So, I'm very very fond of Laurie R. King's Mary Russell series.

I have been thinking, for some months now, that I'd read all the ones that had been out in paperback, up through The Game. And was looking eagerly forward to getting hold of The Language of Bees, once I'd gotten around to buying it.

While putting away my books in our new house, I discovered a Mary Russell I didn't remember reading. Locked Rooms. Read the synopsis... nope, I don't remember reading this. Flipped through... yeah, I remember a preview of this plot appearing at the end of one of the other books, but I definitely have not read this one.

For an hour or two I just spluttered, how in hell did I have a Mary Russell I didn't know about? How in hell did I have one that I didn't read?? I've been practically languishing for want of Russell and Holmes! How... what... well, anyway, I'll read it now; the books don't all take place in chronological order, so it won't matter that I skipped one somehow.

Then while adding it to Goodreads, I discovered that I *didn't* skip one... it is actually, in the order of publication, the next one after the last one I remember reading.

I know it seems like no big deal, but the weird part is, I don't remember buying this.

I have NO MEMORY of buying this book at ALL. I have no memory of being AWARE that there was another book in the series between the last one I read and the most recent one. It's clearly a used book, and I don't quite remember the last time I was in a used bookstore, but it's been a good long while.

It's just a little freaky. I seem to have bought myself, at some point, exactly the book I wanted, and then promptly forgot of its existence.

Did one of you sneak a gift into the moving boxes, or something?

Echoing post to cast the net wide; sorry for duplication:

tereshkova2001 is trying to get rid of her Clearwire account. It's a perfectly good broadband internet service, we're just switching over to cablemodem at the Agora. If she simply cancels her contract now, she has to pay them a large fee.

If you want 18 months of Clearwire internet-- you'd get the first month free, after that $35 including the modem-- please go comment on this post.

The other day, cow told me a great dog story, and it cheered me up just when I needed it.

Now it's on LJ! The giggles, I shares them.

I mentioned this on Twitter, but didn't have the brainpower for LJ at the time:

Cathrynne M. Valente, author of The Orphan's Tales books (upon which S.J. Tucker's "Firebird's Child" and two albumsful of other songs were based-- DucKon filkers take note!) and of Palimpsest and others, is making her next book available online. For free! Pay what you think it's worth, but go and read. All hail the Radiohead business model!

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In a Ship of Her Own Making is a YA fantasy novel (safe for children) that used to be only a fictional novel within the pages of Palimpsest, a favorite of the protagonist there, and was never meant to be a real book. Until so many people asked Cat whether she'd really write it someday that she decided, well alright then, she would. Something about that whole concept just utterly charms and delights me. She accidentally wrote a book. Oops!

Part of the impetus for this is that, like so many self-employed artisans these days, the economy of suck has hit her and her partner too. justbeast has been searching for a job for over six months, and Cat's been trying to support them both on a freelance writer's salary. Not wanting to ask something for nothing, she came up with Fairyland.

If you're interested in purchasing more writing or other shinies:

* The Omikuji Project is a nifty short-story-a-month club that comes in the mail all beautiful and wax-sealed and wondrous; Torrey gave me a subscription for Valentine's Day and it's such a squeeful delight to see it arrive in the mail each month. Real actual *mail*, that isn't junk mail, that's pretty! Plus there is a drawing each month for a shiny-something handmade by Cat. (I actually won once! Totally not fixed, she swears. I have the most lovely soft scarf now. I'd show you, but it's packed.)

* There is also her ebook store.

* And there is a LiveJournal community, adoptingcat, full of people selling shinies and services on Cat's behalf. There's a *lot* of neat things there for auction with not a lot of bids on them yet, so you can get some cool, and in many cases totally unique, stuff for quite a steal, if you hurry.

Time to go shopping!

Dear Livejournal,

I know I've been ignoring you lately. But that doesn't mean I don't love you. It's not you, I promise. It's me. No, it really is. I have had zero brain, zero mental energy, zero spoons left to focus at the end of each day for some time now.

My brain has been sacrificed partly in the pursuit of something which is at last good news: WE CAN HAZ HOUSE!

Rental house, to be specific. gfish, tfabris, tereshkova2001 and I will be moving in together, to a gorgeous house not too far from the Brainpan. Slightly closer to my and Tony's work, and close to good bus lines for Torrey (and for Fishy when he moves back after finishing his degree (Real Soon Now)). It's new construction, it's beautiful, it's got a gorgeous kitchen and room for us all to have all the things we want (studio, workrooms, our own spaces, etc.) and to entertain and have guests.

Yeah, it has drawbacks, no place is perfect, but... it has everything we want. And it's beautiful. And at last, it's ours.

I've un-private-ized the flickr set of photos I took when we looked at it the first time. They're not great, because I was in a hurry, but they give you an idea. (They were private until now because if we didn't get it, I didn't want to have put photos up on the internet of someone else's house.)

Speaking of which, does anyone know what kind of tree this is? It's in our little strip of back yard. It looks like something fruit-bearing (in the larger view you can see that it has little unripe fruits of some kind on it) but it seems too late in the year for the fruit to be plums and still be so green. (Though we did have a pretty cold spring.) And they don't seem the right shape to be apples. Or is it just ornamental?

So... yeah. I've spent the past two or three weeks compulsively refreshing craigslist and other rental sites, making endless phone calls and even more endless notes and logs, scheduling appointments, and browbeating my future roommates into filling out forms and going to open houses, doing almost no work (or anything else) during the day except the bare minimum of time-sensitive stuff. I even gave myself a bit of a meltdown last Friday night. But BY GOD I FOUND US A HOUSE. I hadn't fully realized just how intensely I'd been focusing on this until last night, when the signing was done (for three of us; Fishy signs next week) and I could finally relax... and then all those days of tension body-slammed me all at once. I was going to make this post last night, but I was too exhausted even to think; when I came close to face-planting on my laptop, I gave it up and went to bed.

I'm still kinda reeling. Tons of space! Amazing kitchen! Marble countertops and stainless steel appliances! Sufficient electrical outlets! Plenty of room for Monkey Brains Studios! All my stuff out of storage! Ohgodohgodohgod.

And best of all, happy living with my Different Kind of Family. This has been my heart's desire for I can't even tell you how long now.

We will most likely have a housewarming sometime in July (possibly combined with my birthday).

We haven't yet agreed on a name. Suggestions welcome; we reserve the right to ignore them all. :) (Edit: For your thinking pleasure: it contains MonkeyBrains Studios (which is why Tony's current house is the Brainpan). It will contain a fox/kitsune/officemouse, a monkey, a Fishy, and a shapeshifter who I'm pretty sure is secretly a cat. It has an unspecified tree in a tiny li'l back yard. It's near a cemetery. It's in Greenwood. It's in a little cluster of houses that share a driveway. It's inhabited by geeky people and musicky people and sciency people. We will probably have people over a lot and be a place of rest for our weary traveling friends. And I should probably stop now.)

By the way, this also means that the (soon to be former) Brainpan will be vacant soon. Our landlady there has been and still is ALL KINDS OF AWESOME. I can't say enough good things about her. And the house has been charming and comfy and reasonably priced; it's just not big enough for what we want anymore. So, should you know of anyone who wants to rent a one-bedroom house (with basement) in a good neighborhood in north Seattle, please get in touch with Tony so he can give you contact info.

Further updates on my life to come. Also, eventually I'll start reading LJ regularly again, but there's no way I can backtrack everything.

House house house!

It's been a while since I've made a bookpost. Actually it's been a while since I've made *any* post! Somehow I just haven't had the time or attention span for much beyond Twitter lately. But I do wanna keep these up.

I'm also using Goodreads these days... though I probably won't be transferring every single review from here to there, but then I haven't got the brain right now for long reviews anyway. Anyway, it's kinda fun, so feel free to friend me over there. :)

( Books in 2009 so far. Only one book has spoilers-- well, *I* don't think they're spoilers, but apparently someone on Goodreads did. You've been warned. )

Because I'm still not tired of phrasing it this way:

Yesterday marked six years of legal unity, twelve and a half years of gleeful insanity, and twenty-nine years of volcanic activity.

(You can choose which you'd like to celebrate.)

Wedding photos
More wedding photos
First anniversary photos

Happy anniversary, my love.

So I've been trying to get around to uploading all the photos on my camera that have just been sitting there for FOREVER. I haven't got 'em all yet, and was going to wait until I did before posting, but it's taking too long. Plus people are already finding them. :) So, the sets so far:

Conflikt 2009

Pacific Science Center 2009 (we went there with gfish's parents-- photos are just the butterfly house, since the Lucy exhibit didn't allow photography.)

Cat's birthday party

Enjoy!

Streaming right now.

It might make me a big dork but I'm *so* excited about this. This is just so cool!

When I was in high school, my junior year, I remember my English teacher talking about JFK having a poet laureate speak at his inauguration. She actually got starry-eyed talking about it... and about how what it meant to her was the bringing of culture to the White House.

This is how it makes me feel. I'm remembering Mrs. Harriman and understanding how she felt. After eight years of fratboy nonsense-- we have a leader who is making a statement that the arts matter.

Go watch.

Ironically I have to leave now, but I'm hoping maybe one of the radio stations will be playing it too. So y'all have to go watch for me and be my proxy. :D

I seem to have been remiss in tagging posts about this, but anyway...

In the not-oft-mentioned-lately Virtual Walk to the Filk Cons, our brave but spunky last-place girl (which is to say, me) has never given up, and has FINALLY MADE IT TO CONSONANCE!

...we will not comment on the fact that it took me a year.

Next goal: Consonance to ConChord.

Despite lagging ridiculously behind Brooke & Beth & anyone else who's doing this, it really *has* helped motivate me to walk more than I normally would have. So even if that isn't as much as other people walk, it's worth a lot.

Particularly as it's been good for my Weight Watchers goal, too. My weigh-in day is tomorrow, but I weighed myself this morning, and I am down 23.5 pounds since September when I started. Woot! I don't mind it going slowly, as it means it hasn't been a shock to my system and it'll be easier to maintain. What *has* been a shock is that it's been so gradual I haven't always noticed... until the first couple of really nice warm days this year, when I went to put on my summer capris or summer skirts... and they no longer fit! Hee. Last summer I had bought a whole bunch of new clothes on clearance in a size up, because everything was too tight. Now everything is too loose! There is a lot of sewing in my future... :D

(Forgot to say... hsifyppah referred to WW the other day as the RPG approach to weight loss. This amuses me fantastically as it's kind of true. And I've just leveled down!)

By now everyone in filkdom and elsewhere who knew him has probably heard about John Caspell's passing. If you have not, here is Brooke's post with the details. I haven't written until now because I haven't managed to get my thoughts together enough to know what to say.

Here and here are some photos provided by thoughtful people.

We were fortunate to be at home and surrounded by loves when we heard, so we had support and comfort and we took care of each other. Well, I didn't do a lot of taking-care-of, but you know.

I still kind of can't think.

I was surprised by my primary reaction, which was anger. Anger a little bit at the drunk driver, sure, but that wasn't the main thing; anger just.. at... I don't know. The universe. All I could keep thinking was, no more. NO MORE. It was an effort not to scream and smash things.

John was not about anger, though. He was not about that kind of response to the world. Andrew has already been so eloquent about him, and said so many of the things that will always come to mind whenever I think of him.

Whenever he and Brooke were recording at MonkeyBrains, they would both stay here at the Brainpan. He was always a gracious guest, helped out with dishes and such, and he was always so cheerful and easygoing. He was so easy to get along with. He just seemed to like everybody, all the time, and to take them as they came and shrug at their flaws with a seeming attitude of, hey, everyone has them.

I always tried to save my request turn in bardic circles to request something of John. At Norwescon I asked him to do "Guardians", because I knew Torrey hadn't heard it. I always loved hearing him do that one. He and I also kind of had a running joke, because he would do the song about the polar bear after the wreck of the Titanic, asking if there was any news of the iceberg ("My family were on it, you see"), and it always made me cry, and I'd give him a (good-natured) bad time about it. I'd gladly let him make me cry with it again if I could. I also loved hearing him do "Dirty Movie" and "I Can't Get Over You So Why Don't You Get Under Me" and any number of other funny songs; he had this *awesome* grin when he was singing a song like that, like nothing made him happier than to make you giggle.

He was just so full of joy. That's what it comes down to. Just so much joy.

He will be so very, very missed.

Meeeheeheehee, Alton Brown is on right now doing a Sweeney Todd episode. (Meat pies.) HEE. His British accent is TERRIBLE. It's awesome. Thanks, tfabris, for the heads up. :)

In other news, I'm all ready to get pirated up for Skinny White Chick's piratey gig tomorrow night! 7pm at Retroactive Kids! How many of you Lost Girls (and Boys) are going? We'll be there, and Torrey & I can't wait to show off our new shiny shiny shinies from Susan aka Bansai8 Creations Squee!

I've picked out my outfit (no corsetry this time; I feel like being comfy, and it's a toy store) and reinstalled the plumes in my giant silly pirate hat. And I've re-wrapped my toy sword grip in purple instead of brown. The plus: it's all soft and I did a good job and it's PURPLE! The minus: I forgot what happens when you cut velvet. :D

But I cleaned it up like a good girl and now I get to eat leftover Indian food while watching Alton being adorably geeky.

Yarr!

I've been trying to put this into words for a few days now...

So, on Friday night we had a house concert, or what cadhla has taught me is a good old-fashioned rent party, though I didn't know the term at the time. (Some videos and photos are here taken by Robbert Michel.)

The background: within a very short time period, three out of four of the residents of our dear House Cerulia had lost their jobs due to the Economy of Suck, and it was seriously looking like the Little Blue Household might have to be broken up. We didn't want our friends to lose their home together, and we also didn't want to see the loss of one of our favorite gathering places, places to hold house concerts and game nights and movie nights and relaxing dinners full of laughter and affection and friendship. We thought maybe we could do something to help them make ends meet.

Friends, my tiny mind is blown.

It was less than a week from announcement to concert date; only a couple days more than that from the day tereshkova2001 first called me on the way to work to say "I have this idea... I don't know if it's a good one or not, so tell me what you think...". Just about a week. And with that little notice, you? You all came through. The place was packed, with more RSVPs and more people than Cerulia has ever had at a house concert before, and the raffle was jam packed with all manner of shiny things (30 items!) donated by folks who wanted to help. And when they added up the total, including CD sales, raffle tickets, straight donations, IOU's and promised Paypal donations, they wound up with nearly a full month's rent. The Cerulia girls had estimated that, realistically, they would probably wind up with enough to pay their electric bill. We gave them five or six times that.

I've been struggling since then to find words for how overwhelming this is. The community came through for our girls just like they came through for s00j, just like they came through for Alec and Kore and Fae Hollow. The intersection of several communities, really.

It's like... see, we have this hobby, Tony and me. We go around singing in coffeehouses and at cons and at house concerts, and it's a LOT of fun, and it more or less pays for itself when you factor in travel expenses and whatnot. Sometimes our shiny friends who actually make their living at this let us join in with them, and that's even *more* fun. And it's delightful and it brings us joy, and it brings a lot of other people joy in the process, and that makes me deeply happy.

And then... our little hobby, this thing we do because we love it and it's what we do for fun on our nights and weekends off, it suddenly became this... power. This power that we can actually use to do things in the world. I'm looking back and marveling at things I should've marveled at before. In summer we used our magic to help keep friends from losing their house and property, and in winter we used it to help pay a friend's medical bills, and now we have used it to help more friends keep their house.

I... we don't just play and sing. We can actually do things. Real things.

Forgive me for only just now waking up and smelling the veggie quiche enough to put this into words. I just... usually when I talk about magic it's a metaphor. But there was so much love and joy in that room that night; I would already have put everything I had into that performance, but I was feeding off what you were giving me and sending it back out again and oh.

I have been marveling at our local and internet-extended communities for a long, long time now. This tribe, with all its branches, this family, they have adopted and absorbed and welcomed us like nothing I have ever known. I've tried and tried but I can't describe the feeling. And I've never encountered a community of people who, on the whole, so completely embodied the values they say they do; I've never encountered a group who were so *actually* loving, respectful, tolerant, communicative, friendly, open, welcoming... and who valued creativity and fantasy so highly. I've never encountered so many people who really did live their dreams.

You are all wonderful and amazing and I am floored.

Reminder: House Concert Tonight!

The response has been overwhelming! We all love our girls in the Little Blue House, oh yes we do. There is going to be so much love packed into that house tonight, I can't even think. I adore you all!

The raffle idea started by s00j (a trend setter as always!) has snowballed into quite a collection of shiny things. We have a tarot reading, a piercing, and a ride on a fire truck. We have artsy things, craftsy things, pretty things, and smelly (good-smelly!) things. We have things to make you look good, things to make you feel good, and things to make you happy. So be sure to bring your spendin'-on-shinies money, and any extra luck you have lying around!

Doors open at 7pm, music starts at 8. We can't wait! :D

SURPRIZE HOUSE CONCERT

Vixy & Tony (& Betsy!) House concert this Friday, April 24 at 8pm!

House Cerulia has a penchant for hosting fabulous house concerts, including Skinny White Chick (aka Sooj & Betsy), Marian Call, and, of course, Vixy & Tony. The lovely ladies of the house love putting on concerts, and they want to have you (yes, you!) over for many more of them. But to make sure that will happen, the Little Blue House needs your help!

House Cerulia has been hit especially hard by the Economy of Suck, and we want to help them out-- and what better way than by doing what we do best?

Please come this Friday (doors open at 7pm, music starts at 8pm) for a two-hour (or more, if you ask us REEEEEEEEEALLY nicely) house concert of Vixy + Tony + Betsy = AWESOME. All moneys from the tip jar and merch sales will go to our gracious hostesses to support our favorite venue!

But wait, there's more!

The equally fabulous S.J. Tucker joins us from her California tour, through the magic of raffle technology! One lucky person will win a free copy of her upcoming EP Pirate Girls, and one other lucky person will win a free copy of her next album, Mischief! Everyone is entered just for showing up, and you can purchase as many additional tickets as your heart desires. (We have SEKRIT PLOTS in the works for other raffle items as well!)

Where to go:

House Cerulia
13630 4th Ave NE
Seattle, WA 98125

Look for the blue house on the east side of the street.
Take the 130th St or 145th St Exit from I-5.
Please RSVP to housecerulia at gmail dot com. Comments/questions/concerns may also be relayed at this email address.

We hope to see you there!

Tell me about the place(s) you love.

If you missed Marian Call's gig at Wayward last weekend, you missed a ROOF-RAISING BARREL OF AWESOME. I'm just saying.

But!

It's not too late to catch more! Marian has upcoming shows in Seattle, Portland and California. You really, really don't want to miss her if she's in your area. Trust me. I Know These Things.

Plus!

She will be auctioning some awesome shinies, including some specifically Browncoat-interest things (Malcolm Reynolds stunt pistol!) in the very near future! Watch her website, her blog, and/or her Twitter page for announcements on when the sales will begin.

Or you can make it easier on yourself and just subscribe to her mailing list.

Or if you prefer to have updates show up in your LJ friends list rather than your email inbox, join mariancall_fans.

This has been a Public Service AWESOMENESS Announcement.

I can't say it any better than s00j can, so I'll just let her post speak for itself:

Upcoming shows in Seattle!

Danceworks: Kitten Sundae live, possibly with nuts! Listen and dance and wish Tony a happy birthday! (That is Vixy & Tony & Sooj & Betsy, with possibly a special surprise guest, we're not sure yet. We've been jokingly calling ourselves "Kitten Sundae" for a while; now the joke's on us, and the treat is for us all. Nom!)

Betsy and I will be joining in on the SoulFood and Annex Palimpsest shows, to reprise/recreate our roles from the Trains of Heaven tour, and of course the Norwescon Palimpsest/Ravens in the Library show will be chock full of people!

So even if you couldn't make it to the Windy City or the Crescent City, it's still not too late to make your way to the Secret City!

Hope to see you all!

Yes my dears, despite the epic battle currently being waged within my lungs, Vixy & Tony (with added awesomeness by Betsy & Sunnie!) are still on tonight to open for Marian Call at Wayward Coffeehouse. We go on at 7pm, and there will be a bit of a break, and I think Marian goes on at 8pm.

Also, Tony will be standing in as Marian's guitarist, and Sunnie will be adding her fabulous strings to Marian's set as well.

Please come! I have no idea what kind of sounds are going to be coming out of *my* mouth, but Marian is just the right blend of sexy and geeky, with such a mad genius for songwriting that there are a few songs I plan to knock her on the head and steal cover respectfully with permission someday. :D

Hope to see you there!