whole Flickr Set.

LOTS.

OF.

LITTLE.

BUTTONS!!

Egads. 

But I'm really, really pleased with it so far.  Yay!