I haven't written much lately because I have been SUPER BUSY. Yesterday was packing day for all of the Sihaya & Co. Summer boxes, I just finished a big wholesale order for Twig the Fairy, I'm starting another for Faerie Mag, and it's wedding season, so we've had a different nuptial-related thing to do every weekend for the last few.

But. News. Exciting news.

The bank accepted our offer on a house we REALLY WANTED. If all goes according to plan, we will be moving to historic Old Ellicott City by summer's end.

The house is a 1/2 mile walk from all of my favorite places: my favorite date spot, my favorite coffee shop, a teahouse that specializes in high tea, and tons of little artists' shops that could carry my work. Oh, and a wine store. :)

We still have to do inspections/closing/etc all that jazz, but house is honestly so great. Doesn't look like much from the outside-- it's a townhouse built in the 20's, and the front could use an update. But it's 3 br, 2 bath, brand new carpet (which, sadly, we'll probably end up pulling up-- in my studio for sure, but likely in most of the rooms within a few years because there is hardwood under it that just needs to be refinished). The bathrooms are teensy, but one has a tub WITH JETS. It does lack closet space, so organizers are definitely going to be necessary for my studio space. But the backyard? Has a giant, new-looking deck and a frikkin' KOI POND.

I seriously cannot wait to live in a place a) that I love, b) where I can walk to things (!!!), and c) where I can grab a hot latte and ogle really pretty Autumn leaves and historic buildings.

EXCITEDDDDDDDDD.

Wow, so... "new livejournal." It's pretty Tumblr-esque. I'll have to see if it grows on me.

Today, I am having a relaxing day. This weekend was about hunting for a new place to live (hence why I skipped the Transcendence performance at Fez Tones), and then some chilled out social time afterwards. Unfortunately, nothing promising yet on the living space front, though I am making some calls and tracking down private rentals to visit for next weekend. But social time was good! Saturday night, we played Cards Against Humanity with Brooke & Tim. Sunday was Thai food and another fun card game, Gloom, with Jenn & Todd. Gloom is, essentially, Edward Gorey meets Aubrey Beardsley: The Game. If you like the Lemony Snicket books, you'll probably like this, too. Anyhow, really fun! Will have to get a copy.

What things have I not talked about in my flurry of activity? Well, Spoutwood went well. I made enough $$$ to dig myself out of the financial hole that being too sick to work for two months caused. I may not have much left over, but that's infinitely preferable to being in the red. Performing with Transcendence was good, as usual, but I preferred last year's stage to this one. We were mainstage performers this year, which is exciting, but that meant we were sharing the stage with large bands and all of their equipment. Even when they did their best to clear room for us, I was still tripping over mics and trying not to run into drum kits. I never felt like I was entirely focusing on the performance aspect, and so next year I hope we can figure out a better workaround or go back to a less-cluttered stage.

The cats are doing well. Nox is putting some weight back on and overall being less fussy about food. The chemo regimen is greatly bettering his quality of life. We have been spending a lot of cuddle time together, he and I. He is a very happy cat who takes his pills and gets on with his life. I love him so much sometimes I think my heart will burst.

I am NOT looking forward to packing/moving. I have SO. MUCH. STUFF. in my studio that all I can think is "noooooooooooooooo."

My nephew is at that five month old stage where he looks like the Michelin Man. It is very likely my parents will try to attain custody after some preliminary legal hurdles are out of the way. The further away that child is from my sister, the more functional he will be.

My brother is being moved to Hawaii for three years by his job. I am intensely jealous. And sad, because I genuinely like hanging out with my brother. Genuinely liking hanging out with any member of my family is such an anomaly that I'm pretty bummed. But happy for him.

Fandom is good right now. If you're not watching Orphan Black, ye gods and little fishes, you ought to be. The Emmys need to be just a shower of awards for that show, and a crown for Tatiana Maslany. Anything less is a crime.

Jason is adjusting to his CGMS. It's working well as an early warning system, but he's having other health issues right now that are still complicating his efforts to keep his blood sugars consistent. Diabetes sucks not only because it sucks all by itself, but because it causes other, seemingly unrelated things not to work, too. Fuck diabetes, is what I'm saying.

I've been less consistent with the beauty blog, but back to posting this week. I bought myself a really pretty lipstick at Sephora that should be delivered tomorrow, and I can't WAIT to write about that. /magpie

So, there you have it. Nothing terribly interesting. But after the winter I had, uninteresting is okay by me.

I was awoken this morning by Jason telling me we needed to go to the ER. His fever hasn't broken for more than an hour or two in seven days. He keeps cycling between freezing and boiling. His appetite is not coming back. His muscle aches have increased to the point where he can't lay down or sit still for too long and actually prefers pacing to rest.

So, to the ER we went.

Once again, they did a full work-up with very little out of place in his bloodwork. They ruled out bacterial infection based on his white blood cell count, and said it's an indeterminate virus. A second bloodwork sample was sent out to test for Lyme, which is looking more likely even though he still has no rash. They gave him hospital-grade pain meds and pumped an IV bag into him. I made a second trip to the grocery store to get $60 worth of foods for every sick-person purpose. Soup for when he's freezing. Italian ice for when he's too hot. Electrolyte-filled drinks. And a few of his favorite comfort foods for if, perchance, he happens to be actually hungry.

Then I had to go into work-- we were already one person down, and then the boss's wife broke her wrist and he had to take her to the hospital. So I worked most of a day there.

My day got even better when I decided to walk home because it would be far quicker than waiting for the erratic #53. It's only a mile from work to my front door. Today, assholes were out in full force. About halfway up Old Court Road (a fairly busy road), I notice a black 4x4 pickup with tinted windows just sitting in the middle of the road. Cars are moving out of the lane to get around it. I assume disabled vehicle, but something just doesn't seem right. Sure enough, as soon as I pass, the window rolls down and the "hey sweetheart" shit starts.

To preface: my boss keeps the place arctic. Therefore, I am wearing jeans, big stompy boots, and a long sleeved cardigan buttoned all the way up when I encounter this douchebag (not that it should matter, of course). Cars are whooshing by, so I can't clearly make out much of what else follows, thankfully. I just keep walking, eyes ahead. He starts creeping up on me with his truck, still trying to get my attention. This is not the first time this sort of thing has happened. After about a block, he gives up and drives off with an angry shout. I cross the street, in case he's only turned off on the next side street to holler some more.

I ponder what would have happened had I pulled out my camera to take a picture of his license plate. It's always a calculated risk, when stuff like this happens. You don't know who's just a run of the mill asshole and who will follow you home and hurt you with more than just words. I have had cars follow me home before. I have had guys harass me until the honking of cars bottlenecked up behind them forced them to move on. I often carry a military-grade retractable baton that my brother gave me precisely because you just never know. Sometimes I bring some things to work on in my downtime because then I have the option of carrying a hammer or a heavy steel mandrel. In the suburbs. In full sun.

Before I can finish pondering this, a bus honks at me. A fucking bus. Probably the same bus driver who actually pulled over to ask for my number last month.

By the time I get to the 7-11 at the corner of Old Court and my street, I am damn near shaking with anger. So it's the perfect time for dude #3 in his silver PT Cruiser to pull up along side me and start, again, with "hey sweetheart, can I talk to you?"

"No," I grunt at him, and keep walking. I must look really fucking pissed, because he rolls his window back up and does a U turn.

One mile. One. fucking. mile.

I fucking hate those men. I fucking hate the smug privilege they have. I fucking hate that I can't tell the average asshole from the potential rapist. I hate that they use their cars and buses to intimidate women walking alone under the guise of flattery. I fucking hate that it happens nearly every time I leave the house without my husband at my side.

I hate them. And if any dude out there pulls his fucking car up alongside women walking alone for any other reason than to genuinely ask for directions or ask for emergency aid, then I fucking hate them, too.

I had a lovely weekend, but the week itself is starting out rough.

Saturday, J & I met twelvepetals and her fiancée Jen for brunch at our favorite little French patisserie. The vanilla almond buttercream pastry I had was nothing short of transcendent. Afterwards, the ladies and I headed to Sephora so that I could help them pick out makeup for their nuptuals next weekend, and in the process I also picked up the Hourglass finishing powder I've been circling for months now. It's so very luxe and lovely.

Came home to Jason, took a nap in the sunshine, and then started to feel unexpectedly faint. We had to give Olive her weekly bath, and as I was drying her off, suddenly I felt lightheaded and my heart started racing. Jason had been also beginning to feel unwell, but his manifested as a headache and a stiff neck. My spell passed and we went on to dine on cucumber sandwiches and watch our current tv obsession, Sons of Anarchy.

Sunday, we were both feeling mostly well, so we decided to move ahead with our hike in Antietam. We did a 5.5 mile loop, from the Dunker Church to Burnside Bridge and back, with stops at the Bloody Lane observation tower and the (new?) museum on-site. We saw a teensy tiny fawn sheltering in the shade of a fence, lots of birds, some cows and rabbits. After the hike, feeling more sore than we usually do after a relatively short one, we headed to Harpers Ferry for dinner in the shadow of majestic hills and mountains. That place is like the land that time forgot, seriously. Came home, watched GoT, went to bed.

This morning I was awoken by Jason, asking for help with the cats' morning routine because he needed to go to either Patient First or the ER. A pounding headache was back, accompanied by more stiffness, nausea, and a 101 fever. So we went, and they ran a lot of tests. So far nothing, though the doctor thinks it may be Lyme disease caught extra early. I guess that's possible, but we do tick checks after hikes and I've never seen anything suspicious. I ran to the grocery store for sick-person essentials (soup broth, ginger ale, backup juice in case his blood sugar crashes), and then we both settled in for an extended nap.

I feel a bit better now, though still more tired than I have any right to be. I thankfully don't have a fever or nausea, but my muscles are cramped and sore. Hard to tell if that's a hike on hilly terrain or another symptom of possible ick, though. I'm going to use the second half of the day to pour some resin and gaze out my window at the truly torrential amount of rain we're getting at the moment. Nothing too challenging, as the one thing I've learned about my body is that if I push it when I'm possibly getting sick, it's only likely to get about 10x worse. Rest works better than all the Emergen-C/ Zinc in the world.

Aaaaaah, finally a weekend where I could come out of the studio and take a breather! An eventful weekend, still.

Husband & Date Weekend

Jason has been doing well, aside from fending off a cold that I am trying valiantly to not also acquire. After a month of nonstop work (and not much quality time), date night and spending the weekend together has made me very happy. Friday night, we went to Midnight Madness in Ellicott City. It lived up to its name. It was total craziness. Took us 45 minutes just to park, and every shop we browsed was packed elbow to elbow. It was our first year-- next year maybe we'll make a point to get there quite early, take advantage of the free wine and cocktails, and generally be less overwhelmed by OMG ALL THE STUFF.

Saturday, we went to the Pennsylvania Dutch Amish market in Hunt Valley for brunch, and shopped about for tasty cheese (smoked horseradish) and tasty jam (strawberry rhubarb) and basically tasty everything. From there, we went to Valley View Farms, which again was packed elbow-to-elbow, but we made it out with an armload of little wicker bird ornaments for our tree. We had family time with Jason's people, and came home exhausted.

Today, we returned to Ellicott City so I could buy the cool poncho-sweater from Vintage Bliss Boutique that I'd seen during the Madness, but the line at the register had been far too ridiculous to contemplate purchasing anything. It's basically like a hug in sweater form, and I adore it. Anyway--really adorable little store, one of my new favorites. The whole place is basically Christina-bait. Glittery, glittery, Christina-bait.

From there, after a quick trip to Bean Hollow for coffee and sandwiches, we had to make a pit stop at Home Depot for supplies to finish our holiday decorating. Afterwards, we met up with my brother Daniel to see Lincoln. Verdict: fine acting and a slightly overlong but effective screenplay, but omg, how was there a 2 1/2 hour movie about the passage of the 13th Amendment without ever once mentioning Frederick Douglass? How and/or why was that a thing that happened?

Tree goes up tomorrow. In related news, we have decided not to go anywhere Christmas Eve night and Christmas Day. Ever since I was a little girl, I have found Christmas day to be very stressful. I have never in my life had one single Christmas where I was not a) shuttled from place to place while my parents either bickered over whose turn it was to have me, or b) had to hustle about to try to fit both families in as an adult, PLUS an addition of Jason's family. So this year, after a particularly stressful and un-restful December, we are going to have a Christmas for two. (Well, five if you count the cats.) We are going to sleep in, we are going to cuddle on the couch, we are going to make hot chocolate, we are going to cook a spectacular meal together, and we're going to do a movie marathon. But absolutely under no circumstances other than medical emergencies will we be leaving our cozy little nest. I am feeling very good about this decision.

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Okay. Bedtime. Very sleepy!

Jason and I attended a funeral this morning. It got us to talking, clarifying our wishes should something unforeseen or sudden happen. This funeral aside, a friend of mine just suddenly lost his wife, and I have two friends coming up on the anniversaries of a parent's death, both sudden. Having a plan seems like a sensible, if scarily adult thing to do.

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That said? We agreed that I'll probably go first. He says it's because I'm stubborn. I say it's because he's freaking late to everything. So he has therefore gleefully agreed that in the event he delivers my eulogy, he will end with "and to finish, I leave you with the words Christina lived her life by. 'Facts, motherf****ers.'" Then he'll drop the mic and walk out.

This is why I married this man.

Faire: Went to faire the day before we left for NC. I was still feeling very ill from the week before, dehydrated and lightheaded and overall just lacking in energy. A benefit of this is that I needed to stop and rest much more than I usually do, so I saw more shows. I took in thatliardiego's 4pm show at the Boar's Head, the Barely Balanced acrobats, Squire on the Wire, the Rogues, Cu Dubh, and bits and pieces of lots of others. One glass of wine was too much for me and made me want to yak. I had to pass over many of the tasty fried stuffs in favor of bland fare like pretzels. While I wanted to be there, I also wanted to be home, in bed, asleep. Also, dancing three songs with Amy & Brooke at the end of the day was a spectacularly bad idea and I should have known better. Ah well, we are very tentatively going to go the Saturday of the last weekend. I would like to, but with NC just past and Gettysburg ahead, finances are tight. We'll see.

Outer Banks:

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The Update: I finally got the Halloween update up in the wee hours of Thursday night/ Friday morning. I was working on a serious sleep deficit. For one, about a quarter of my written copy was destroyed in a file issue. For two, it was a lot of work, and I was going to bed around 4am, only to be awoken at 7:45am by hammering upstairs. (Which is still going on today... the upstairs neighbors with the toddlers moved out. They left us Godiva chocolates to thank us for putting up with toddler noises.) Add to that, I had several rush orders from one of the jewelers I work for. But the update is up, an I am pleased with it. Today will be packing orders and getting them out in a timely manner.

siGHt: Friday night (after having gotten three hours of sleep the night before and working an extra shift at Terra Firma), I powered through and went with Jason to see siGHt, Deviated Theatre's 50 minute ghost story "dance opera." To be honest, I didn't know what to expect. They started off with three "rising artist" pre-show openers. A gorgeous silks aerialist whose muscles had muscles doing a dramatic narrative piece, a younger group of girls doing modern dance to "Sail," and a phenomenal group of child tap dancers.

As for siGHt, it was absolutely breathtaking. There's not a lot I can say without spoiling it other than it was creepy, sad, beautiful, and cathartic. The spirits were so unbelievably spooky-- somewhat influenced by Asian ghosts, I thought-- long hair covering the face, ethereal white nightgowns-- and the way they moved, grasping desperately and jerkily, combined with their frenzied whispering and breathwork was a skin-crawling effect. But the dancing was so synchronized and well-executed that it was beautiful, too. There was also an absolutely wonderful child dancer who was on stage for almost the entire 50 minutes. As for the other two characters, I can't particularly say much without giving it away, but they were wonderful, too. If the show ever runs again (this was its second run), I would love to see it again.

Hocus Pocus: Yesterday, I hosted a few friends for an annual viewing of Hocus Pocus. J & I went out and got lots of fun seasonal touches from Target and Pier One, plus new curtains and a rug, while we were at it. The apartment now feels super cozy. We ended up watching Hocus Pocus, The Woman In Black, and then The Decoy Bride, a charming Kelly MacDonald / David Tennant romcom, to wash out the spooky. It was good to see friendly faces and overdose on gourmet cheese and snacks.

I also used up my one-day store of Martha Stewartness and made cupcakes:



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Kittens: Olive has been an angel since we've been back from NC. She was ALL OVER Anna & Amy yesterday at the party. Mim ate way too much kibble and is now on a diet. Nox is worrying us a bit because he just hasn't really been interested in eating. Rather, he eats pickily and is constantly looking over his shoulder while he does. He's had to be coaxed the last few mealtimes, and Jason spent this morning hand-feeding him chicken. He's not running a fever, no vomiting, no litterbox issues. He seems a little bit more sleepy than usual, but not worryingly so. We're gonna keep an eye on him, and if he continues not to have much of an appetite, it's to the vet with him.


As for me, I want to sleep more today. I have 2 more pearl stringing assignments to complete, and a bajillion orders to pack. But I think I need a nap first.

Finally! I have a camera that can take pictures of Nox!



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Today, I have been married in the eyes of the state of MD for two years.

It's not really a big deal... we're celebrating our actual wedding anniversary in October, with a trip to Gettysburg on Halloween weekend. As for today? We are steam cleaning our carpets, stopping at the vet, running to Target for a few last minute supplies (not Irene-related, but still needed in the next 48 hrs), and then kicking back and playing video games until our power kicks it. Since our bedroom carpet will still be wet, we're going to have a campout in the living room tonight.

Ahhh, romance.


In other news, I slept for 12 hours and Olive has been quarantined to the kitchen while we clean the bedroom, and she is not happy about it, omg. Mostly, it's PAY ATTENTION TO ME protests, but what can you do? I cannot wait until the fancy piddle pants get here.

Transcendence Tribal at Baltimore Pride 2011
Photo by Shannon Strong

Busy busy busy. Yesterday, Transcendence performed at Baltimore Pride, and it looked good! We really look gelled as a group now. Very happy with things.

Other than that, I have been putting the finishing touches on an update that will hopefully go up Wednesday evening-- I say hopefully because I will be working extra hours at the metal shop this week, as my coworker is going on vacation.

Things at home are good... big changes afoot. Jason turned in his notice at DDI last week, and as of today, his boss as still not acknowledged it. It's just as well-- right now, Jason's fielding lots of offers that look really promising. I'm really happy for him, because honestly-- he loves the work he does at DDI. He has a lot of close friends there. But when it comes down to it, it would cost a WHOLE lot more money for him to continue on with the frustrations he's been experiencing for years now*. He works so hard, often staying late into the night, travels often for them... he's the guy who steps up and pitches in and works hard for the team. And to have his boss not even acknowledge his notice after seven years of work... that kind of gives you a toothpick tip idea of some of the stuff that goes on with the management. And that's probably not going to change anytime soon. It's the reason I bailed, and that was three years ago.

The ultimate decision will be Jason's, of course, and I will support him whatever he chooses. But it's good that he doesn't feel trapped anymore. Instead, he gets to be the first domino in a long line that will fall if things carry on as they are. But it's still stressful, all this change. Cross your fingers for him, everybody!


*I call it 'asshole tax.'