Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2013-04-02 12:46 am
azurelunatic) wrote2013-04-02 12:46 am
Entry tags:
April, & Fffff---
The good:
So after having said "I don't know where I'm going to get sufficiently horrible candy at this hour!" to Drew, I found that Safeway served my needs well and inexpensively. Gloriously equipped, and attired in basic black with my fabulous trainwreck of an Easter/Pride hat atop my head, I set off. While resetting my calendar for the month, I cleared my usual candy dish offerings and put out the hilariously wrong stuff.
My Overlady examined my hair and approved. There is a very subtle navy halo that you can miss if you're not looking for it. She looked at the candy. "This is candy that should not exist," she said.
Later, the Stage Manager stopped by (as he does) and looked at my candy dish. "Aww," he said, in some disappointment, upon not finding chocolate.
"Happy April Fool's Day," I said.
He took a Peep.
It was the sort of day where you plow through stuff and you are simultaneously surprised that the day has just disappeared, and feel like you could and should have accomplished more (despite having done rather a lot). I plotted my trajectory, packed up my rooster and a few things, and headed for San Francisco. A random lady on BART complimented me on my hat and asked for a picture.
I arrived at Books, Inc. early, got the book, and settled down to reading, giggling out loud intermittently. (This is apparently an expected side effect.) They set up chairs. I got a nice seat near the front. The lady behind me complimented me on my hat and asked for a picture.
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TheBloggess appeared, and explained that she'd taken her anxiety meds, arrived early, and had taken refuge in the bar next door. When the meds hadn't hit, well ... and then, inevitably, the meds *and* the drinks hit her all at once, right at go time. So there she was. We applauded and cheered -- it seems that at her events, we know from anxiety. (She also mentioned that basically the whole audience has meds on them, and in event of an emergency, will be generous. Which sounds about right, and got another big cheer.)
She talked about stuff, and did a reading, and answered questions. One of the audience was actually someone that she fangirls a lot, which delighted her. She shared the story of how she came to do her own audiobook reading -- they told her that they have trained professionals for this, but long story short they gave her two days of studio time to see if she could do it. The first couple hours went horribly, then they sent her out on a walk. She emailed Neil Gaiman, who told her: "Pretend you're good at it." She came back in. She did. And she -- did it. Doing the events, she said, didn't get easier anxiety-wise, but that she'd learned that people's capacity for understanding and accommodation -- particularly these audiences, but all people -- was stunning and compassionate. If you can say "Hi, I need a few minutes, I'm having an anxiety attack", people tend to be able to let you disappear for a few minutes to get yourself back under control.
For the book, she gave copies of the manuscript to everyone mentioned in her stories, to make sure they were okay. And they were okay with it, and in some cases mentioned further detail and other incidents that needed inclusion. There are some people who come up to her and declare that they are Team Victor. She is entirely okay with this. Once, this happened while Victor was in fact present, and she pointed him out to the attendee -- who cheerfully took their leave and went over to talk with Victor and asked him to sign the book. Victor was apparently slightly insufferable after that. One of her rules is that she does not post about stuff that she and Victor are actively fighting about -- she waits until they have argued it all out and made their peace before recounting. The exception was Beyoncé, because it was just too immediately funny. Victor was a little pissed about that (but it seems to have blown over). She has a treasury of stories about their daughter that aren't being posted out of respect for what absolute hellions pre/teen girls can be.
She talked about the amazing community that has been connecting with each other using her stories as a catalyst -- she was very humble and downplayed the role of her hilariously blunt honesty -- but from the seed of her sharing these things, people have come and said "me too" and embraced one another, and the power of the communal understanding and acceptance has saved lives (as well as other excellent effects). She has a file with the emails from people who turned back at the last minute and are alive today because they learned they were not alone and people can and do get through these things. It's never as easy as "oh, well, you can live through this," BAM CURED IT'S OVER YOU'RE OKAY, but -- second by second, accepting hand by accepting hand, we get through if we can. Traditional publishing has a serious role in this. People who would have never thought to hunt up a random blog have picked up the book, then followed her back home to the internet, and suddenly community.
Then signing! We went row by row. The first row had been theoretically reserved, but since San Francisco does not have friends & family (of the usual sort), some of the standing-room-only folks who needed a seat got to come down. I was in the second row. I do need to remember to bring stickies and pen to every author event, because it's much faster when I write my own name. Sometimes it's boring when the author is talking to the people in front of you for a long time, but she is just a delight and there were great line conversations. I really should get business cards for things like this, because there were a couple people in line who I'd like to collide with more regularly.
When it came my turn, she admired my hat (she said she was trying not to stare at it through the reading).
"When I was putting it together, I said 'If I were Sophie Hatter, I'd be saying Fabulous Trainwreck.'"
We giggled, she signed my book.
"I have someone here I'd like to introduce you to," I said.
"Is it dead?" she asked with some trepidation.
"Never been alive," I reassured her, and brought my bag with my large metal rooster up to table level.
"A Beyoncé!" she said with delight.
"Normally he's at work. My boss made a ruling that if the story starts with 'This one time on the internet', the story does not need to be told at work." We giggled, and then, on impulse, I grabbed the second package of pink Peeps out of the rooster bag and set them on her table.
"Victor says thank you," she told me. "Or he will when he gets them. He wanted Peeps, but the store was all out!"
Hooray!
I took a few minutes to gather myself together before heading in a general busward direction. To my delight, I was not the only person to have brought a rooster. The other rooster was a good four feet high, with peacock feathers in his tail. I was sorry to leave without more time to chatter with the good folks there, but I thought I'd left enough time for chatter after before the bus home, and hadn't looked up later trips.
The bad:
It helps if you don't forget your water bottle at home. Fortunately I did have a bottle of sparkling fruit juice, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.
I was dredging through the lower end of my to-do list, having cleared my inbox effectively enough. This meant working with the database. It was thus that I discovered that you cannot add the same person multiple times to the same study. This is a problem, because it's meant to be able to do this, to log multiple points of contact with the person regarding the study, and for studies spanning multiple months with multiple instances of participation from the same individual.
Also, the pagination is ridiculous. Ten or twenty (depending on the page) results at a time? Which would be less bad if there were a way to pull it all at once. There is not. It would be less bad if the sort sorted by all, not just by that fucking page.
There are bugs filed. The severity is Critical, because I want to be able to go up a step to Catastrophic if things get worse.
It appears to be time for my uterus to misbehave entertainingly. I ejected several sizable clots with a fascinating popping sensation, like I imagine a cork would feel like propelled out of my cervix. Weirdest fucking thing. It was not comfortable, but some ibuprofen set me right.
So after having said "I don't know where I'm going to get sufficiently horrible candy at this hour!" to Drew, I found that Safeway served my needs well and inexpensively. Gloriously equipped, and attired in basic black with my fabulous trainwreck of an Easter/Pride hat atop my head, I set off. While resetting my calendar for the month, I cleared my usual candy dish offerings and put out the hilariously wrong stuff.
My Overlady examined my hair and approved. There is a very subtle navy halo that you can miss if you're not looking for it. She looked at the candy. "This is candy that should not exist," she said.
Later, the Stage Manager stopped by (as he does) and looked at my candy dish. "Aww," he said, in some disappointment, upon not finding chocolate.
"Happy April Fool's Day," I said.
He took a Peep.
It was the sort of day where you plow through stuff and you are simultaneously surprised that the day has just disappeared, and feel like you could and should have accomplished more (despite having done rather a lot). I plotted my trajectory, packed up my rooster and a few things, and headed for San Francisco. A random lady on BART complimented me on my hat and asked for a picture.
I arrived at Books, Inc. early, got the book, and settled down to reading, giggling out loud intermittently. (This is apparently an expected side effect.) They set up chairs. I got a nice seat near the front. The lady behind me complimented me on my hat and asked for a picture.
She talked about stuff, and did a reading, and answered questions. One of the audience was actually someone that she fangirls a lot, which delighted her. She shared the story of how she came to do her own audiobook reading -- they told her that they have trained professionals for this, but long story short they gave her two days of studio time to see if she could do it. The first couple hours went horribly, then they sent her out on a walk. She emailed Neil Gaiman, who told her: "Pretend you're good at it." She came back in. She did. And she -- did it. Doing the events, she said, didn't get easier anxiety-wise, but that she'd learned that people's capacity for understanding and accommodation -- particularly these audiences, but all people -- was stunning and compassionate. If you can say "Hi, I need a few minutes, I'm having an anxiety attack", people tend to be able to let you disappear for a few minutes to get yourself back under control.
For the book, she gave copies of the manuscript to everyone mentioned in her stories, to make sure they were okay. And they were okay with it, and in some cases mentioned further detail and other incidents that needed inclusion. There are some people who come up to her and declare that they are Team Victor. She is entirely okay with this. Once, this happened while Victor was in fact present, and she pointed him out to the attendee -- who cheerfully took their leave and went over to talk with Victor and asked him to sign the book. Victor was apparently slightly insufferable after that. One of her rules is that she does not post about stuff that she and Victor are actively fighting about -- she waits until they have argued it all out and made their peace before recounting. The exception was Beyoncé, because it was just too immediately funny. Victor was a little pissed about that (but it seems to have blown over). She has a treasury of stories about their daughter that aren't being posted out of respect for what absolute hellions pre/teen girls can be.
She talked about the amazing community that has been connecting with each other using her stories as a catalyst -- she was very humble and downplayed the role of her hilariously blunt honesty -- but from the seed of her sharing these things, people have come and said "me too" and embraced one another, and the power of the communal understanding and acceptance has saved lives (as well as other excellent effects). She has a file with the emails from people who turned back at the last minute and are alive today because they learned they were not alone and people can and do get through these things. It's never as easy as "oh, well, you can live through this," BAM CURED IT'S OVER YOU'RE OKAY, but -- second by second, accepting hand by accepting hand, we get through if we can. Traditional publishing has a serious role in this. People who would have never thought to hunt up a random blog have picked up the book, then followed her back home to the internet, and suddenly community.
Then signing! We went row by row. The first row had been theoretically reserved, but since San Francisco does not have friends & family (of the usual sort), some of the standing-room-only folks who needed a seat got to come down. I was in the second row. I do need to remember to bring stickies and pen to every author event, because it's much faster when I write my own name. Sometimes it's boring when the author is talking to the people in front of you for a long time, but she is just a delight and there were great line conversations. I really should get business cards for things like this, because there were a couple people in line who I'd like to collide with more regularly.
When it came my turn, she admired my hat (she said she was trying not to stare at it through the reading).
"When I was putting it together, I said 'If I were Sophie Hatter, I'd be saying Fabulous Trainwreck.'"
We giggled, she signed my book.
"I have someone here I'd like to introduce you to," I said.
"Is it dead?" she asked with some trepidation.
"Never been alive," I reassured her, and brought my bag with my large metal rooster up to table level.
"A Beyoncé!" she said with delight.
"Normally he's at work. My boss made a ruling that if the story starts with 'This one time on the internet', the story does not need to be told at work." We giggled, and then, on impulse, I grabbed the second package of pink Peeps out of the rooster bag and set them on her table.
"Victor says thank you," she told me. "Or he will when he gets them. He wanted Peeps, but the store was all out!"
Hooray!
I took a few minutes to gather myself together before heading in a general busward direction. To my delight, I was not the only person to have brought a rooster. The other rooster was a good four feet high, with peacock feathers in his tail. I was sorry to leave without more time to chatter with the good folks there, but I thought I'd left enough time for chatter after before the bus home, and hadn't looked up later trips.
The bad:
It helps if you don't forget your water bottle at home. Fortunately I did have a bottle of sparkling fruit juice, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.
I was dredging through the lower end of my to-do list, having cleared my inbox effectively enough. This meant working with the database. It was thus that I discovered that you cannot add the same person multiple times to the same study. This is a problem, because it's meant to be able to do this, to log multiple points of contact with the person regarding the study, and for studies spanning multiple months with multiple instances of participation from the same individual.
Also, the pagination is ridiculous. Ten or twenty (depending on the page) results at a time? Which would be less bad if there were a way to pull it all at once. There is not. It would be less bad if the sort sorted by all, not just by that fucking page.
There are bugs filed. The severity is Critical, because I want to be able to go up a step to Catastrophic if things get worse.
It appears to be time for my uterus to misbehave entertainingly. I ejected several sizable clots with a fascinating popping sensation, like I imagine a cork would feel like propelled out of my cervix. Weirdest fucking thing. It was not comfortable, but some ibuprofen set me right.