* not so good to wear a ridiculous supergirl costume to a bar
(was nearly hijacked by a bachelor party)
(DO NOT WANT!)

* sometimes a last name is really not something you should aspire to live up to

Random conversational snippet from my manager:
"Should I be paying more attention to your pants?"


(...I suspect this is far funnier when the Irish spend a year training you to think of 'pants' as meaning something other than 'trousers'.)

There's a line between "telling you about [something]" and "inflicting [something] on you," and that's a line I will not cross tonight. Sorry to be cryptic.

I can be somewhat less cryptic about something I'm glad I could do today: I ran an errand for the company I'm working for.

The errand took me to Auburn, WA, 2 1/2 hours north of Portland.

That's the longest I've driven for work-related reasons; that's the first time I've driven a company car (and getting that was a little saga, but one that resolved, all good); that's the first time in a while I've done a long road trip.

Tomorrow is a blood donation day for me. To go a little closer to That Which I Will Not Inflict On You Tonight, I'll just say this: I'm glad I'm doing something as life-affirming as donating blood.

Peace, everybody. The good and needed kind of peace, please.

I guess this means I shouldn't go to Peru. Aside from being allergic to llama wool.

you'd think I'd have the hang of it by now, but no

every time my back starts hurting I still wonder why

is it because I sit all day, or am I sleeping twisted

oh, it's just my uterus purging its contents

did you know Bob Dylan had his own radio show on XM Radio?

it was called Theme Time Radio Hour and he would play songs centered on a theme

like "Mother" or "Coffee" or "Laughter" or "Tennesee"

which is the kind of thing I do all the time on my computer

coming up with playlists about coffee or food or colors or how Tim Geithner was lonely when he began his job as Treasury Secretary and his department wasn't even staffed yet

but anyway

you can download episodes here

they're very pleasant I like them a lot he plays everything from Otis Redding to Frank Sinatra to LL Cool J

who's really fun to watch in NCIS:LA by the way he and Chris O'Donnell have some pretty sweet man-chemistry going on

Hey peeps! Aside from the picture of the day, I haven't done any updates on LJ lately. There hasn't been much to say because I've been so busy doing NaNo this month. (It's been eating up all my free time! Halp!) I do have to say that NaNo is going very well. I'm currently at 41,697 words out of 50,000. Barring anything bad happening, *knocks on wood* I should be able to reach 50,000 words by November 30th easily. I still think I'm going to have more story to write when I reach 50,000, so I think I'll take for a couple of weeks (I've been having some issues with my hand), and do some more work on it in late December, early January.

According to an email from the Chicago NaNo group earlier this month, each year they have a theme. They request that people doing NaNo include the theme in their novels. This year, it was chickens because during the midnight Halloween write-in, someone dressed up as Colonel Sanders and ran up and down the street with a bucket of KFC under one arm. I needed a college prank for my two friends to talk about, and I needed my main character, Ebenezer, to get in trouble for it. (Simon always gets Ebenezer in trouble!) Chickens was as good an excuse as any.

( No actual chickens were harmed in the writing of this NaNo novel! )

Too bad I have a role-playing thing on December 5th and can't make the wrap up party. I would definitely submit it.

Wow, I've been really slack with the updating of my LJ. Well, I'm not going to give a link to every post I've made since I last updated, but a Best-Of will be nice, right?

Masquerade Group Photo: A photo from Masquerade on Fleet Street: http://dragnew.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/masquerade-group-photo/

Requiem: A recount of my first game of Requiem, a New World of Darkness based LARP: http://dragnew.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/requiem/


Having a LARP: My National Television Debut: http://dragnew.wordpress.com/2009/10/09/having-a-larp/

A Seminar I wrote about God in Literature: http://dragnew.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/gave-my-seminar-today/

A look back on my blog, after getting my 25 thousandth view. http://dragnew.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/25-k-get/


My research report about God (goes with the Seminar): http://dragnew.wordpress.com/2009/10/23/research-report-results/

Recount of Day 2 of the Armageddon Expo: http://dragnew.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/armageddon-day-2/

An Essay I wrote about Poetry: http://dragnew.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/an-essay-on-poetry/

Knightshade LARP Halloween Game recount: http://dragnew.wordpress.com/2009/11/01/knightshade-the-misty-hallows/

Photos of me from when I was an adorable child! http://dragnew.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/baby-dave/

Photos from a walk I took: http://dragnew.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/my-afternoon-walk/

Bitching, ranting and raving about Prizegiving: http://dragnew.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/the-final-prizegiving/

Friday the 13th LARPing: http://dragnew.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/friday-the-thirteenth/

Dave holding an adorable Baby: http://dragnew.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/me-with-a-baby/

A Ramblings! http://dragnew.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/ramblings-part-the-incredibly-belated/

So Moose and I did finally try out my WD TV box the other week. Once we got past the silly thing being set in Pal (hey, this one wasn't from the US, I got it off ebay, and he admitted it was a gift he'd gotten from someone in Israel), and recovered our vision from having to read the menus while they whipped past us at a zillion screens a second (this whole bit for some unknown reason totally terrified Jim, which was annoying), we tried a few files Moose had on an external. Wow! This is waaaaaaaay better than hooking the laptop up to the tv. The picture was far clearer. I was truly amazed, I hadn't expected there to be such a huge difference. Ok, I can see where some folk might not like the navigation so much, but Moose and I had no issue with it. For those looking to play video files (but not Real Media, this one won't play those) right on the TV, I do recommend the WD TV. It does both standard and HD, and is supposed to play not only just about all avi's, but also mkv's. All you need is the files on a thumb drive or any external hard drive, and you're good to go.

Have had a very interesting conversation, and feel a lot better about a lot of things.

Edit: This time of year really messes with my head. I do take measures to counteract the lack of sunlight, but I know that I get more withdrawn and my feelings emerge in strange ways.

Tonight I had a nice dinner with lilas, and have felt some calm that comes from simply talking.

ceciliatan has released one of my favorite erotic sci-fi books, Telepaths Don't Need Safewords, as a FREE e-book for the month of November! Get the details here!

• 18:54 @neutronjockey And you can make the pointy-toed boot to do it with. #
• 20:55 This will drive your cats insane. RT @BoingBoing Meow Mix bit.ly/3lBL9E #
• 11:58 RT @FakeAPStylebook "Awesome" implies feelings of reverence or fear. Great Cthulhu is awesome, as is the latest Taylor Swift single. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

"Why is it that whenever you get lost, you're in Somerville?"
I made it to Psychonomics! Getting to thesoxgap's house was a slightly involved process, and by "involved" I mean "It involved driving all over Cambridge and Somerville because I've forgotten how insane driving in this metropolitan area is. In the dark. Uphill. Both ways."

But I got there! Yay! And then I got to say hi to Beth and Ben and hang out for a while! Yay! And then the migraine that I'd been fighting off kicked in! Boo! And so I went to bed and let myself sleep in because there weren't any sessions I was really interested in in the morning, and that was probably Very Good For Me.

P'Nomics

Either this Psychonomics is not as great as previous years for Stuff I'm Really Interested In, or my interests have really narrowed in the past two years.

But I ran into one of my former students who is now at JHU, and my undergrad research advisor who is now pregnant, and some other people I know, and a friend of mine from high school who is in his second year at University of Washington doing decision-making. No sign of krystynayt yet, but I'm sure she's around somewhere.

The number of blank posters in this session is disheartening, too. What's up with that?

I need to repack my luggage. I have no idea how I'm going to make all this stuff fit. I'm bring back a lot of gluten-free croissants for me, and chocolate and trinkets for everyone else.

Things I would squeal if I could find here as souvenirs, but I've tried and have failed: 1) a non-sporty looking stopwatch (do they even make such anymore? I've not seen one other than the one my father has from his days clocking ad copy) 2) bike bells. I would totally send all my Torchwood peeps bike bells. Alas, I can only find cow bells. I bet some of you actually want cow bells, but I have to draw the line somewhere.

Outside suddenly there are a lot of hollering young people, drunk and dancing about, I assume after some sort of sports match. I went out there to look at them, and felt all sorts of bittersweet, mainly about people who have never existed; a lot of this trip has been like that for me, but I've not been awake enough to find the words for it, or really, much of anything. I'm so permeable, and really, as a writer and as an actor, that's my job and because it's my job I can be all clinical about it like I'm supposed to be. "It's just stories," we say. "It's just pretend."

Well, yes, because I'm well-trained and have good filters and all that, but I also feel things I'm not "supposed" to feel all the damn time ... so the kids screaming outside as I watch them from the balcony where I'm storing the cheeses and chocolate creams I bought since my room doesn't have a refrigerator make me mourn for a gap year I didn't take, but wrote about once in the life of a man some other people made up.

Switzerland has been like that constantly. The storing pots of chocolate on the terrace too! OMFG, the pots of chocolate!

Meanwhile have just caught the Doctor Who preview for the Christmas episode. It manages to ( Read more... ) and also make me cry because he's wearing a lei, and it's the weird thing where it's like OMGWTFBBQ, he's just come from Jack telling him thank you for the favor he hasn't done him and Ianto yet in IHNIIHBT and there's a banana daquiri sitting on the TARDIS console, RIGHT NOW. Okay, you don't care, but I CARE.

May finally do an LJ Idol home game entry. "Bearing False Witness" is very tempting, although I am unlikely to address the literal meaning of the phrase and instead focus on story telling and what it means to honor things that have never even happened.

I wonder how the Duty Free is at the airport here.

Man in blue polo shirt (on phone): Let's say you and I were black. [looks at ulitave nervously]

ulitave: [looks back with expression that says don't get crazy now.]

Man in blue polo shirt (still on phone): So say we're black and we hear stuff like 'we're gonna blow up Africa.' Wouldn't we be offended?

ulitave: [looks back with new expression that says have your crazy time elsewhere. Any suggestion that you will not have your crazy time elsewhere should be directed to My Black Ass]

Man in blue polo shirt: [leaves]

Rapperswil

( mostly Rapperswil and a few from my return to Zurich. Also, suit! )

I’ve been dreadfully slack lately, tied up in my own neuroses and plot tangles; but I’m finally back on the fiction pony and I actually have some word count progress to report.

I realize it seems like I’m making an early day of it (and indeed, I might well get a little more work done before the afternoon’s over), but I’m leaving soon to go play back-up writer at a coffeeshop in front of a TV crew. It’s gonna be fun, but that’s all I’m going to say about it for now — because the television piece isn’t about me, and I’m not sure how much I’m supposed to spill.

Anyway, I actually have two word meters to post today.

First: Here are recent stats for the fabulous urban fantasy adventure about a neurotic vampire/thief and her wealthy blind client, now with Bonus! Cuban drag queen and military intrigue:

Project: Bloodshot
New Words Written: 2344 (meh)
Present Total Word Count: 76,513 words
Goal: 95,000 words by December 12





Things Accomplished in Fiction: Crashed a parkour meeting in D.C.; dragged a hipster ghoul into strange places; left the part-time drag queen on blind vampire babysitting duty.
Things Accomplished in Real Life: Day-job work; some housework but not enough; minimal errand-running; kitty-pestering.

Second: I give you stats for the dirigible/pony-express story with zombies, the Goodnight-Loving trail, and a 19-year-old Union veteran who’s stuck with a mechanical foot.

Project: “Reluctance”
New Words Written: 1509
Present Total Word Count: 1509 words
Goal: 5000 words by November 29





Details: This one’s on deck to fulfill an invite to an anthology. I’ve almost let the deadline get away from me, but I love the story and I’m shoehorning it in to my schedule, dammit. One way or another. I set the word goal at 5000 words because that’s the absolute outside limit of how long it can run. I’ll probably go over a little and have to prune myself down, but we’ll see.

[Crossposted to/from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so either here or there.]

Supergirl! "HEY!" a 50-something year old woman yelled in my general direction. I stopped mid-step from leaving the diner. "Yes?" "Come over here, please - I just had to have my friend see your outfit." "Um..ok." "So do you always dress like this?" "Yup." "Why?" "Just in case." "Oh. Well, I think you look really hot." DAMN I miss the Philly/South Jersey area...