When real things happen to imaginary people

Let's see, where were we ... last week, I returned from Disneyland (yes, I miss the Haunted Mansion, thank you for asking), worked two days, and then hopped on a bus to Portland for the Vampire Ball.





What these photos don't really show: the almost entire can of glitter hairspray that I covered myself with. Every Halloween season, Value Village/Savers stocks glitter hairspray that is not really hairspray, but is microglitter in an aerosol. It is AMAZING. It is also insidious; I suspect I'm never going to get all the glitter out of that dress, which is fine with me, but The Husband will make That Face about it.

The event was lovely; in fact, it was one of the better VMBs of the past few years. There were a wide range of performers, and the new layout of the Melody Ballroom was wonderful. While I missed the previous stage (which has been removed in the remodel), having the stage directly opposite the doors to the main ballroom was great.

Rhias came down for the event -- her first ever time at VMB! -- and had a great time. She looked fantastic, and the headpiece she made was epic.



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Sunday morning, before I wandered off to the bus home, I indulged in a stuffed waffle at the hotel restaurant. (Stuffed with Brie and ham, and topped with pear compote.) It was delicious. I am paying for it now. I know part of what I'm feeling is exhaustion -- it's been a busy couple of weeks! -- but the upswing in brain fog and joint pain? Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's due to the whacking great block of carbs & gluten I had. I guess I know for sure now that I can't eat like that anymore? Ugh, send coffee and laudanum.

I am back from my California expedition. The Fall Out Boy/Panic! at the Disco concert was fantastic. There's something about stadium concerts with loud guitars that fills me with glee. FOB performed two of my favorites from the new album ("Alone Together" and "Just One Yesterday"), and one of them from Folie A Deux ("Twenty Dollar Nosebleed" - with the cutiehead lead singer from P!atD!); if they had performed one of my other faves from Folie ("27") I probably would have hurt something laughing. They didn't perform my absolute favorite from Infinity On High ("Hum Hallelujah") , but that's okay - see previous statement about possibly injuring myself from laughter.

The time hanging out with Cass was wonderful, and I am once again mad about the lack of teleportation technology.

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Today I had a preliminary phone interview with an HR munchkin at a local tech company, and hope to hear back from them about scheduling the next step in the interview process. I followed that up with applying for UI, which has got to be one of my least favorite things to do in the world. Tonight, I write. Tomorrow, I write. I WILL be productive, yes.

Stuff I have done over the past few days. I'm writing it down because I have a terrible habit of thinking I haven't gotten anything done and ZOMG crisis!

( If you really want to know, feel free to click )

Still to do for this week:

( Somehow I thought this list would be shorter )

Random things:

- I'm in Portland! (And it sounds like roughly a gazillion people I know will be here over the weekend.) I'm here for one of my regular visits to cass404, with an extra bit of secret side project meetings. So, y'know, fun and hijinks! The only downside is that one of the secret side project meetings is at 8:30 in the morning on Saturday. Oh dear. Everyone think awake thoughts at me on Saturday, please?

- Speaking of Portland, oh hey! GearCon is happening this weekend, and a bunch of nifty people will be there, including Cherie Priest, Unwoman, and oodles of other steampunk-y types. I don't know if I'll be able to manage stopping by, but I may try.

- If you're in Seattle on Friday night, you should go to El Corazon to see Shedu! If I were in town, I'd be out to cheer them on, so obviously some of you peeps should go do that for me.

- A cool and badass thing related to SDCC happening this weekend: http://comicconpervs.tumblr.com/ . A Tumblr blog dedicated to taking and posting pictures of the creepy asshats who try to take surreptitious up-skirt photos of women at the con. I fully support this sort of public shaming for those jerks, and have been telling everyone I know online about the project.

- Event Advance Warning! I will be vending at Mourning Market in August! Cranky!Bloomers, literary roses, copies of the Gothic Charm School book and art prints, and (if I have the time to make another pair) spike-adorned shoes. (The time-consuming part is needing to take photos of the process, so I can post a tutorial on GCS.)

So! Stuff! Things! I hope all of you folks are doing well.

Due to a combination of a whole bunch of things, it was decided that I should visit PDX. So for this week, I am working REALLY remotely. As in, from cass404's couch. Whee!

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Completely unrelatedly: since I don't read fashion magazines anymore (except for the annual Fall issue of Vogue that's roughly the same size as a phonebook), has there been some sort of fashion memo that dark cherry/plum lipsticks are back? Chanel may not be making Vamp anymore (the fools!), but Wet & Wild has "Cherry Crush", which is a dead ringer for it, and Sephora's version is "Crush". Which means, yay, I can stock up on my lipstick color!

(Yes, I have a small box in the 'fridge that I keep tubes of lipstick in. Look, when you have very specific requirements about lipstick colors, you learn to stockpile when those colors come briefly into fashion.)