Hello friends! Life has been ... interesting.

I've been going back to school, working on an economics/business degree to extend the research I did on my masters' thesis several years ago, which was kind of a surprise all around. I got a scholarship, but wasn't expecting to engage as deeply with the subject matter as I did. And I thought I'd finished with my masters' work, only to discover that I've been secretly keeping the flame alive in the back part of my head, waiting for an opportunity to dig into it again. That's been pretty great.

The last two years have been a Period of Diagnoses. To wit:

• Major learning disorder!
• Attention decifit disorder!
• Major sleep disorder!
• Fibromyalgia!
• Sensory processing disorder!

Among dealing with the other health challenges, adding in the time and effort in addressing the above big things has occupied a lot of my word. Especially the first two have led to significant adjustments in my learning environment, and adapting to alternate tools. Oh how I wish this had been available for all my previous academic life.

To top this with cherries, in June I was hospitalized for a ruptured cyst in my abdomen. I was on bedrest for 6-7 weeks, and it took another two months to fully recover. On the bright side my books-read list is in the three hundreds. For evident reasons.

Because I wasn't employed during my year at college, I burned through all my savings in the three months of recovery, and wasn't able to work during that period. I've been teetering much closer to the edge than I would like. Which sucks!

I've got several applications out there now, and three interviews scheduled this week, so I'm positive about the direction things have turned. But as so many of you know, it's a long road back to stability after an event like this.

I'm still in Portland, with my wonderful dog, and even though my world has kind of shrunk, it's okay. I'm grateful that I can keep up with so many of you on FB, and I always love coming back here to the board. ♥

::smishes esse::

I was reading along, thinking, Wow, I've never seen that lurker's name before! Hey, they live in Portland, just like __! Hey, they have an awesome dog too! Hey, they've been fighting with diagnoses and school and they should totally meet __, they live in the same city and they have so much in common and they ... oh. Never mind!

Anyhow, ::smishes::!

Ha! ♥ JZ.

Wow, esse, Raq, and Callaluna, such big news!

I am glad you are getting your freedom, Callaluna, and getting to embrace that beautiful you.

esse, it sounds like a big two years for you too, and lots of up and down. In my head, you are a lifelong learner so there is something beautiful and perfect about your being back in school. Hope it all works out.

Callaluna, may the rest of this transition be as painless as possible. I know many of us look forward to having you on this side of the pond again.

esse! I'm sorry about the obstacles, with delighted to see you pushing forward. Jealous of the reading! Each time I have been bedridden I thought I would have that benefit, but drugs/pain/focus made it impossible and I was not pleased.

esse! So good to see you! Wow, that is a lot.

ease, I'm sorry you've had such a tough time lately, but it is so good to "see" you here again!

It's so great to see everyone here.

I'm still in New Orleans, writing about beer, food, cocktails and the like. It's pretty crazy to be a food writer in one of the best food cities in the world. I've been branching out into more longform historical analysis pieces which is super interesting. The beer boys club in charge of editing and publishing the national mags have been a challenge that I have finally accepted is not a reflection of my work, but a continuation of how Things Have Been Done for the last 20 years in beer writing.

I'm trying to get my shit together to write a book proposal about the history, accomplishments, and challenges of women in beer but it's hard for me to get the energy to do that after all my other assignments. (I'm generally always on deadline and when I have a couple days off, all I want to do is lounge on the couch and eat burritos and pie.)

I also don't really understand what I need to do for a book proposal.

So, things are both good and hard. Depression is a biatch, as we know. Also some trauma/PTSD from a driveby shooting in my neighborhood which resulted in two bullets coming through my walls into my home.

We also adopted a kitten/cat, a stray that trotted into Tom's office one day (on the 17th floor) and stole his heart. Her name is Sadie, she loves her daddy, and she is totally bananas. I'm pretty sure she's half Maine Coon and is very playful, aggressive, vocal and bitey. She's also hilarious.

She was very affectionate when we first adopted her, but isn't so much anymore, which is fine (though I miss her snuggles) but when the bullets came in the house, I didn't even notice what happened until my neighbor came over and pointed it out. I got very upset, as one can imagine, and Sadie, who was relatively chill through the incident itself, started growling and hissing at our neighbor and then kept close to me (including snuggles) for the rest of the day.

I kind of want to move, but... ugh, it's hard to even think about. And if we leave the region, what will happen to my writing career?

Done some travelling this year - Philadelphia, Columbus to see the family, and the UK.

::hugs people:: Yeah, it's been a trip and a half. I'm only a bit scathed. Laura, fortunately--unfortunately?--the amount of pain I was in effectively correlated with the amount of pain medication I was taking, so once I was out of the every six hours brain fog weeds, I had enough cognition to read. And pretty much only enough cognition to read.

Nora! Go into the Great Write Way thread! Those folks will get you on track with your proposal.

Nora, I can get you the basic bullet points for a solid non-fiction proposal, like, right now. My old boss (and mentor) can give me exactly what you need. Profile address is the one to use.