Bits and pieces to update the world.

[seanan_mcguire]

Things are insane around here (which is ironic, given that I'm finally between conventions), so here are the updates and events du jour, presented in convenient bite-sized fashion.

Science Crawl.
Tomorrow night (Friday, November 4th) the Bay Area Science Crawl will be at Borderlands Books from 7:15 until 8:15 PM. Quote: "The Bay Area Science Festival is proud to present the first ever Sci-Crawl, a coordinated takeover of venues throughout San Francisco’s Mission District, showcasing the science inherent in the neighborhood." I'll be appearing as Mira on a panel discussing the Science of Science Fiction, along with Jeff Carlson and Scott Sigler, and moderated by Brian Malow. The event is free, and should be super-fun. Come and join the geek!

Dental horrors.
Yesterday, I had dental surgery. Yes, again. This time, I managed to somehow break a titanium post inside my mouth. SUPER FUN. Without going into details, largely because they would freak me out, I shall simply say that I am rarely given that many pharmaceuticals during a twenty-four hour period, and I can still taste colors. No fun at all. I basically lost a day and a half to a great gray pit.

T-shirt mailing.
According to my spreadsheet, there are still over a hundred shirts that have not been introduced to envelopes. Over a hundred means that one in three, roughly, has not been mailed. Unless you have reason to think that gnomes have stolen the contents of your mailbox, please don't email yet asking where, specifically, your shirt is located. I'm packing and mailing them just as fast as I possibly can, and this being such a manual process means that it's very hard to track specific list items. Also, because there is such a variance of colors and styles, sometimes the only way to find a shirt is to remove all the shirts around it, which makes it impossible to go "oh, you mean this one? Yeah, it's right here." So I plead for patience. All you do by poking without good cause is make me, and Deborah, sad and grumpy.

Cats.
We're coming up on the one-year anniversary of Alice getting so very, very sick, and she has realized that this means she can basically get away with anything, just by doing while Not Being Sick. This morning, she hit my abdomen like a fuzzy bowling ball, shoved her wet feet up my nose, and trilled happily, only to receive hugs and love, because She Wasn't Sick. Am I setting a bad precedent? Yeah, probably. Do I care? Not one damn bit. Alice isn't sick, and that's really what I need out of life.

Television.
All the shows are coming back on the air. ALL THE SHOWS. Bones starts up again tonight, and I'm gamely plugging through season two of Criminal Minds, which means I may be catching up to watching it live before too much longer. It may seem counter-productive to watch this much TV while also trying to get writing done, but it actually speeds me up, by giving me something to finish for. Speaking of which...

Writing.
Ashes of Honor is done, and I'm getting ready to go into draft two. Midnight Blue-Light Special is finally moving at what I'd call a reasonable pace, and I'm about a quarter of the way through the projected text. And there are various other projects kicking around, including the second installment of the latest Vel story, which will take us to four for the year I can so make my goal. Hah.

Zombies.
Are love.

Comments

[tikiera.livejournal.com]

I thank you for not going into details with the dental horror. After an incident in my teenager years that made fear the dentist mightily, I cannot handle dental horror.

Television - are you watching Grimm or Once Upon a Time? I got halfway through Once, and watched the free half episode of Grimm, and am not certain I am going to take the time to finish Once, and am pondering if Grimm gets better or worse...

Most of my TV shows are hiatus for another week or more. The Avengers cartoon is taunting me with the next episode having Dr. Doom but it's still TBD when it will air. But Young Justice comes back tomorrow!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I have Once Upon A Time on the DVR, but haven't started watching it yet.

My dentist specializes in people with dental phobias. I fully understand not sharing the horror.

[tikiera.livejournal.com]

BTW - China Glaze had a zombie green nail polish. It was a glitter zombie green. :) I will be wearing it tomorrow as I terrorize my players with our annual Halloween celebration (a week late due to people's schedules) and superhero game.

[ladymurmur.livejournal.com]

Grimm made it straight to "series worth the precious space on the already full DVR". Once... not so much. It has so much promise in the premise that I'm willing to give it another couple of episodes, but my sweetie is not at all enamored of it.

[tikiera.livejournal.com]

now that gives me an incentive to continue with grimm. :)

[sheistheweather]

To good health for you and all the kitties!

[adelheid-p.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear about your dental woes. I hope it mends quickly and well. Tonight is my tv night, Big Bang Theory, Person of Interest, The Mentalist. I missed Castle on Monday so I'll have to catch it On Demand this weekend. I think this year we will acquire a DVR.

I hope you have fun during the Science Crawl. It sounds awesome. I love San Francisco but haven't been there in about ten years (since the job that had an office in Redwood City, CA laid me off).

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Science Crawl rocked!

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Ouch! Hope your teeth are OK now. (And very glad Alice is doing well!)

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[yellowblackhaze.livejournal.com]

You get the good TV at this time of year, we get the BAD TV. This is when the ratings period for our networks comes to an end and of course when you're on holidays no one watches TV at all...ever, so our screens fill with all the stuff that the network never wanted in the first place and were railroaded into buying so they could get the stuff they thought people might want to watch and that advertisers would buy time on. Oh thank God for the cricket!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Aw, sad!

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

I managed to somehow break a titanium post inside my mouth

"You broke what could not be broken."
- Merlin to Arthur in Boorman's "Excalibur"

Time to go for adamantium?

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I wish.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I'm sorry to hear about the dental woes. I hope it heals very fast for you.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Me, too. Right now, it is screaming agony.

[dragonsally.livejournal.com]

Ouch -poor mouth.

I finished One Salt Sea again last night *sigh*
Do I really have to wait for the next book?

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Sadly, yes.

[vincentursus.livejournal.com]

Health cats are good. Ideally they should be accompanied by a healthy Seanan, though.

Heal quickly and have fun at the science crawl.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[paksenarrion2.livejournal.com]

I see you have Once Upon a Time on your DVR. Highly recommend it.

I also recommend Grimm.

If you have On Demand, the pilot episode is available. It is also available on Hulu. It is on Friday night on NBC at 9.

Hope you heal quickly from the dental trauma. And YAY for Alice being healthy!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I do not have On Demand, but I shall catch up soonly.

[batyatoon]

Yikes dental surgery. D: D: D:

*cuddles you gently and sends all the best tea in the world*

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Thank you, darlin'.

[cgbookcat1.livejournal.com]

I love the idea of a science crawl!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

It was great.

[starmalachite.livejournal.com]

You *broke* titanium. Wow. I hope the repair discovers eternal life.

I'm sorry the t-shirt mailing is being such a pain. I got sick the week you asked who wanted you to bring theirs to OVFF & so did not respond in a timely fashion, but I hoped it would be less stressful for you to mail them out afterwards at your leisure. Sounds like maybe not. Rats. No need to rush mine, but if unexpected postage costs are kicking your bank account's ass, I'd be happy to chip in more -- just ask.

Aside from the lack of Doctor Who, my only complaint about TV is 9PM Fridays. I was already Tivoing Fringe & Supernatural & getting my Rachel Maddow fix online (since she doesn't repeat on Fridays). I could program the non-Tivo DVR to snag Grimm -- but when would I actually get to *watch* it?

In cat news, we bought Dorothy a cat tree. (The company that made yours is now selling certain models in kit form via Petco.) We thought we were buying it for all the cats, but Little Miss Alpha plays too rough. I think that's all it is & she'd be happy to share once they gave her a good workout, but the others can't be bothered. It's not a total loss -- as long as she's playing Queen of the Mountain, she's not harassing Heidi the Cranky Old Lady Cat, so it's still good.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Yay cat trees!

[mysterysquid.livejournal.com]

Science crawl!

Awesome. :D

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

It was fab.

[archangelbeth]

So other people know: I got my shirt. They are appearing, yes! You have not run off to Tahiti!

Also, I saw candy-corn socks at the craft store t'other day. I was }theeeees{ close to grabbing them, but thought I should ask if they'd be appreciated, first.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Woo!

[archangelbeth]

(If they're still there when I can get back, then fair warning -- I may well grab that pair and see if I can route it to you somehow. >_>)

[trektone.livejournal.com]

Happy Science Crawling! I'm sure it will be entertaining with all you plague authors.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

We had a lovely time.

[alicetheowl.livejournal.com]

My dental horror is that, for 13 years, I went to the same dentist, who yelled at me not to squirm, who said sharply that I could NOT feel the damn drill and to stop being such a baby, and who dosed me with laughing gas so I'd sit still.

Come to find out, during my second root canal, that I have two nerves per tooth, instead of one. Some of my teeth have three nerve canals. So, whenever I was dosed with novacaine, one nerve would be numbed, but the rest would be alive and buzzing. So, yes, I COULD feel the goddamn drill.

You can imagine how much I love dentists.

[tikiera.livejournal.com]

I don't fully numb.

I don't know why. I never have been able to, I don't think I ever will - and eventually I get tired of the pain of the needles and decide I am numb enough.

This is not just dental - I had 10 shots in my foot before they did minor out patient surgery, and while I can't say it hurt per se, I did feel the _pressure_ of the laser.

So I sympathize, fully. I can't imagine not being at least partially numb for dental surgery - I can get to the "pressure not full on pain" part with only pain when a tooth is pulled (ah, wisdom teeth I am glad they are gone).

[alicetheowl.livejournal.com]

Aaaagh! @.@

My wisdom teeth required knocking me out to extract them. They were trying to grow in sideways.

I do, luckily, numb up pretty good when it's properly applied. Though, I also apparently have some resistance to whatever they use to knock you out. I woke up during my wisdom tooth extraction (only for one very memorable second), and I woke up when they were taking out my gall bladder.

Y'know those nightmares where something terrible is happening but you can't move, can't yell, can't even blink? It was kinda like that, only I've never felt pain in a dream. When I finally manager to whimper, I heard "morphine" somewhere to my right, and I was, blessedly, out again.

[yellowblackhaze.livejournal.com]

You woke up during a gall bladder extraction? Eeekk! I had mine out earlier this year, I was out the entire time, but that would have been a truly horrifying experience for you.

[alicetheowl.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Pretty unpleasant, but now it's just a darkly funny story.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

...aigh.

[ladymurmur.livejournal.com]

My sympathies on the dental horror. And thank you for sparing the details - my imagination can come up with plenty on its own!!

Yay for Alice Not Being Sick!

The science crawl looks like SO MUCH FUN! Please tell us how it goes!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

It was great. Details to come.

[deakat]

I believe that you can make whatever goal(s) you set for yourself. You are mighty! My shirt will arrive in the fullness of time.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :)

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

I look at this list, and I think: "How does anyone achieve that much in a single lifetime?"

[GOES BACK TO COMBATTING INSOMNIA BY MURDERINGINSTIGATING THRILLING AND PRODUCTIVE ADVENTURES IN UNCONTROLLED SUB-ORBITAL FLIGHT SPACE FOR DEFENCELESS SCREAMING CONSCRIPTED KERBONAUTS]

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Hee hee hee.