Who the heck do I think I am?

1. So, I got through my father's visit. More importantly, he left and I did not cause him bodily harm.

Not a whole lot to discuss, only because I've already been through the rants and I don't wanna do that again. We went on a whale watch, which was awesome fun but not enough to keep him occupied the whole visit, so he basically drove me up the wall the rest of the time. He was coughing like mad when he was here, ignored me, went to the Urgent Care clinic, got told it was bronchitis, misunderstood the clinician's instructions, and is now in Strong for a few days because it tipped over into pneumonia. Dumbass. (He's fine. They put him on IV antibiotics and he'll probably check out tomorrow. He's got his laptop and phone, and he even had pie last night. Mmmm, pie.)

2. No, I can't believe it's been two years, either. Yes, I miss him too.

3. I fucking need a job already.

4. Alternity continues to be awesome.

5. Two friends are switching coasts in the next couple weeks. We don't get together very often, but I wish them well in their new jobs (and hope in both cases it improves things considerably!).

6. First playreading committee meeting is tonight. No idea what the plan is there - I'm not in charge. Still wonder if I should gather up those soundtracks I have. I don't think I have any of the straight plays on our list in my library. Hm.

7. This is a silly / stupid thing but I found my little toiletry pack that was missing after Infinitus. YAY! I knew I hadn't left it behind. Tiny, tiny win.


I should be writing, or doing something else productive. I'm trying to remember to update here and not so much on LJ. I also need to get all my fic up on Archive of Our Own at some point. Yeah, there's a project....

It's been a busy week with lots of time on the road.

Thursday - left Boston for Rochester.
Friday - left Rochester, met beatricedwinter for lunch (AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SIS!) and then proceeded to War Practice.

War Practice was WET. But it was also WARM, for a change. On Friday there was a lot of Scotch. On Saturday there was carbonated wheat beverage that failed to qualify as beer.

Sunday - broke camp and went to Pittsburgh. Fwump. grouchyoldcoot made delivery food happen. Watched the rest of the 5th season of "Weeds." (I've decided that "Weeds" is sort of my televised, x-rated version of "Twilight" for those who read that - it's 100% crack, and thrives on the "OMG, I can't believe they're going there!" factor.)

Monday - drove back to Rochester. Had dinner with our friends Mike and Toby and their grandson, M, who has officially entered foster care with family friends of theirs who live locally, as opposed to fostering in New York City. Complicated story - short version is that their daughter had some trouble a few years back and is not available at present to raise her 18-month son. He, however, is a cutie, and while he's no J, he's tracking just fine for his age, developmentally. He spent about ten minutes standing on my driver's seat checking out every available gauge and button and feature of my car. Adorable.

Tuesday - drove back to Boston. More fwumping.

I am still exhausted, but I must gather trash today and also the mighty hunter must capture milk. And I have an audition this evening. So, gotta get that ready. Oh, and apply for a bunch of jobs.

Other news:

Ticket saga, part II: Monday morning, we got a call from the Pittsburgh CLO. The tickets were returned as "undeliverable" - even though the address and zip were correct. So the lady from the office is hand-addressing them and will try again. If they bounce again, I'll just have them hold them at the box office, which all things considered is probably the easiest option, anyway.


And my parents. Okay, so anyone who has met both of my parents can probably agree that two more different people do not exist. It still mystifies me how they ever got married in the first place, but whatever. But occasionally they do things that show a glimmer of that sameness. For example, I called my mother on Sunday after confirming Monday's dinner, to let her know the plan. We talked briefly and hung up. Thirty seconds later, she calls me back. "What?" I ask. "Nothing, except I realized I forgot to say I love you."

Now, lemme stop here for a second. I don't have a problem telling the people I love that I love them. But I also don't think it's necessary to do so at the end of EVERY CONVERSATION. This is a point of contention with my mother, especially, who seems to think that if she doesn't tell me I will forget that it is true, or think that her affection has shifted. And conversely, that if I don't say it, it means somehow I have stopped. Um. Well ... no.

Okay, so Mom calls me back for the express purpose of making sure I know that she loves me. Yeah, I got the memo the last time, but thanks, Mom. I love you, too.

At some point, I got a message from my father, informing me of his schedule for the next few days (Outer Banks chillin'). Again, fine - no problem, I'm not nearly as worried about knowing where he is as he is about making sure I know. He says in the message that there's no need to call him back - so I don't.

Monday evening, he calls (right after we got back from dinner, actually - and at the very beginning of "Chuck") and during the conversation, he says, "I realized that I forgot to say I love you last time we talked. And I thought I should clear that up."

Yeah.

My parents, they are so weird. I told my mother. She laughed.


And finally, check it out:

BAF 3 is on Amazon!!!

Whoo-hoo.

I'll be doing a reading / signing in Auburn, MA, on June 12, but unfortunately I will not be at Balticon this year. (Though if you are going to Balticon, there's a bunch of fun stuff planned for the launch party.)

1. No hat. Sigh. I'll just get another one from CafePress at some point.

2. Looking at the shows I wanted to audition for.... WHAT?! Everyone has moved to April performances instead of March???? GAH.

Seriously. "Singin' in the Rain" is the first three weeks of April, fine. But the other companies with shows I'd like to go out for - Weston, Netwon, Longwood - they're all putting up their spring shows in mid-late April, too, instead of March. Argh.

Well, okay - Concord Players is doing 'Scarlet Pimpernel' in the last two weeks of April / first week of May. Doable. Difficult, but doable. (Schedules audition....)

And there's always the school of thought that says audition anyway - get a better part and drop, but that's somewhat unprofessional.


3. My dad just got a traffic ticket in Georgia. He says he came to a T-intersection and in one of those "oh, why not?" moments blew through it to try to get through before the car coming in the other direction...only to realize too late that said car was a cop. Yeah. (Sounds VERY similar to my ticket that I argued away when I blew through the yellow light by going *right past* a cop who was already stopped at the light....)

Oh, well, it happens. Well, it happens to anyone who drives as much as me or my dad. But no one wants to make a habit out of it!


4. I'm so bored at work....

Cooks and Bards was great. Saw many awesome people for not long enough.

I was even responsible (sorta) and left on schedule Monday morning. But then there was lake effect snow (NASTY, from I-80 all the way to the state line - thank the gods NYS frickin' PLOWS their roads, and you suck, Pennsylvania) and I stopped for lunch in Buffalo with beatricedwinter and that meant that it was 12:15 when I got back on the Thruway in Depew. I was supposed to return the car by 6:00 PM. That wasn't happening. Furthermore, I got to thinking about the insanity involved in trying to unload, return the car, come back on the T, and still get to rehearsal that night. Yeah. By the time I had done that, rehearsal would have been basically over.

So instead I called and extended the rental, drove straight to Wellesley, got a slice of pizza, went to rehearsal, *then* came home, unloaded, and returned the car this morning. MUCH more sensible.

Unfortunately, those of you who said, "You should do this" - the deadline to submit one's information for the national tour of Wicked was 11/8. Yeah. Would've had to do it that same minute y'all mentioned it. Oh, well - such is life. I never have been lucky. Maybe the Cabaret audition will go well as the gods' form of a consolation prize.

But I'm back, and probably not going anywhere major for at least a few weeks. Twelfth Night appears to be the next big trip on the horizon.

Oh. I need to post more about my father and his amazing Costa Rican false start. Basically, the man didn't listen when I told him to stick to the capital and stay in a hotel while he got his bearings, and he was confronted by how very different things were in an un-Americanized environment, and he freaked. But through the miracle of airline travel, he now has a "return" ticket on American from Ft. Lauderdale to Costa Rica on 12/25 *and* a "return" ticket on Spirit from Costa Rica back to Ft. Lauderdale in April. So he's already thinking he's going to take a second shot at it.

The man didn't even buy a Fodor's Guide. OY. (Note to my father: remember when I said I'm a friggin' genius? I AM. LISTEN TO ME NEXT TIME. No love. Okay, some love. But not on this topic. What have we learned? We've learned: Listen to Gwen.)

What can I say? My father is and always will be a whack-job. Sigh.

Yeah. I need to catch up on my flist. I need to catch up on Supernatural. I suck at life. I do love you all! Just very limited for time. Maybe when Tribute is over I can devote some time to getting to skip 100,000 and reading everything I've been missing.

I've been meaning to post for a while, but I'm recovering from a home invasion (my father was visiting, stealing my internet access, breakin' my stuff), and I've been plagued with leaving my flash drive at work, so I hadn't had time yet.

So. Here's a very brief State of Da Gwen.

My father was here this week, for three short, very long days. In that time, he messed up my internet (working again), broke my sewing machine, sharpened my knives (no I'm not kidding!), put gas in my car (after driving it), washed my dishes, asked me a lot of inane questions, bought dinner for me and etakyma, made more noise about wanting me to give him my iPod shuffle if/when I get a video iPod (which is like, six months from now, maybe?), and generally annoyed the crap out of me. But at least no shouting match this time, so that's good. The detox must have worked.

Seriously, it says something that Thursday, "Houses of the Holy" was coming on, and even though it's my least favourite episode of Supernatural, I tried turning it on in my bedroom just to get some peace and quiet, and even then, he kept wanting to talk at me.

We watched a Netflick - "Firewall" - which was basically good summer popcorn thriller. Nothing you really had to pay any attention to. And he's constantly asking questions, making guesses about what's going to happen... JUST WATCH THE FRIGGIN MOVIE, DAD. I know, you don't normally watch TV. But still. You didn't hear what Harrison Ford muttered? Guess what, neither did I. But there's a rule in movies: even if you don't catch it the first time, they *will* make everything painfully clear within 30 minutes. Really. Best dumb question of the film: "Do you know what Stockholm Syndrome is?"

Why yes, Dad. However, I'm not going to tell you that it's one of my major kinks. Thanks.

Watching Top Chef: "Do you ever try to make the food they make on this show?"

No, Dad. And a month ago when you were here and you asked me that? Still no.

ANYway. The most annoying man on earth has departed back to Baltimore. /rant Anabel is not doing well in the assisted living space and he and Allan may need to move her to a nursing home. Well, she is 89. Then he's off to the Camp Perry Rifle Competition to volunteer as a... I think he's a line chief this year, then the Stone Tool show in Letchworth, and then he doesn't know where, but west again.

Job: going well. Starting to get involved in more. Unfortunately this leaves less time for fic - writing and reading, but that's okay. I guess. Nevertheless, I did just get "Guns and Ammo" posted, in time to honour eloise_bright's birthday:

Read the fic at my wee_chesters journal!


Order of the Phoenix movie: We're going to the midnight show tonight, IMAX. Hey, since I interviewed the president of IMAX, I probably should go *see* the thing, right? I know, I know, lots of you are saying it's the best yet. Frankly...not a great track record, so far, but I am sort of looking forward to parts. Other parts.... Well, let's just remember that the *real* fifth book is still to be written. Heh.

And of course: Deathly Hallows. Plans coming together. moony has a room in Cambridge for the night, for a reasonable rate, so I'll probably crash there instead of trying to get out of Harvard Square after the buses have stopped running. May be able to park there, even, which is good, because I'll have swag to hand out for Portus, and I haven't decided to robe or not. Weather may play a significant factor on that score. I'm just so relieved it's almost over.

Speaking of which, if you're in Boston, pick up the July 19 "Phoenix." I'm being covered along with a few others as fanfiction authors and HP fans. They just sent a photographer, he left a little while ago, to take some quasi-cheesy shots of me in my flat. My really messy desk, and the shelf of books that I actually cleaned last night in anticipation. I kept things from getting too crazy, but told him we could do "cute". So look for that.

And now, I'm off to join etakyma to continue prep-work for Prophecy. OMG - Prophecy and Pennsic are less than a month away. Yikes!

And I'm still plugging. Since there are maybe three of you who will not have seen this elsewhere (or who care), it's behind the cut:

( HPEF Soliciting Bids for 2007 )

In other news, Wizard of Oz is taking up a lot of time and energy. Parents are stupid; kids are a pain in the ass; but other than that, it's going very well, I think.

Work sucks. On the bright side, I think the story anthology I'm helping with is moving along well. I reviewed a bunch of the submissions and I've submitted my own story Officially; now it's just the final selections and working with the authors we do select. Hurrah. My second published editing job, yay.

Dad's in Arizona, awaiting word about working for Carlsbad. Still no word after two months, but he did talk to the guy who told him nothing has happened either way. He definitely has decided that somewhere in that area is where he will eventually pick up again, once he's had his fill of life Kerouac-style.

[Sidenote: Actual conversation with my crazy-ass father:

"By the way, did you ever do anything with that Ryan story you wrote? The Harry Potter one?"

"Do anything such as....?"

"You know, send it to a magazine or something?"

"...." Then: "Well, that would be a good way to get sued, Dad. It's derivative fiction." Oy. I mean, really. For heaven's sake. If you can tell me how to pull all the Potter out of HMSS and make it still work *and* make it not obvious that it *used* to be a Potter fanfic, I'm all pointed ears. Otherwise, you Just Don't Get It. Sure, maybe eventually I'll develop an original plot featuring Ryan, but it hasn't happened yet, and I've known the elf for... going on 20 years at this point. /bitching]

I'm heading to Pittsburgh this weekend for Johan's wake. Yay for a trip to Pittsburgh; boo for the reason. But it will be very good to celebrate his life and to see friends again.

Exciting, no? Well, that's why it takes roughly a month between updates.