AmyLiz, you realize when we finally meet, they'll be able to track us by a trail of cake crumbs and cigarette butts.

Bwah!

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There are a good number of people who get a VERY bad break-out and suffer horribly, but it doesn't reoccur. If you look it up online, shingles seems to really only hit older people, and tends to be only once. In my experience there seems to be a fair amount of younger people also getting it, and for some of us it recurrs. Most of the time people get it along their trunk/torso/sometimes arms or legs. It's much rarer on the face, and I think very rare (and dangerous) in the eyes. I think it's worse on the torso because the outbreak travels along a nerve pathway, and some of those can be extensive.

Good news is that you can only infect someone who has never had the chickenpox, and even then you aren't terribly likely to as it isn't as virulent as the actual varicella zoster virus. You cannot get shingles (herpes zoster) from anyone; only if your own body has trapped the virus from your own chickenpox experience in a nerve root and then decides to play will you have an outbreak.

I no longer get any of the warning signs (tingling and sore glands, then blisters). Mine starts in with the blisters right away, and then my glands kick in. This time, the virus also made me really weepy, which was not actually a lot of fun. I don't remember it doing that before.

Maybe I should start chiming in about a fun topic, like cake. I like a cranberry sachertorte for the holidays. It's yummy and pretty, without being TOO difficult to make. Very dense and rich, though. The last actual cake I made was a citrus yellow cake with lemon buttercream frosting, and I used some leftover cranberry pie filling to sandwich inbetween the layers. So very tasty.

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Random meme.

My hair is at the point where I am growling at it in frustration. Whenever it gets past a certain length, it starts getting dry and fragile and split-endy and generally unattractive. I have a hair appointment at 4:45 today, and I am SO excited. I'm not chopping it short (sorry, Hec), but definitely a few inches shorter with lots of layers.

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If you look it up online, shingles seems to really only hit older people, and tends to be only once. In my experience there seems to be a fair amount of younger people also getting it, and for some of us it recurrs. Most of the time people get it along their trunk/torso/sometimes arms or legs. It's much rarer on the face, and I think very rare (and dangerous) in the eyes. I think it's worse on the torso because the outbreak travels along a nerve pathway, and some of those can be extensive.

My sister-in-law had it in her late 20s/early 30s. She might have had the outbreak when she was pregnant even, I can't remember.

My mother's was along the nerve pathway, I think. It started at her spine, and was a real bitch. I probably caught the Chicken Pox from my grandfather's case of Shingles. I was 19, and so sick.

My hair is at the point where I am growling at it in frustration. Whenever it gets past a certain length, it starts getting dry and fragile and split-endy and generally unattractive. I have a hair appointment at 4:45 today, and I am SO excited. I'm not chopping it short (sorry, Hec), but definitely a few inches shorter with lots of layers.

Hi Kristin. I'm sorry I missed you before. I checked out the photos in your lj. Your place is adorable.

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Hi Cindy! Thanks. I worked hard to make it become so. It was not adorable when I moved in, let me tell ya.

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How was the RWA meeting, AmyLiz? Mine was fairly boring, as it mostly related to planning stuff for next year, including such yawners as revising the by-laws and looking for volunteers for various committees. I successfully kept my hand down. I'm willing to keep being editor/agent chair or help brainstorm anything related to publicity and programs, but I'm not taking on anything huge until I have three finished manuscripts ready to shop around, we own a house, and we've had another child if we can manage to get our housing and finances in order before my ovaries croak. In other words, don't ask me to be on any committees for a few years! Life too busy!

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The baby just fell down in the driveway. On. Her. Face. Ack. Poor little thing. To give her credit, though, she wanted to go back out and play the moment I wiped her up. She looks like a little pink prizefighter, though.

The last actual cake I made was a citrus yellow cake with lemon buttercream frosting, and I used some leftover cranberry pie filling to sandwich inbetween the layers. So very tasty.

YUM.

How was the RWA meeting, AmyLiz?

It was good. Being a chapter virgin, I was a little disconcerted to realize that the meeting started at 10, for the members who were critiquing, and the part I went for -- the part advertised on the website -- was the "program," which was about screenwriting and three-act structure. So I didn't get to be chat or hang out, which was what I really wanted. But everyone seemed great, and I'll go back next month. I'm going to join, so I can get in on the critiquing, too.

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Abigail, Lydia, and Genevieve

I love love love each and every one of these names. I would insist on naming my hypothetical daughter Genevieve except, well, my first serious girlfriend had this name, and so it might be a little odd to name a daughter after her, even though it wouldn't be after her, quite.

Abigail and Lydia are both beautiful alternatives though. I love Abigail and the large majority of its shortenings especially.

On shortenings: I tend to go by David, but some people call me Dave, and I'm generally okay with that. My mom called me Dave off and on in high school, so maybe I'm just used to it - for a long time, I only let her have the short name, but I lightened up in college. I generally prefer it to being called by my last name, which happens more often (Griswold being rather distinctive, and nicely shortened to Griz, Grizzy, The Griz, and so forth), but I tend to be rather calm about all of them.

Babies are cute. I want some, someday. In a few more years. Or a decade. Or so.

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I had to leave ours early because it just went on so long. We had the planning plus a critique workshop, and they had more planned than would fit the time available, especially when we got into protracted discussions about whether we could make our tape library into MP3 format and put it on the website and whether we should move our conference so it's not the same weekend as the NJ chapter's. t YAWN

This is more of a Great Write topic, but since you're here...have you ever felt your enthusiasm flag for a story right as you hit the ending? I'm basically a chapter and an epilogue away from finishing the WIP, and suddenly the writing feels like going through the motions and my climax seems lame and anticlimactic. I'm pushing through--I'm not about to abandon a book this long so close to the end--and I really hope it's better than I think it is, but I hate feeling this way when I've been so passionate about the WIP up until now.

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have you ever felt your enthusiasm flag for a story right as you hit the ending?

We can move into GWW if you want. I know what you mean, and I do have some thoughts on it.

Short answer: yes.

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