::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.

::waves at everyone::

I'm totally a lurker. I was occasionally posting in Boxed Set until April, aka Susan's Bad Breakup with Sleepy Hollow.

Let's see, what to update...

I'm still married to Dylan, living in Seattle, and working at UW. Annabel is now 12 and in 7th grade. They have recently asked us to use they/them instead of she/her, so we're trying to adjust to that. They're bright, snarky, and creative, with ambitions to go into animation and/or video game development.

I have seven historical romance releases (three novellas and four novels) out under my Susanna Fraser pen name, but I'm coming out of almost two years of burnout where the only fiction I wrote was Sleepy Hollow fanfic (CastleriggCircle on AO3). One thing that came out of owning up to my burnout was realizing that I really wanted to write fantasy instead of romance, so I'm planning to kickstart my muse with NaNoWriMo this year. I'll be attempting a flintlock fantasy set in an alternate 18th century America, and if anyone else is doing NaNo I'd love a few buddies.

Hm, what else? Anti-anxiety meds are a wonderful thing. Perimenopause with a side of fibroids is NOT, and it's looking likely I'll be having a hysterectomy in a few months because we've exhausted the less invasive options. I've developed a surprising love of running, though the aforementioned health issues have severely hampered my training, and I've yet to achieve my goal of a 5K running the whole way. But I'll get there!

So good to see everyone again!