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!

Amy, insent.

Off to Great Write Way!

esse! Glad to see your pixels again! You've had an interesting couple years, wow.

That is a lot of pretty cool news, Susan! Sorry about the unfortunate health stuff, that's never fun. And sorry about the burnout, I guess, but I am excited about you writing fantasy!

And running, yay running! I'm super surprised how much I like it, myself.

Dunno if I've ever properly de-lurked so I guess kinda starting from scratch. I'm originally from Richmond VA and hauled myself cross country to San Diego for grad school. Lived and worked in Costa Mesa, CA for years where I managed the stages and worked with many fine folks who introduced me to the board. Sadly, I hate sunshine so in spite of the wonderful people I couldn't handle living in SoCal and moved north to PDX....er....edging towards 9 or 10 years ago. Turns out PNW is kinda my ideal climate. (Well, I actually preferred the U.K. but that was decades ago and being a non resident was kinda an issue wrt working and living without settling into a less than desirable marriage.)

After a short but significant career in stage management I needed a little less stress in my life so I got a job with the city as a 911 call taker. Working nights and weekends is totally my cuppa so it's been a good career move for the last 8 years until the past summer when staffing numbers continued tanking and call volume continued growing and suddenly I'mstaring at constantly holding calls no matter how fast or efficiently I work....and I kinda can't deal with that reality. Right now I'm in the middle of a much needed vacation heavily evaluating my levels of burnout and compassion fatigue. I updated my resume last month and had my first ever full blown anxiety attack in the process. Turns out considering totally changing one's professional life at 40 is also a little stressful? Suggestions welcome.

After many years of being convinced that I was just not capable of being in a long term relationship or ever connecting with someone romanticallly I found an amazing guy (on okcupid of all places.) We had a rather strange but functional courtship and he moved in last October. So now my 800 square foot house contains two adults, one very large dog (Thor), and two cats (Nicodemus and Malachi) who still resent the other human for bringing the dog into their home. He does IT support and likes carrots and rewatches Firefly at least once a year. Also, we bonded over Buffy so while he's even more introverted than I am, he is also One Of Us without having an inkling of what that means.

I had a couple surgeries a little over two years ago now that changed the landscape of my life emotionally. I haven't really processed everything even yet but have fascinatingly clear memories of days in the hospital staring out the window or at motes in the sunbeams trying to figure out who I was and who I wanted to be. Navel gazing at its finest (my largest scar starts in my navel and continues almost 3 inches down...they used super glue to close the wound and I spent a lot of time litterally staring at that crust trying to figure out how on earth super glue could keep my entire abdominal cavity closed like that.) Still in physical therapy and still having ongoing pain issues that may or may not be related and randomly last month started having breathing problems that may or may not be due to environmental pollutants in my workplace or city...and that's way more ambivalence than I would like wrt breathing....but....dang. I am talky tonight, on my mom's sofa like its 1996 and I'm spending all night on alt.gothic.

Right, and I'm the other other Erin ;)