Workaround Work

Change in plans folks! One of my coworkers is going to be out next week so instead of being in at 6am to work in a different department I'm back in the mailroom as usual. But I have a choice. I can come in extra early and get out of here earlier or I can do the usual time.

So my first impulse is to come in at about 7am so I get enough time, but I don't have to drive myself crazy by being in at 6:00. If there is anyone who thinks this a terrible idea because you want to do something with me at 2:30 in the afternoon speak now! Or contrarywise if you want to be hanging out with me past 9pm (my new time to head home and sleep rather than the usual 10:00) speak up soon.

Also does anyone want to put dibs in on some of my time this week? I'm mostly free after Sunday, except for having to write stuff for MileHiCon.

The Order of Days

Okay I'm not done with MileHiCon yet, but I'm already thinking ahead to parties and conventions next year. Why? Because I have too much time to think while I'm here at work and I can't do anything physically useful towards preparing for the con or the CoG Gormenghast party. I'll be out of here at about 2:30.

January 24
TAFF Voter Party? I don't know when the TAFF race is going to start exactly, but I would think it would be sometime near the start of the new year. Whenever it happens I'm going to throw a get out the vote party and get everyone in Denver that I know to vote and thus sneakily build a base of supporters here in my hometown. If they vote this coming year then the flood of votes from Denver won't be given the hairy eye when they all vote for me in 2005. I encourage other fans to do the same! Either for their own run or to help me. (It's always all about me. <grin,> Kidding, kidding!)

April 3
Possible date for an early celebration of my birthday. I think my friend Rose suggested that I do a Lost Boys vampire theme for this one (all my birthday parties are about vampires. Cute guys necking! What's not to love?). It should be totally 80s! Sleep all day, party all night, live forever.

April 9-11
Minicon 39- Birthday Party. My day falls just after the convention so I think I ought to have a party at the con. I always do a vampire theme for my birthday parties so I'll need to pick a movie or book to take inspiration from for the food, drink, and my couture.

July 2-4
Westercon 57 is in Phoenix, and I want to attend, but this one is tight if I'm still working at my present job. I might be able to swing one skipping out on part of the End of month things, but not two. See Worldcon. But right now my plan is to go, I simply have to find a better job.

August 27-29
Bubonicon 36 in Albuquerque is on this weekend if I am not mistaken. More importantly I will celebrate by 10,000th day of life on August 28th with my Aristoi inspired Party of 10,000 Days! 10,000 days for the Mishalak, 10,000 more for him!

September 2-6
Worldcon 62 in Boston. I can make most if not all of this convention no matter what my employment situation. The three days of craziness at work are on the 1-3 of the month and I might even be able to convince them to let me skip out on the last day of that. I will be there, I just have to decide in the next 24 hours if I'm going to buy my membership now or buy one off a fan who needs to sell. Unless I was to join a crew or start a crew I don't think it would be wise for me to throw my own party at Worldcon.

October 22-24
MileHiCon 36- Crew of Grenadine Party, I think it ought to have a science fiction theme, but nothing definite yet.

Possible substitutions include going to Gaylaxicon instead of Minicon and then doing Convergance to hang with my Minneapolis friends instead of doing Westercon that weekend. But that's only going to happen if a bunch of people I know say they are going and campaign to change my mind. Also thinking about CONduit in May, though as it is I might be in convention overload.

<Evil Willow> Questions, comments? </E-W>

The Town of Ithill in the Pines

A Pointless Story
I grew up in a ponderosa pine forest. Though as a child I didn't appreciate them as much because I had been indoctrinated by Tolkien to think that a proper forest ought to be thick and dark with a canopy of leaves blocking out the sun a hundred feet above your head. The ponderosa pine grows into a sort of open glade with lots of dappled sunlight reaching the forest floor between the trees and their long needles. The trees are staggered about 4 meters apart in a healthy forest, though where I grew up they were often just 2 meters apart and rather scraggly. The needles are these wonderfully long bundles of three at least 10cm in length and often as long as 15cm.

The long needles also make a ponderosa forest sound different. In a deciduous forest it’s a distinctly leafy sort of sound when the wind rustles all the leaves. Or in a forest of spruce the wind hisses a bit at it goes through the short needles. But when it goes into those long needles it causes a roar almost exactly like the sound of distant waves on a beach. When I was young I would imagine that the wind in the pines was actually the sound of the sea rushing in to drown the valley. And in my daydreams I would go down to look upon the inlet of a strange alien sea replacing the mundane town of Elizabeth.

Far shores that I would travel in a canoe to reach unfamiliar lands and townships along the Sea of Tethys. I was like that, big imagination. I would play with my sister a lot making towns and roads by raking or pushing away the thick mat of pine needles on the forest floor. I remember hardly any of the street names now, but I remember that we created an imaginary town with enough room for 50 children between just the two of us. Years later I was reminded of this when looking at the way towns here in the west were often laid out with the expectation of tens of thousands who never arrived.