An Update!

I recently received a worried email from a friend, making sure I was ok, since I hadn't posted here in 7 days. Heh. My public commands!

But nah, I'm fine. Been gearing up for the Revlon Run/Walk this coming Saturday, and have been happily overwhelmed with generous donations. If you haven't yet contributed and want to throw in a few bucks (no obligation, but I will send you a sweetly worded "thank you" note), drop by here and do so.

In work news, I'm thrilled to announce that I've signed a new client. Go to her website and pick up her book. You'll like it, I promise. Especially if you're a fan of The O.C.

I also recently had another fun contact with my friend and banner designer while playing City of Heroes, who kindly took the time to tell me he read all about my misadventures with Glow Boy and the subsequent denouement, and wanted to check in on me. Keen, you're the best, really. Thank you so much!

Which brings me to my next little thing to ramble on about: writing my character in the game. I think the thing I love most about playing CoH isn't beating up the bad guys, though that can be quite a rush, but rather the interactions that develop between all the players. The whole thing with Glow Boy developed out of that, for instance, as the relationship our characters had in the game expanded into a very real friendship. Now, I'm having fun continuing to play with that, with subtle, exciting little twists. The fact is, Glow Boy hasn't been around much in-game lately, and my character, his girlfriend... well, she's getting a little restless, a little lonesome. She/I recently had the change to hang around with another young hero, one of those bad boy types that girls are ALWAYS falling for, and well... there's something there. Some little spark.

If nothing else, I'm having huge buckets of fun playing with him, as the chatter and conversation that goes on in a mission with him is hi-larious. As a player, it's light and silly and entertaining. On a deeper level, for my character, it's bringing up all sorts of strong feelings that she has for Glow Boy, and her whole team, which I'm getting to play with in a posted story on our "Alliance" website. Honestly -- I don't know where it's going. I mean, I have an idea of what's coming up, what she'll do and say, but how it happens, and what the result ends up being... I don't know.

And this isn't a reflection on Glow Boy having a girlfriend!! At least, I hope not. I don't want to be that petty. The fact is, a lot of the other people I play with online, and whose posts I read and enjoy, have these deep and complicated relationships with other players, and it makes the game more fun for everybody. And I had that with Glow Boy, back in the day, and I want it again. If not with him, then, well, maybe this bad boy might do the trick. More as it develops.

Just to clarify though, I'm not shaping my entire life around this game. And I'm not setting all my hopes (or any, really) on this new guy, this bad boy, being someone I want to meet and date in real life. More than ever, I want to meet someone real, and have a face-to-face relationship. I'm going to give speed dating another try, and updated my profile on Salon's personals site, but am taking the advice I learned from a great book I read to heart, and trying to limit my email conversations to just a few notes before cutting right to the "So, do you want to meet for a drink?" stage. And I'm trying to "put myself out there" more, as advised, though it's more fun to sit in a corner of a bar and mock the other patrons than swallow my pride and try to talk to them. But I'm working on it. And I have to ask all my friends again -- if you know anyone, even vaguely interesting who may be game for a date -- please let me know. I'll try anything once.

And on that note... I should get back to work.

So much for all that.

He's seeing someone.

Not me.

R.I.P. F.I.B.

If you need me, I'll be at the bar.

I want Want WANT...

So I was sitting in the steam room at the gym tonight, after a little swim, and I got to thinking about making a list. So here, in absolutely no particular order whatsoever, Things I Want.

I Want

• To have my book published.
  
• To have sex in a semi-public place.
  
• You to want me.
  
• To bring a guy to a family function.
  
• To get married… someday.
  
• To have front row tickets to an amazing concert.
  
• A bike path that goes all around Manhattan without having to use streets at all.
  
• To drop two dress sizes.
  
• To be loved as I am.
  
• New shoes.
  
• Michael Jackson to be convicted.
  
• To go to a baseball game with someone who loves the sport to explain it to me.
  
• A pony! Or just to go horseback riding in Central Park.
  
• Truly tasty calorie-free cookies.
  
• To officially agent a book.
  
• To understand what everyone is raving about.
  
• To hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back up again.
  
• To converse in a foreign language.
  
• To go to New Zealand, once it's no longer purely a LOTR tourist destination.
  
• To feel that giddy spark of a new relationship again.
  
• To throw a real punch someday, and make it count.

There’s more. I think this will be added to periodically. Considering that I started with only two of the things above, I don’t thing I’ve made that bad a start on it.

Also, because I wrote this once and think it's way too good to have been read only by a guy who's now on my DTM list, in answer to the question of "What else do you like?" I replied:


presents and ponies and Spike and vampires and chocolate and cozy winter nights and candles and the smell of vanilla and fresh cookies and licking the batter and rock meandering and shoes and boots and sandals and swing music and dancing and watching movies and cheesy blockbusters and curling up with a good book and being a geek and my friends and fuzzy sweaters and long, sweet kisses that make my head spin and shiny swords and sitting on a hot beach in the summer and a pint of cold beer and dancing on bars and feeling wanted and steam rooms and finishing a race and laughing and penguins and my nieces & nephew and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and Irish rock and stepdancing and traveling by myself and flowers for no reason at all and adult snowball fights and taking pictures and boys and compliments and hugs and writing and watching tv and my family (sometimes) and my birthday and frosty beverages and fedoras and....

What a ride!

Just received this lovely little life motto, and felt like sharing:

Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!"

And speaking of rides... took a huge one yesterday, from my apartment on the Upper East Side, across the park, down the Hudson River bike trail, past the Intrepid, all the way down to the World Financial Center, around the tip of Manhattan, up past the South Street Seaport, over the Brooklyn Bridge to meet Anja for a late lunch, back across the bridge again, and up the East River bike paths, til they give out below the UN, then up 1st avenue for a bit, and back on paths in the 60s til I hit stairs on 81st Street, and biked the rest of the way home. Woooheee! Got a lovely little sunburn, and a great workout.

And, to top it all off, I made level 40 last night on City of Heroes, and get to pick out a new and exciting outfit. Humina-humina!

Doodle-doodle-doo!

La la la!

Certainly not posting something just to move some earlier entries further into the ether of the internet. Because that would be wrong.

Nonetheless, I love google. Google is my friend.

So are long lunches enjoyed in the company of friends with a couple of pints of good beer and some spring sunshine.

Thoughts on reading another teen novel

So I just finished reading a manuscript by an teen author I'm *hopefully* going to sign as a client, which touches on the whole "Mean Girls" and Lifetime movie "Odd Girl Out" theme. And, man, but it made me think about high school, and how very very glad I am not to be in it anymore.

I mean, I think it's probably much worse now than it was way back in the day when I was in high school, and I went to an all girls school, so that's another whole thing entirely, but I just... each time I read another scene about girls being mean to each other, I get like this little pain in my chest, you know, and I know that I was so not one of the cool kids at school, and I thank the Powers That Be that most of the time, I didn't really care. I think I tried to, for those two years in middle school when I went to the public school in my home town, and wanted so desperately wanted to fit in that I started calling myself Katy, and did the so-not-a-real-relationship two week "dating" thing with a jock. But the truth always comes out, doesn't it, and I went from being one of the romantic leads in my 7th grade play, and crushing on the hot blonde who played my stage boyfriend, to playing the teacher in our 8th grade musical, reading steamy romances and getting matched up with the geek. Which, when you stop and think about it... pretty well sums up my life right now. Except for the teacher part. And... yeah.

So high school, at least, wasn't four years of hell, or some sort of African animal behavioral study like in "Mean Girls." And yet... does any girl who ever got picked on, or didn't fit in, outgrow that sense of not belonging? I get paranoid sometimes on the subway, or walking past a group of fabulous and stylish New Yorkers, and think that they're laughing at me. And suddenly, I'm 13 again, pretending I'm not going to go over to my friends house to watch tv and play video games, rather than go to the mall, or some swank new hotspot.

And most of the time, I really don't care, honestly. I love my friends, every odd, quirky, geek-encrusted one of them. I love the people I've met through playing roleplaying games, of every stripe and sort. And I know, even when I am dressed to the nines (ok, sevens, usually, on my budget) and sipping a fancy cocktail at a chi-chi bar, that I have this whole other life that may not be glamorous, but that makes me *happy*. And that's something.

And if I want more, it will be on those terms, not any others. Because, at heart, I was never the Molly Ringwald character in "The Breakfast Club," despite being able to do the lipstick trick. And I was never so anti-social as to be Ally Sheedy. No, I was Anthony Michael Hall. And look how nicely he turned out.

Teen angst & getting old

So, I'm getting old. No excuses, no regrets. I think I just found a grey hair. I need to get my hairdresser on the line pronto.

Wait -- Does that sounds like an excuse?

Because it's so not. I happily admit my age and celebrate every single one of my birthdays, but there's no need to go about reveling in the grey, is there? No. No, there is not. 'Sides, it's not a cool Rogue-y stripe, just one hair. Which I plucked. So there.

What else is going on since last I wrote? Well, I'm less angst-y, that's for sure. If it happens, it will happen. And maybe neither of us were entirely clear about what we wanted when we met, but nobody's burning any bridges and saying we can't try again in the future.

In fact, the Fenians girl I "picked up" at their New York concert last month, who I saw when I was in Boston, emailed me earlier this week that the Fenians will be in Boston for a three day Irish music festival in June, and did I want to go up and stay with her? And I'm kinda thinking yes. That would be fun!

And maybe, in the back of my head, is the teensy-weensy little thought that I could see Glow Boy again, maybe spend more time together that isn't with ALL of our bestest friends. But it's just a little thought for now. Still months away.

Between now and then, though, is the Revlon Run/Walk on April 30th, which I'm going to do again. For some annoying reason, their website's not letting me edit my fundraising page as I would like, so all I can do is direct you to the nonedited, standard page. Won't you stop by and make a donation? I'm really trying to grow my collection of Revlon-themed bags. Oh. And it's for an actual worthy cause, too.

That's all I can think of to write for now. I've got a little gnome with a silver hammer banging on the back of my skull, trying to get out, and the two little Motrins I took have so far not had any effect on him. And I need him out, because MMJ (do I add an initial every time I write about her, or am I just going crazy?) and I are going to a "Teen Angst Poetry" night. Teehee! It's for a book party.

Ciao!