Pansies and Other Little Flowers

Whee!

Sorry I've been out of touch these past couple of days. I've been variously occupied.

I've had a couple of social days in a row, so tonight I'm looking forward to making some dinner and doing some reading and writing... I may not even go to Pergolesi, though the siren song of happy-hour Guinness can sometimes be irresistible. The mocha chai is very good, too, even if I do sometimes get the impression that the hardworking baristas (with espresso in their veins and tattoos on their bodies) think mocha chai is a sissy drink. Ah, well; no use wondering what my life would be like if I was cool...

Tuesday night I went to see my co-worker Stacy Rose play music at a restaurant by the wharf. Aside from being very nice and incredibly beautiful, Stacy's also quite talented. She's a singer/songwriter, with a really big and beautiful voice. She writes some pretty poignant lyrics... I dragged D. and Scott and Lynne along, and D. nearly got all weepy during one of the tunes. :)

(the idea of D. getting all weepy over a song is funnier if you know D.... and perhaps not for the obvious reasons. It's not that D.'s a macho badass who never cries... it's that he's a macho badass who does, on occasion, get quite sentimental. Or, as Scott once remarked regarding the seemingly divided nature of D.'s personality: "Is he a total badass, or a blue-haired pansy who cares?")

I'd tell the story of D.'s first day at work (Tuesday), in which he was held hostage at knifepoint by a 16 year-old girl, whom he then rather gently disarmed... but I guess that's the essential basis of the story, right there. He tells it better, though.

So Stacy was great, and after D. and Scott and Lynne departed I hung out in the restaurant for a while with Khrys, another co-worker. She shares my unending rage and frustration on the subject of death, so that was a nice discussion. :)

Last night, Wednesday, I had dinner with a couple of people, and talked to Meg on the phone, and ran about a million errands, and finished Anno Dracula (finally!). A.D. is good stuff... I think I like the novella version a little better, but perhaps that's just because I read it first, and am unconsciously comparing. Next book in the queue is Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man. After my errands last night I rented The Maltese Falcon to get a little dose of Hammett early. Great flick; I'd never seen it before. I'm slowly educating myself in classic films. I love these old noir movies! And I adore screwball comedies, and the comedy of manners... stuff that doesn't get made so much these days, or at least get made in a radically different way.

Work today was a tiny bit stressful, but not too bad. We were trying desperately to get a proposal ready to go out in the mail today... only three-quarters of a million dollars at stake. It wasn't my project, but I'm "support staff," so I ran around all day being supportive...

In terms of future fun, it seems likely that I'll go to WisCon next May. I haven't bought plane tickets yet, but I'm looking around for deals. I'll see J. there, no doubt-- he's a fellow Clarionite who lives in Madison. (I'd say "Hi, J.", but he doesn't read online journals, so it'd be sorta pointless. He won first place in Writers of the Future in the first quarter this year, so look for the antho when it comes out. The story that won is from Clarion, and it was one of my very favorites from the workshop). I hope to see some other Clarionites there, and maybe some other people I know... WisCon is the feminist sf convention, and it's relatively small, so I think it'll be a good first con for me.

And that brings you up to date. A pleasant enough couple of days, but not productive (given that the only things I consider "productive" are writing and, grudgingly, revising). So tonight I'll get some work done.

Take care, darlings. Have a good December-eve.