Lost In The Grooves is now up properly at Amazon. Feel free to blurb it. It is, after all, the most Buffistaful book ever published with contributions by Hayden, erinaceous, Jilli, Michele, Knut, joe boucher, JZ, and Jon B. Needless to say it is an excellent Christmas gift.

Heh.

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The Famous Flower of Serving Men by Deborah Grabien

I'm on NPR's Talk of the Nation tomorrow (Weds, 11/24) blabbing away. Noon west coast time, 3pm Eastern. Check your local listings.

I'll be in Chicago next week for a book promotion event at Quimby's, on Saturday, December 4th. I expect there will be drinking and carousing afterwards. Chicagoistas should contact me at my work email address (just updated it at my profile).

Dark as a dark thing for awhile until we obtain a new router and ifure out what in hell is wrong with our internet connection.

Damn it.

Update.

PhD plans are on the back burner if not totally out of the question for now. Money, lack of insurance, and overall stress factors are going to make it a no-go.

However, all is not lost. My real passion has always been writing, and my friend J. has been working on his Creative Writing MA at the Harvard Extension School, which has a great writing program. I think he may have convinced me to give it a try. My focus is shifting here--I see this as a way to get myself motivated and give myself some structure for my writing (not always putting it last in the priority list) as well as making some connections and learning from some truly fabulous profs. This is no longer about the degree; I have an MA already (though dif. focus area). Now it's about what school should really be about--the learning. Cliche. I know. I'm sorry. True though.

The classes are a low price...plus they offer half off for teachers on top of that. Since I'd still be teaching, no loss of salary, and health insurance will still be all good. Also, no GRE's needed to this program, and the admission is simply based on getting high passes on three classes and then submitting writing samples.

Long story short, I think I'm going to take one class next semester and see what I think. It's a long commute to Boston from here, but I have some friends up there... t looks hopefully at Somervillians and it would only be one night class a week, so it shouldn't be too bad.

It's a start.

I will be honest, though, I'm a little bummed by the whole process. It's been stressful, and I am kicking myself that I told anyone that I was thinking about doing the PhD thing. I'm only announcing here because I had asked for GRE ~ma that I apparantly don't really need. I release it into the wild and ask instead for making-the-right-decision-for-my-future-happiness and not-letting-my-pride-get-in-the-way ~ma, please.

I'd like to request some apartment hunting-ma. Things are coming together so that the next few months will be the perfect time for me to upgrade my living situation, and psychologically I'm ready to do it as well. I finally worked myself into a serious purge mode as well, so I'm hoping to have my stuff down to a more manageable size.

Anyway, all vibes would be welcome. This would be the first time I moved under my own steam instead of having to move for one reason or another, so it's a big step for me personally.

Happy Thanksgiving 'murricans, and a health-ma request. The DF is going in for valve repair surgery December 1 (and some pre-testing on the 29th). It's commonplace surgery for the surgeon, but not commonplace for us, and it's still open heart surgery, no matter how routine. So any spare good wishes that can be sent out, we'd appreciate.

(x-posted to journal and natter and bitches, oh my!)

Hey everyone – we’re post-op and we’re looking good!

Everything went very well, except for the 1:15 AM emergency dental office visit to replace the piece of temporary crown which broke off 6 hours before the surgery was scheduled to start. Yeah, that part wasn’t in the original plan.

The doctor said the surgery went better than he expected it to. Took about 2 hours, (in which time I managed to explore pretty much every inch of Abbott Northwestern Hospital….) She came out of anesthesia well enough, made it home, and has been doing very well – up and about, functioning like a normal person, except her face is very puffy and cute, but she's got her beautiful cheekbones back, which is very wonderful.. Hell, she’s doing better than me, as I now attempt to catch up on much lost sleep.

So – thank you for all the various ~ma that came her way – obviously it all was of great help. Thanks

Z

Not Apocalypsy, but I am participating in an event to raise money for AIDS research and services. If anyone is interested in sponsoring me, please send me an email and I will direct you to the website where they are taking donations. THANKS!

My interview on NPR's Talk of the Nation is archived already.

((((Juliana))))

Requesting a little Health Care - ma for my best friend (pauses, blinks, considers, realises that that probably IS the description that fits my flatmate/colleague these days, me-in-the-closet-ness notwithstanding) who's just spent a week in hospital following a severe & decidedly scary attack of Bronchitis & Asthma which led to 3 days in Intensive Care on oxygen and a drip. We brought her home last night, she's way way way better, but the nasty wee twist was that our health insurance? Apparently nonexistant. Although our employer says it's a mix up, and that they're sending someone today to pay off the 800 pounds sterling that she now owes the hospital and collect her passport from them. (I handed over 200 pounds when she was admitted.)

Sure makes me appreciate the hell out of Britain, where you just don't consider that kind of problem. (Three cheers for the National Health Service, however tatty it may be.)

Anyway, any tiny snippets of leftover -ma lying around would be appreciated over here in Cairo, because we still don't know whether it WILL all get paid for. The Health Insurers seemed pretty damned convinced that our cover had expired and not been renewed. (This is a bit of a shock for me on a selfish note too, of course.)

eta Strikes me I should perhaps add, flatmate has been most thoroughly converted to the BtVS side of the force over the past few months; not only did buy Once More With Feeling when she went home in the summer time, but she and I quite often have singalongaOMWF evenings and she's now watched Seasons 3, 4 and 5 in their entirity courtesy of a friend's DVDs. Indeed, she watched Season 5 in hospital this past week - I warned her that it was not exactly cheerful or hospital-friendly viewing, but she was slightly spoiled. Was totally endeared when she texted me from her hospital bed with the following:

OMG! JOYCE DEAD! SPIKE TRIANGLE! GLORY KNOWS ABOUT THE KEY!

Hope I can sell my toaster for enough money to cover her hospital fees.

A little on edge here. Brendon's brother went to the hosptial this morning. He is still in the ER but they have admitted him and he'll be staying 24-48 or something. His ankle bothered him a bit on Wednesday. He didn't mention it during the festivities yesterday. This morning the ankle was swollen to basketball size and work sent him to the ER. Now he is hugely swollen up to the knee. They are giving him lots of IV anti-biotics and doing bunches of tests. Eeeek. Of course Brendon is with him. He even ran out to buy him a radio to listen to the Heat/Pistons game. Some ~ma would be appreciated.