After Twenty-Five Years... a Return to the Stage

Well. I have been invited to play a bit part in the Hubbard Hall production of Carmen.

Yeah, Carmen. The opera. The director asked for someone to be a swaggering gypsy who can fence, and somehow, they came up with me. And I said yes.



I am, I have to admit, nervous. The last time I was on the stage, George Orwell's most famous book had special edition.

Dates:

August 13 pay what you will open rehearsal
August 14, 15, 20, 21, 22 at 8pm
August 23 at 2pm
$30 nonmember / $25 members / $20 students

I blame PD Cacek for getting me into this mess.

Revision, revision, revision: The writer's life for me.

Yeah, in addition to blowing the faces off super-mutants, ghouls, raiders, and Enclave soldiers, I'm also doing the glorious grind on "N is for Neville." I've gotten good feedback on it (workshopped it on Tuesday), have done major revisions on it twice. The story continues to improve, mostly as I remove superfluous prepositional phrases on each pass. Fortunately, it can rest until I get some more feedback on it.

Oh, and the proofs came in for Tales Out of Miskatonic University. Proofs can be a bit humbling. While it shows how much I have learned in the past year, it depresses me to find so much that I would change in a story.

Long Time, No Post

Well, I haven't been keeping up with this blog in June. I do have an excuse. Over April and May I managed to crank out the initial drafts of four stories. I'm not saying they're awesome stories, but the bones are laid down, and now the polishing begins. And I've got a special market in mind for an older story, and a kind hired gun has helped me to clean it up. So back to the grind.

In my copious spare time, I've been going here:



And doing a lot of this:




It's been ten years since a good Fallout game, and I'm really enjoying myself. I wish Bethesda could have introduced a few new elements, which would have created a sense of difference between the East Coast and the West Coast. I also understand that they were relaunching a beloved franchise, and didn't want to take a lot of chances. That said, though, I'm enjoying the heck out of myself.

What a Weekend!

Memorial Day was crazy crazy crazy. But we did run down to the Rock of Ages home to see friends. The Queen of Science and I love the Rock of Ages family, they're our age, they're parents, and they really didn't change at all after they had their kids. And they've got interesting, engaging children.

In a moment of rare unity, all of us, four adults and two kids, aged nine and six, gathered around the computer screen and sang. You know, like people used to do in the old days, singing together, gathered around the radio, or the phonograph? Of course, what was sang was incredibly geeky...



A good time was had by all.

Of the whole weekend, there was really only one false note. I saw this disturbing piece of equipment:



Yes, that's a Hello Kitty sewing machine



WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?