Have I really not posted an update since April? I'm not ignoring you all, I swear.

Things have, overall, been good. I don't have time to write much, but here are a few highlights.

May: The Amasong spring concerts, last LARPs of the school year, and Anime Central went well. I picked up a writing job: handouts ("field guides") for four time-travel-themed events about dinosaurs for the local children's museum. I've never written for kids before, and my knowledge of paleontology was quite out of date. The field has moved fast over the last 10-15 years! But much research, and work with the museum staff, has led to three handouts I'm proud of. (Nothing wrong with the fourth; it's just not written yet.)

June: The Not Ready for Bandai Players made a triumphant return to JAFAX, having skipped last year because of gas prices. It was a lovely little con as always. It's still strange being treated as convention guests. This year we even got t-shirts that say so! We also got together with an old friend from the Earlham gaming crowd who we hadn't seen in many years, which made the weekend very special.

July: Let's see... Performed my Titanic murder mystery dinner on a riverboat in Peoria. It beats me why people on a boat would want to think about one of the most famous maritime disasters ever, but the guests seemed to have a good time. The two summer sessions of the LARP went pretty well; we've added two long-time players to the staff and they are working out as we hoped. At Mom's request, I wrote some Ohio trivia questions for the Church and Synagogue Library Association's annual conference. I also collaborated on a mini-mystery to be played out between musical numbers at a tribute to Kathy Murphy later this month. I think the script outline is a good one. Several of us went to Bloomington for chibirisu's birthday. We went to the Miller Park Zoo and a fabulous Indian restaurant. We (the folks I rode with) detoured on the way home to look and some windmills and thus stumbled on an enormous wind farm. Amazing stuff.

August: Wizard World Chicago (the Chicago Comic Con) asked Anime Central to provide an "ACen Aftershock" programming track. So, our household did a video room. The con was great fun, and oddly different from ACen itself: Lots of celebrity guests, and opportunities to pay large sums of money to meet them. The exhibit floor is other big draw, so once away from it the con felt much, much smaller than ACen despite being larger. There are few evening and no overnight events. A smaller percentage of the con-goers cosplay, though there were quite a few excellent costumes.

Yet to come: I'm about to head home to visit my mother and sisters. After I get back, I have a birthday party for an Amasong friend at which a small group of us will sing, the tribute to Kathy, the final dinosaur event, and a bunch of prep work and writing to do for the LARP.

All written out like that, it looks like I've been busy or something.

( This is a rant about stress, overscheduling, and loss. Feel free to skip. )

So if I'm not around my usual internet haunts as much for a couple of weeks, or if I'm a bit grumpy, you know why.

I love all my hobbies and activities, but do they all have to collide? In the next month, I have two LARP sessions (and the attendant ST meetings), at least two, probably three mystery dinners (one a premiere of one of my scripts), three Amasong performances (and the attendant rehearsals), and Anime Central. If I can make it to May 11, I'm going to sleep for a month.

As most of you know, I act in murder mystery dinners with the Champaign-Urbana Theatre Company. These dinners are a major fundraiser for CUTC's Broadway-style musicals at the Virginia Theater. Our annual public series is coming up.

( Details behind the cut to spare readers who don't live around here. )

I feel like I should say something eloquent or insightful on this occasion, but the words aren't coming. Mostly it's a profound sense of relief and hope. There's a long road ahead, which will contain potholes and detours, but we've started moving in the right direction.

I get asked about Jeopardy! a lot. It's a lot of fun even if you don't win, so I encourage you to try for it if you're at all interested. (This is U.S. only, I'm afraid.)

The first step to getting on the show is the on-line test. (I'm not sure whether they do the regional in-person testing any more or not.) These tests are coming up: Tuesday, January 27 at 8 PM for the East Coast, the 28th at 8 for Central and Mountain time zone folks, and the 29th at 8 for Pacific people. You need to register, so go to the website well beforehand. It's 50 clues, with 15 seconds to type your answer to each.

They don't reveal scores, but if you reach whatever the magic cutoff is for correct answers, you may be among those randomly selected for the second round of testing. You'll go to whichever audition location you picked off the list at registration and take a different 50-question test, play a short mock game with buzzers and all (to see whether you can follow instructions and rules) and be interviewed (to be sure you can communicate intelligibly and not just stare at your shoes.) If you succeed in that round, you'll go into a big pool of possible contestants and could get the call any time in the next year. Not everybody in the pool will go on; the show doesn't release numbers but it's estimated that 1/4 to 1/3 of the people in the pool will actually be on the show. If you aren't one of them, you can try again next year. I got to the pool stage a couple of times before getting the call; some people have gotten there a dozen times or more before actually appearing on the show and then have won big so don't despair.

If you are interested in the show, as a potential contestant or just a viewer, I highly recommend Braniac by Ken Jennings and Prisoner of Trebekistan by Bob Harris. In fact, I recommend both if you are just interested in trivia in general, or in the overall interconnectedness of human knowledge. Both of these guys have excellent blogs too, although Harris only posts rarely these days because he's been traveling around the world. And I'm always happy to chat about Jeopardy! myself.

Had a mystery dinner tonight. All went well, but the performance adrenaline went out of me with a whoosh as soon as it was over and left me very, very sleepy. It's a good thing I don't actually have to think or do anything else this evening.

I did make it to Mom's for part of the holiday and got to see my sisters, nephew, and niece. It involved a long train trip there and a much longer bus trip back, but the visit was well worth it. I'm back and, apart from being exhausted and having a bit of a cold I'm fine. Thanks to everybody who expressed concerns.

I'm at my sister-in-law's house. We've had a terrific Christmas here. However, we're supposed to be on our way to my mom's house now, and I don't know when or if we'll be going.

Our car has had major problems. We knew it needed a new radiator and valve cover gasket, and finally took in to get the work done on the 23rd. It wasn't finished that night; the next day the garage called us and said "Your alternator is emitting smoke." So we had them replace that too. It made us leave town later than we wanted, but that was no big deal.

What was a big deal was the problems we had on the drive. The car has been very slow to accelerate for a while, but it got much worse on this drive. Also, it stalled practically every time we stopped (much fun at toll plazas), and burned gas at twice the usual rate. Obviously, we couldn't do anything about it late on Christmas Eve or on Christmas, so we took it to the mechanic that my brother-in-law and sister-in-law recommended this morning. They may or may not get to it today. We're really hoping that a major tuneup and new sparkplugs will take care of the problem. If it's that fixable, we'll go on to Willoughby. If not...

I'm trying to be sensible and grown-up about this, but it's not easy. Christmas is a big deal to me, not least for seeing family that I don't get to see often. I have spent Christmas Day itself elsewhere a number of times, but there has never been a year when I haven't been home at all during the season.

I realize I haven't posted much for a while. Can't really point to a single reason why - busyness, winter grumps, etc. Nothing's wrong. And don't worry, I haven't been posting bunches of neat stuff to filters you're not on or anything like that!

I did say busy, and I meant it. This week is relatively quiet - just two different Christmas celebrations with friends (necessitating a bit of housecleaning, though the big stuff got done for Thanksgiving), and a dinner with the rest of the ST staff. Oh, and if I wind up with no other plans Friday and somebody cancels on the mystery dinner then, I might volunteer for that.

However, the previous two weeks included three murder mystery dinners (one on 24 hours notice), the final LARP of the semester, and two Amasong concerts, plus two ST meetings (routine) and four Amasong rehearsals (one regular, two dress, and a sectional.) Next week, we get the car fixed on the 23rd (fingers crossed, everybody!), go up to my sister-in-law's house outside Chicago for Christmas proper, and then drive to Ohio on the 26th and back on the 28th. Whee! I have most but not all of my shopping done, none of the wrapping, and none of the decorating (which I should do before tomorrow, come to think of it.) The baking I'll do with friends this weekend.

I love my hobbies. I love Christmas. I love my friends and family. But I am really looking forward to January...

This is our tenth anniversary. Wedding anniversary, that is - January 17th will be the 17th anniversary of our first date. Hard to believe it's been that long, and at the same time hard to remember life before we were together. Love ya, sweetie!

</mush>

The guilt is because this is LARP night. We worked it out months ago that I'd be skipping tonight. But now the lead ST is down with a bug and probably not going to be there either. That cuts the staff from five to three, and it's been hard to run with that number in the past. Add in that the missing two have most of the most active NPCs between us and, well... Fingers crossed, and best wishes to the other three!

I feel like I ought to post something at this historic time, but I can scarcely string words together. I am proud of my country tonight.

I was braced for long lines and such (I even had a book in my purse in case I had to wait), but voting was a positive breeze. The rest of the household voted early while I was out of town so I took the two-block walk to the polls alone. The weather is glorious today - sunny and so mild I regretted wearing a long-sleeved shirt. Some trees are still green, others are brightly colored, and a few have shed every leaf already.

The polling place was busy, but efficient enough that I only had to wait in line a few minutes. Everybody seemed cheerful, and I had a bit of a lump-in-the-throat moment as I looked at the mix of ages, races, and such around me. I love my neighborhood. Along with an "I Voted" sticker, the judge offered me a fun-sized candy bar. I strolled home munching on chocolate.

Now, of course, I'm sitting at home trying not to chew my fingernails to the elbow.

Copy this sentence into your LiveJournal if you're in a heterosexual marriage, and you don't want it "protected" by the bigots who think that gay marriage hurts it somehow.

I don't recall the last time a single issue of a comic made me this happy. Damn. They're actually doing it right.

Thank, seanaface. This is well worth sharing.

First let me say that this doesn't spring from any particular recent events. The central metaphor came to me out of the blue and the rest followed. I had to move it out of my head somehow, so I'm putting it here.

When a fire starts in your home, you have two major choices. You can try to put it out yourself, or you can get out and get help.

Mental illness, or acute mental/emotional distress, is a fire in your home.

If you are lucky, if the fire starts small and you have the tools to deal with it, you may be able to put it out yourself. If it's large, or the extent is unknown, or you don't have the tools, you need to get help. If you are in mental or emotional distress, and you're lucky and your life to that point has equipped you with coping mechanisms, you may be able to help yourself out of the hole. If the problem is serious, and/or you don't know how to give yourself what you need, you need to get help. (I'm not speaking of a specific kind of help, counseling vs. medicine vs. spiritual support. Different things work for different people in different situations.)

To take the metaphor further, if an observer looks at a person in a burning house and tells them, "The fire department is a lie and there is no exit door. Just deal with it yourself," then that observer is not only an idiot, they are cruel. If the person in the burning house takes that advice, they may die. Yet there are people who tell mentally ill people that therapy is all bunk, medication is never the answer, and they just need to pull themselves together. That is no less foolish, and no less cruel. And if the sufferer takes that advice, they may die.

( Long-ish list, so I'm not making you scroll unless you want to. )

I have returned safely from a wonderful, if exhausting, visit with family. Not a lot of interesting stuff to share, though I have come to the conclusion that the Indianapolis Greyhound station is in some way cursed for me.

Now I'm attempting to catch up on all the electronic communications I was away from for over a week. Wish me luck...

Just realized I hadn't posted to say I'm going to be off-line for a little more than a week to visit family. If for some reason you need to reach me urgently, the rest of the household here will have the information. Not that, with my recent frequency of posting, most of you would notice I'm gone, but I felt it should be said.