So, I haven't really blogged much in the last few weeks, just highlighting a few things.
I've been busy with work and fandom, and that's pretty much been it. Also reading - I did a lot of reading recently.
Soulless by Gail Carriger -- awesome and funny and really enjoyable.
The Magicians by Lev Grossman -- intriguing and painful and extraordinary and terribly sad.
I'm in the middle of Boneshaker by Cherie Priest, which is so far excellent.

Also on Friday Mom and Dad and I watched Neverwhere. I'd never seen it, although I sort of remember reading it, maybe. It was quite awesome, and also had a lot of really amazing guest stars.

I'm eating Mom's Thanksgiving leftovers and they're full of yumminess. But now thanks to Rose Tyler and my Doctor Who marathon, I really crave french fries.  Rose and her chips.  Geez.

Today I'm in the middle of Season Two of Doctor Who and have seen the latest episode of Merlin, plus Merlin: Secrets & Magic  (why isn't it a half hour like DW:Confidential, I ask you?), and The Real Merlin and Arthur special, which was hilarious. I want more of the footage from the driving, because that was where they spent most of their days. Also, I have now seen 3 out of 6 members of the Merlin cast guesting on Doctor Who. And I know that Midnight is coming up later.

I'm working on lots of art for holiday exchanges, but once those are turned in (mid-December), I'll be done for now. That means I'll be able to concentrate on my own projects again, yay.
I'm in a short course at Rice Continuing Studies as well, which has two more sessions, and for that I'm working on graphite pieces based on Merlin and the Knights of the Tarot. Hopefully soon I'll be re-doing them in color as well.

OK, back to drawing.

Long day at the polls, but relatively easy, too. It was a lovely space this time, and fabulous weather, and I got to do some writing planning, plus watched some Merlin.

This is the piece I did in the studio art class that just finished up today. She's a new incarnation of Sofia the Clockwork Engineer, and I think that this version of her is a character in the story I'm writing.


This is the 2009 Heritage Society Quilt Committee offering, called "The View from My Hammock". My mom did five, count 'em, five of the squares. Mom is awesome. I got a credit because I did some drafting and designing. I did not sew any of this quilt, though!

Friday night the parental units and I descended upon one of Houston's dens of indie rock, Fitzgerald's, to see the debut of Peter's new band, CommieHilfiger. Yes, it's satire. They were hilarious and loud and awesome. And they did a synchronized dance number. Win!

I still haven't finished the quilt.  Argh. Soon, though.  Soon.

Dad and I went to see Star Trek on the IMAX. It was pretty hilarious. I noticed lots of details I'd missed the last (10) time(s) I saw it.

Have now been mostly spoiled for the first episode of Series 2 of Merlin but I find I don't mind so much. Not sure if that will continue for the entire run, but what with having to wait two weeks for any opportunity to see it, a bit of spoilery speculation is fun.

Still running deadlines, and now I'm also pinch-hitting, which is fine but more deadlines. I thought I'd get to work on tiny shrines this weekend, but it's so not happening. Time to get some time-management going.

I'm back from the adventure that was WorldCon, ready to read the great entries in the Snarry Games that I missed, and catch up with the BLU and Merlin Big Bang entries.  w00t!
I should also go grocery shopping.
My travel season has come to an end, except for short weekend drives to local events. No more flying for a while, not until Christmas in all likelihood.
It's been a fun summer, though, full of great people, exciting places, and gorgeous fun.

Now I really do need to concentrate on unpacking my apartment into something more livable. And finishing this wedding quilt that's been sitting on the shelf all summer.

Also, Jim Kirk is a total manwhore. (It made sense in Montreal.)

-- Jaye and I are going to hell.
-- Jaye fell asleep in the panel on Consciousness.  (I fell asleep in the Putting the World in WorldCon panel)
-- I feel like I walked several miles along the corridors at the party hotel.
-- the Polish restaurant in Old Montreal is awesome, as I remembered it, and I really must get back there for dinner.
-- We are still in search of decent coffee, but the place in the Palais serves "cafe mocha" ghetto-style, which is hot chocolate with regular coffee poured into it. OMG, it is So Damn Good.
-- became a pre-supporting member of the Texas 2013 bid. Yay.
-- random guy in the panel about Genocide in Literature spent 5 minutes of panel time summarizing the most recent Star Trek movie.
-- Charles Stross predicts human drivers will be illegal in 30 years...
-- Paul Krugman to Charles Stross: So where do you get your ideas?
-- Opening Ceremonies included a really good contortionist. Those folks always make me cringe a little, though, when they fold their spine backwards just below their diaphragm. Eep.
-- Neil Gaiman seemed shorter than I am when I ran into him (almost literally in a narrow doorway). That is so weird. Also, he did not offer Jake a blow job. (But hey, it's only Thursday.)
-- Margarita ok. Aquavit excellent. La Fin du Monde local microbrew AWESOME.
-- Now Jaye and I are going to bed.

I just finished a marathon viewing of Torchwood: Children of Earth on On Demand, and now all the reaction posts I know folks made to discuss it are way way way way down my flists because of the broadcast schedule... 

anybody got any links to discussion?  I'd like to read some commentary. It helps me process.

(I liked it, by the way, but that won't stop me from wanting to read why other folks hated it.)

Also, have now done laundry in preparation for Montreal trip. Need to remember to pack the pirate coat this time.

ETA, out of politeness (which I didn't get because I was spoiled for it in a comment thread for a totally unrelated fandom): SPOILERS IN THE COMMENTS.

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.

In case anybody didn't know, this weekend is Houston's awesome fantastic superriffic science fiction, fantasy, and horror convention -

ApolloCon!

Yay! It's a fun place to hang out!

And I really must remember to carry my camera around, and occasionally actually use it. :)

I've had a rather bad several days, interrupted by some really great stuff.
Been doing art, building furniture, being very depressed, having a great time at work, going to various meetings, being depressed again, calling therapists and doctors, and re-arranging my living quarters.
I got to go to the ancestral home for Mom's birthday on Sunday to play Ticket to Ride: Europe with Mom, my aunt, the scion and Hillary. And then on Tuesday Dad and I went to IKEA for dinner and to pick up the table I wanted. Mom came over yesterday to help me put it together, along with the laptop table and task chair that I'm using now for the computer. It's so much easier to do stuff with a workstation that lets me keep a good posture. Typing on the laptop on the coffee table just was not a winning situation.
Due to my two bouts of severe sorrow, I got behind on my art commitments, so I'm working tonight on finishing the last overdue one.
I'm also watching a DVD that isn't Merlin. Ha, ha, ha, I know.  I've watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Real Genius, and now I'm watching the really awesome episodes of Season 3 of Babylon 5.

OMG my love for Andreas Katsulas as G'kar just swells my heart to bursting.  God, what brilliance. Such a good show... such a loss.
Ok, moment over.

Now I'm having some dessert (angel food cake with strawberries) as a reward for finishing the line art for this overdue piece - with my fanart style, when the line art is final, the piece is 60% done.
Tomorrow I'm home from work, so I'll be finishing up some other obligations, including data entry, and more furniture arranging plus the disposal of all the styrofoam and cardboard.

I'm really having a lot of trouble with my GI stuff - Mom says I need to give myself more credit for dealing with a chronic health problem as well as I have, mostly.  It just got really frustrating for a few days - with all the other stresses, then feeling like I was unable to eat just was a bit of the last straw.  I've got to rethink my habits.  One great thing is that my Wellness Counseling at work has been going really well, including keeping a food diary. That will hopefully help once I can do a bit of analysis. Only another few weeks before I get back in to the gastroenterologist.

Mom's been encouraging me to meditate, and it kind of sort of maybe helps. And I should really do a tarot reading or something. What's all that stuff for if not to offer guidance in times of stress?

Oh, and bonus - despite the stress and stuff, I am happy to say that I still have fingernails.

Now it's back to the drawing board, or in this case the brilliant Wacom tablet.

Yesterday started early, picking up Kim right after breakfast to run around leaving Con fliers all over the neighborhood.  We got around to several spots, and then met my parents and Mark at Crescent City Beignets for lunch.  Mmm, seafood gumbo.
After lunch my parents and I met up at the Progressive Coalition's house party fundraiser for three City Council candidates running on progressive platforms.  It was a pretty interesting gathering, and I was able to stay to hear all three candidates speak before heading out for my ConCom meeting.
ConCom meeting went pretty well. We're getting closer to the big day, so things are very intense. Scheduling is getting tight and a much larger portion of my free time than I expected has been dedicated to Con stuff.  (Not a problem, but as this is my first year I'm still getting into the feel of it, gauging the job.)
After the meeting, several of us went to dinner at Sewadee Thai, and I had some yummy Squid Delight, which also served as a great breakfast today. 
Then I went home to put up my leftovers and stash my paperwork. I got picked up later for a lovely and fun game night in the neighborhood, so yay. I had a really grand time and they introduced me to Fluxx, a card game I had never heard of but really enjoyed. I'll have to get myself some edition of Ticket to Ride to bring for play another time.

I slept in this morning, and now I'm trying to get some more drawing done. My deadlines loom.
Also, despite several library books waiting in the wings that I have started but not finished, I'm rereading Lirael and Abhorsen by Garth Nix. So much for new stuff.
(Also, good grief how much do I adore the soundtrack to Merlin? When will they release the music from the later episodes?  It's really amazing.)

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?

Two events today with my parents:

The 2009 Art Car Parade was wonderful, but very very hot.  There was a great little breeze that eased it occasionally, but it was really just hot. The cars were fantastic, our neighbors were great, and it was a fun time. Behold, the two bunny slipper cars:

See more (to the tune of almost 300 photos!) at my Flickr Set.

And Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul at the MFAH. This exhibit was so moving, I almost cried several times, and I definitely went into paroxysms of joy over several pieces.  Not just the photos and stories about the war-torn land full of archaeological excavations that have been abandoned (and the Bamiyan Buddhas, damn), but the glorious artifacts themselves - amazing and beautiful works the like of which I have very rarely seen.
One Roman medallion in particular made me go back for second and third looks, it was so delicately beautiful, a tiny infant Eros with the most beatific expression, embracing a butterfly Psyche.  And three ivory table legs in the shape of voluptuous and elaborately dressed Indian women. And the most amazing thing of all, a drinking vessel of Roman glass, painting with figures in inks that retained all the brightness and cartoon-vividness of a souvenir McDonald's glass, I swear. Unbelievable. Then came the room full of burial gold from nomads of the Steppes, and my art inspiration just went into overdrive. I may have to spend some quality time with some textile history books to envision the full beauty of the garb they must have worn.
It is incredible what was saved, and just imagining the scope of things that must have been lost, whether to looting or destruction, boggles the mind. The exhibit holds a tragedy and a miracle all in one, and I highly recommend that everyone who can get to it go see it. It'll be in Houston for another week, and opens at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in June.

On the list for tomorrow: IKEA and Star Trek.

Ok, you guys, the Readers' Studio is seriously blowing my mind. It's incredible.
And the people are wonderful.
I went to a study group tonight that was just amazing, with a funny, brilliant teacher who gave out *ribbons*!  Eee!  Plus one of the readings I did at the table not only blew my mind, but resonated with eerie symmetry with the reading of the girl across the table.  Egads!
Bonus, at the afternoon Master Class I got to play the part of Contessa Jadwiga the amazing and beautiful fortune teller with a funny accent (that varied between Slavic and Scottish, LOL), a huge ego, and a sensational attitude.  I'd never read cards like that before and it was totally liberating as well as raucously funny.
In short, I'm having a great time and trying not to spend all my money on stuff. Always a tough proposition, but I'm determined to make it through! Besides, so much is being given away for free I'll have trouble packing as it is.

Tomorrow is the last day, and then it's back to Manhattan for further cramming of social time with NY peeps.
And now, to bed.

Also, Happy Belated Beltane - we had a good time last night, so much so that I was out at Studio events until after midnight. Fun times indeed.

Museums visited:
- The Museum of the City of New York (Awesome! This is a small but mighty place. Wonderful paintings of ironwork from historic brownstone front stoops; new miniature paintings and dolls from the Dollhouse; an exhibit about Dutch New Amsterdam and Hudson; and a big display of dresses from the Valentina line.  Oooh.)
- The Guggenheim (terrible - they had the entire thing dismantled to install a new Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit, so you couldn't really walk any of it. We paid $6 to see about 35 paintings in the two open side galleries and take photos from the ground floor.  Meh.)
- The American Museum of Natural History (Fun! We went to a planetarium show, I fangirled Neil DeGrasse Tyson, we petted the meteorite in captivity, we went through lots of amusing taxidermy and dioramas, learned about Human Origins, and saw dinosaur bones.)
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Pretty good. I went specifically to see Madame X by John Singer Sargent, but she had been taken out of her gallery. D'oh! So I visited William, as I do every time I am there if his gallery is open, and saw lots of other 19th and early 20th century paintings, skipped through some of the Asian art, zipped through European Deco and Medieval Art, lingered in the Classical Sculpture atrium, ran through the Greek and Roman galleries, and did something I have never done before - I went to the Roof Garden. Yay!)

Also trekked across Central Park by way of both open levels of Belvedere Castle. 
Result of the two days walking: two blisters, one on the bottom of each foot.  Ow ow ow.

I also got to have lunch with Carolina today, and yesterday I met some great tarot folks whom I will see again this weekend.
Last night was Liam's Birthday Quiz at the Baker Street Pub. We had a nice group of Squirrels out for it, surprising Liam, and we gave him a card from all of us. (Note to self: never go into the children's card section of CVS with E. Had we goten any more hysterical I'm sure they would have thrown us right out.)

Also, have eaten Vietnamese, Thai and Indian so far. No major stomach issues. Hooray!

Tonight is the Rocky Sullivan's Pub Quiz out in Red Hook, and I expect we will be getting in from that quite late. I am leaving in the morning for the conference in NJ.

Spent today at a hotel on the SW side of town, at InstaCon 8 - a con about con-running.  Very good programming all around, and some great people. Including a presentation on some resource management database solutions for cons that sound brilliant. Tomorrow I'm a panelist on social media. This is what happens when work and play collide.

Extra bonus - Ethiopian for dinner!  And after dinner, a game of Texas SF Pictionary, which was just hilarious.
I even managed to get some coloring in on my fanart.

I think the Blog Every Day in April brigade probably had something more pithy in mind for entries, but I've got every day so far covered, I may as well go for the gold. Right? Here, have a funny family story.

So down by the grocery store my parents shop at is this gigantic cross looming over the freeway interchange.  Seriously, a gigantic cross. It lights up at night.  It is obnoxious.
And apparently it and some other megachurches and various schools do get some graffiti every so often. Apparently somebody spray-painted a Star of David on one of the big crosses as an act of protest.  I'm not sure what they were protesting, or what they wanted to accomplish, but nevertheless...
So as we were driving by the other day on our various errands, Mom wonders about the sort of graffiti an atheist might put on a big giant obnoxious light-up cross that suddenly sprouted across the freeway from the grocery store.
Naturally, I proposed that an atheist would post an equation.
That got us started on what sort of equation it should be.  Mom wanted to put a²+b²=c² but I objected that it didn't actually mean anything without an explanation of a, b, and c, so then we had a conversation about defined variables and constants and E=mc². And then Dad wanted something more interesting than E=mc² so I said, "Hey, I have a song with an equation in it!" and played Jonathan Coulton's Mandelbrot Set. Except they didn't realize that the equation was in the lyrics, so it was an exercise in hilarity. And that equation does have a heckuva lot of explanatory text.  Hard to spray-paint, you know, which was the (theoretical) point of the exercise. 
I think actually mom's idea would work perfectly well if she accompanied it with a labeled drawing of a triangle. 

(Disclaimer: This post not actually meant to encourage or condone graffiti on religious or other buildings. Can't we all just get along, and paint murals or something?)

Mom and I just watched The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency on the cable, and it was totally awesome.  Loved it.  We knew it would be the best thing ever when Mma Ramotswe climbs the ladder and paints the crucial apostrophe on the sign.  Win!

The whole thing was just so moving and gorgeously filmed and good gracious Botswana itself is a star.  The graphics for the credits are amazing as well.  Really lovely design there.  We're looking forward to the series.  :)