The Adventures of Sheila the Wonderbink

Okay, I'll just say that John Barrow lost the runoff and I am pissed (and worried), but I've done all I can.

Meanwhile, in the rest of my life . . .

I made it through National Novel Writing Month with most of my sanity intact. I hit 50,000 before November 30, and I ended on a reasonably graceful cliffhanger at the 54,527 word mark. I probably could have gotten farther ahead had (a) my part-time job not suddenly decided that I needed full-time hours, in the form of brain-meltingly long (nine or ten hour) shifts and (b) I'd not gotten involved with a fellow I met through one of my writers' groups, who shall be hereinafter referred to as the Gentleman Caller.

The novel is still incomplete--I had a detailed outline that I worked on over the past year and I cut things off about two-thirds of the way through it. My plan is to work on it as a leisure activity over the next few months and then toss it in the same trunk that all my NaNoWriMo efforts go. I'll be shifting most of my writerly focus back to The Two Kinds of Magic, an urban fantasy novel I've been working on for more years than I want to calculate. I found a terrific writers' group that specializes in genre fiction (science fiction, fantasy and horror, specifically) and it's been great to get insight from people who can grasp where I'm coming from. It's also more thorough feedback, because people are going from written submissions instead of (as in other groups I've been in) read aloud.

I was talking to the Gentleman Caller about Mod Boy the other night, and I did the math and realized that it had been years since I'd seen Mod Boy. So I sent him an email asking how he was. Keep in mind, that emailing him is like (and I have told him as much) dropping a stone down a deep well and waiting for the splash. (He agreed with me!) Because of that, I was genuinely startled to find an email back from him the next day. He caught me up a little on what he's been up to--he's going to be a father again soon and he's working on another book. (Did I mention that he wrote a book? One that he was working on when I met him? Did I mention that this was one of the big reasons I fell for him like a thing dropped from a great height? Yeah. Anyway. Consider it mentioned.) He said he was well and wished me the same. I wrote him back to tell him about my NaNoWriMo victory and to congratulate him on his impending fatherhood. I didn't leave a single question or conversational hook to try and drag him back with, I just sent it out and let it go.

If you're new here, check out the "mod boy" tag on this journal. It will fill you in on what a big step that is.

I'm still slugging it out at the Big Green Grocery Store and I'm doing another project for Standardized Testing People. I'm working on acquiring a new workplace to give a weird name to, preferably with full-time hours, benefits and a generous salary, so I can pay my own mortgage without parental help.

The Ten Thousand Flowers Project continues steadily. I set it aside for NaNoWriMo, but now that that's over now, I plan to resume at my two-flower-a-day pace.

I think that's about it for now. See you in three months.

"I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it's very difficult to find anyone."
"I should think so — in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!"
--The Hobbit

(And for the record, no, I haven't seen the movie yet but I figure I will soon, one way or another.)

I've been pulling my way out of a tailspin of depression (one of the reasons my updates have been so intermittent) and one of the signs I'm definitely getting better is that I decided to spend a proper weekend going out and having adventures instead of curling up in my little hobbit hole.

I got home from work on Friday and checked the local music listings to discover that The Lizardmen were playing at the Star Bar. I needed little more persuasion than that. I went from Business Casual to a few notches more casual and stopped at a crowded but pleasant Mexican restaurant for some sopa de pollo and a margarita. A guy at the table behind me was explaining to an older woman how an AK-47 assault rifle worked and the difference between that an a fully automatic weapon.

I arrived at the Star Bar at what I thought was an early hour but in fact I had missed the very first band by then. It was a Toys For Tots benefit with a long list of bands on the roster, and I found my friend Captain B setting up on the stage. I was about halfway to the stage to chide him for not telling me he had a gig coming up but before I made it there, someone else came out of the backstage area. Mod Boy.

For those of you fine people who have witnessed the way I am in the presence of a certain blond keyboardist for a certain band with a repetitive name, pause a moment and picture my reaction if that very gentleman had shown up in a place I wasn't entirely expecting him.

Yeah, it was even worse than that. I shrieked "OH MY GOD!" at the top of my lungs. Mod Boy just smiled and said hello. He had a guitar in his hand so he couldn't say much; I just stepped aside and let him get to the stage and do his thing. Then I ragged on Captain B for not telling me about the show. He apologized for forgetting that I no longer do the Facebook thing and thus would have missed the announcement there.

Captain B and Mod Boy were doing their guitar duties in what was basically the same line-up as Mr. Jay's Bowie cover band, only they did Kinks songs instead. They'd done it one time earlier, but I missed the show because I was out of town attending my goddaughter's first communion. I found a decent seat with a perfect view of the side of the stage of most interest to me and enjoyed a set of Kinks songs played raw.

Between sets, I went downstairs to find a quiet corner to curl up and write in but instead found myself catching up with Mod Boy for a bit. He told me that they hadn't played that Kinks set since 2011 and I said "Oh, you mean the time you made me cuss in front of my niece?"

(Permit me to digress while I explain that one. As I've mentioned before, Mod Boy is shouldered with the peculiar burden of being the son of a deceased musician who I will not name lest the Google find me but whom I shall refer to here as Daddy Mod. When I was up in New York for my niece-and-goddaughter's first communion, I was still on Facebook at the time so at the little social gathering after the communion proper I was doing a quick iPhone app check of how everybody I knew was doing. There was a post by Mod Boy about how he was feeling a little under the weather for the gig that night. One of his Facebook friends--whether or not he was an actual friend, I can't be sure--posted something useless like "You're Daddy Mod's son! You can do it!" or words to that effect. Mod Boy snarked that he could always try the Daddy Mod technique of getting shit-faced drunk before going onstage. And thus I dropped an F-bomb out loud in front of my niece. Thankfully, she was too absorbed in the book she was reading to have noticed.)

I told him about the work situation and apparently he doesn't do well in cubicles, either. (Then again, does anybody?) We grumped about Facebook, talked about car accidents and eventually he excused himself, as he does, to go mingle with the rest of the crowd. I went upstairs, saw The Lizardmen play some of my favorite songs and decided that I didn't need to hang around until Saturday to prove that I was cool, so I said my goodnights. Captain B said we should get together for drinks and crap movies again sometime. Mod Boy told me to email him and I told him that emailing him was like dropping a stone in a well and waiting for a splash, an accusation he didn't deny but instead affirmed, complete with stone-throwing hand gesture.

The past several Saturdays I've been in the habit of walking to the library (about a mile and a half from where I live) and availing myself of the labyrinth in the reading garden just next to it. It's a single winding path defined by bricks and laid with gravel that leads to a stone bench facing a white post that declares "May Peace Prevail on Earth" in several languages. Unfortunately, after the initial creation of the labyrinth, not much seems to have been done in the way of maintaining it, so I show up with a backpack containing gardening gloves and a few tools and spend about fifteen minutes pulling up weeds and sweeping away debris before walking the path and having a seat on the bench to contemplate the riddles of my existence. Once I'm done, I go into the library, swap out or renew my books and go home.

Today, I had a haircut appointment so I gave up and drove so I could at least renew the DVD of Rashomon that I still have yet to watch. But I did get some time with the labyrinth, and that felt good.

Once my hair had been chemically enhanced, trimmed and styled to a perfection it only sees the day I get my hair cut and never knows again until I return, I gave my friend Lake a call and asked her if she was still up for going to the High Museum. She was, but she was in mid-artwork from the sound of it, so I stopped for lunch at Fat Matt's to give her time to clean up.

Lake's schedule was such that we only had enough time to check out the main exhibit, which is an interesting sort of walk through modern art history which pauses to look at five different years--1913, 1929, 1950, 1961 and 1988. (They also commissioned a few new works so they claim to have added 2013 to the bunch. Okay.) I was able to spot the Matisse from across the room, though I was a wee bit disappointed that it was a 1913 Matisse and not a 1950 one. (If I go back and look again, I'll check, but I didn't seem to see any artists crop up in more than one year, which is a shame because the continuity and contrast between say, 1913 Picasso and 1961 Picasso would have been fascinating.)

The room before the gift shop had one of the commissioned installations--an intricate and slightly dreamlike network of shelves with odd objects and lights and plants. I got there first and waited for Lake to catch up and watched her as she looked it over.

"It looks like my studio," she said.

I convulsed with suppressed laughter--if I'd laughed as loudly as I'd wanted to, I would have frightened half the gallery--and said "Yes! Exactly!"

I carted Lake home so she would have time to get ready for a housewarming party she'd been invited to. I opted to head home and collapse for a bit.

Sunday was the O'Shea Family Christmas Cookie Party, whereby my mother shares the bounty of the thousand-odd cookies she bakes every Christmas season. Various friends, relatives and neighbors dropped by at my parents' house and it was rather nice to tell them "I have a job now" instead of "yeah, still looking."

Work is work--I'm still floundering a bit at times but getting better at figuring things out. I've started to pick back up on things I used to do that, hey, just because I have a job doesn't mean I can't still do them.

Like, for example, writing here.

Today I took pleasure in tidying up loose financial ends.

Today I learned that the Data Collection section of Form I-129 used to need a signature. (Wow, I bet you found that fascinating.)

The temp-to-perm gig went back to temp, though I am assured that they thought I was wonderful and would love to have me back. Considering I figured I'd be out of there by the end of January, I can hardly complain that an extra month or so isn't long enough. I should at least get a good reference out of it and if another huge project comes down the pike, they know where to find me. In the meantime, I've updated my resume and already started sending it out again.

( Did I mention that I gave up Facebook for Lent? )

Today I took pleasure in the sound of rain and the sight of the sun.

Today I learned that I'd been signed up with that temp agency for a lot longer than I'd thought.

January - Started the year in a burst of good intentions and slammed up against a wall of old habits. So, yeah, nothing new there. Attended Chattacon for Sean's Tap and Hammer party. Reveled in the Red Coat of Awesome. Mod Boy told me "Everybody likes you" and I took that moment and pressed it between pages like a four leaf clover to keep.

February - Bought a tarot deck and started learning how to use it, much to the consternation of my parents. Went on a series of online dates that ended with me never wanting to go on a coffee date with a stranger ever, ever again.

March - Went to the Doo-Nanny again. Didn't sell much art, but still had a marvelous time meeting people and soaking in the creative vibe.

April - Celebrated Easter. Continued to look for work.

May - Found out Osama Bin Laden was dead while I was in a movie theater in Second Life. Attended my goddaughter's first communion. Worked as an extra in a Blair Crimmins and the Hookers video.

June - Turned forty-one. Threw an all-day party and watched the Beatles Anthology to celebrate. Drew a card for my aunt Mary Ann who was in the hospital and then got it in my head to scribble and give away ten thousand flowers to people. Put together an inital draft of an ebook called Catbooks and Other Methods.

July - Attended the funeral of my aunt Mary Ann, who suffered a second stroke while recovering from the first one. Met with relatives I hadn't seen in many years. Spent a week at the beach and coded a simple ebook for personal use in dealing with severe bouts of depression. Picked up three T-shirts off of the beach.

August - My laptop died and the hard drive was transplanted into my father's old MacBook Pro. Unfortunately, somewhere in the process, several thousand pictures were wiped from the archive I'd been scanning photos into, which means I had to figure out which ones need to be rescanned and scan them all over again. Continued work on revising and formatting Catbooks and Other Methods and put it up on Amazon.

September - Another convention (DragonCon) another docwhoopee party, another strange flirtation. Received a strange and charming apology. Infiltrated Flux Projects and gave away a stack of my ten thousand flowers there. Oh, yeah, and Doris got totaled.

October - Got a new car, a 2003 Toyota Camry. The steering wheel has 'SRS AIRBAG' on it, which made me think along these lines:



So I have a SRS car now. I've taken to calling it 'Sirius' in my head. By the end of the month, I'd ended up denting the front side in a parking lot mishap after a rehearsal for Defending the Divine Harmonium.

November - At my mother's insistence, I got the car fixed. The people I hired did the job in my parking lot but the work was impeccable upon completion. At my mother's insistence, I also go back into therapy. I dove into NaNoWriMo once more, including doing a write-in on MARTA that was blissfully insane and brought me up to the ten thousand mark. I completed the incredibly rough draft of Dave the Wanderer and the Circle of the Sun on November 30th with a surprisingly satisfying ending.  Meanwhile, Catbooks and Other Methods arrived at the iTunes bookstore.

December - Resumed work on previously started and stalled novel and got some encouraging feedback for the first scene. Continued therapy and kicked myself for not checking in sooner. Had Christmas with the family and stood in a room with all three of my siblings for the second time that year. (The first being DragonCon, when my younger brother dropped by for a visit.)

And that brings me up to about here. And how was YOUR year?

One trip to the Georgia Department of Labor Career Center later, my unemployment insurance payments have now been straightened out.

Went out on Friday night to the Highland Ballroom to see The Pin-Ups, a cover band that covers all the songs off of David Bowie's Pin-Ups album and then throws in some classic Bowie tunes for good measure. Got to see Hot Mod Boy again, wish him a happy birthday, and even kiss him goodnight. (I aimed for his cheek and he intercepted with his lips. No complaints.) Also ran into Christian, a guy that azewewish and I knew Way The Hell Back When. He didn't quite remember my name; I barely recognized his face. The sheer awkwardness of the encounter sent me slipping into the night perhaps a bit sooner than I would have otherwise. (Though he was kind enough to give me the business card of a friend of his who might know somebody looking for a paralegal.)

I've been poking about Facebook a bit more, though I tend to keep my contacts confined to people I genuinely know or would like to get to know better. I don't particularly feel the need to friend people from high school who I barely spoke to at the time, not even for the petty vengeance "check out how cool my life is now" factor. Especially since my life is running a bit low on the coolness at the moment. Will have to work on that.

For those of you who expressed concern, thank you. I am improving.

On my way to bed now, methinks.

Today I took pleasure in a cup of tea with my breakfast.

Today I learned what the graphics program GIMP is like.