Chapter the Ninth: Still singing, still dancing, still ducking!
It's been about 8 months since I updated my personal pages and it's been a very busy time. Lots of things have happened.
Marilyn and I are doing very well. We've been together for a little over a year and a day. Things have happened so quickly and yet I feel completely at home with her. I'm enormously pleased with everything about her. She's great company, wonderful to talk to, a good gin rummy and Scrabble player, and has a snappy sense of humor. I'm very happy. We're planning on a trip to Victoria shortly for a long weekend getaway. She's good to travel with. As a matter of fact, I took Marilyn with me to the annual STC conference in Chicago. She was a big hit with my friends. That was fun, too!
The STC Conference in Chicago was really lovely. I had a reasonably relaxing time. I saw a bunch of friends, did a fair amount of sight-seeing (Chicago is a very pretty town and neither of us had been there before), and had a good time being with Marilyn. I was terrifically honored by being made an Associate Fellow of the Society. (That's probably all I can think to say about it, but it was a glowing experience that means a great deal to me.) I was also very honored to have been elected to the Society's Nominating Committee, which means that for the next two years I shall be helping find candidates for the various STC officers.
The house is still not yet remodeled, although I may shortly back into it: my oil furnace has just about called it quits, so I will need to look at getting gas heat, which means that I have to run gas service in ($$$), which also means that I should start thinking about replacing the dying electric range with a gas range, which means... that mebbe I should take out a home improvement loan. Actually, what I'm going to do is refinance the house since rates are so cheap and draw out a little equity.
My health has been doing better. I've started hitting the gym again. My cholesterol and blood pressure are continuing to improve, so the meds are doing wonders there. Speaking of health, there's a disease you should know about. It's called "witzelsucht" (vit-zel-soocht)--literally, "joke addiction." It's caused by lesions on the frontal lobes of the brain that cause the patient to make lots of bad jokes and poor puns at which the patient him/herself is enormously amused. (I am not making this up! It's listed in Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary.) There's no word on whether it's contagious or not--sorta like a contact high, you know--so hanging out with those who might have it won't necessarily infect you. Hey, maybe people who's lot in life it is to be the straight man are carriers. Waddaya think?
Singing with The Washingtonians continues to be a lot of fun. The March 2001 was called Pollyanna. The Beyond Fife show in June toured in Seattle and Tacoma (which is "beyond Fife"). The next show is probably in November. If you like silly music, be sure to look at their site and make plans to attend.
I'm up to my eyes in work at the moment. I am wrapping up a contract for VoiceStream (where I've been working since last fall), writing XML training materials (and turning them into books) for a really cool company in Bellevue, and doing articles for Alcatel Microelectronics. Then, I'm also doing the 2nd edition of the Washington Trivia book, looking at doing another RoboHELP book, and seeing if there's a market for another Peachtree book. Busy, no?
I did speaking engagements in Vancouver, B.C., in February, Columbus, OH, in March, and Orange County in SoCal in May. I was going to do a speech and a workshop in Tampa on March 1, but the earthquake in Seattle the day before sorta scotched that. I was getting over that nasty cold we all had around then and packing for the flight out to Tampa. I was in a pretty bad mood, feeling feverish and sweaty, and thinking sour thoughts. I was so hot and sweaty, in fact, that I didn't have clothes on while I ran around and packed. When the quake struck, I heard the windchimes on the porch clash back and forth and my first thought was "I didn't know that we were in for a wind storm today..." Then I heard the house creaking and I thought "Oh, it's an earthquake!" Normally I get panicky in quakes, but I was feeling so sick and tired that I figured, well, I don't hear anything cracking or crashing and the house is still level, so what the heck? I stood in the doorway of the kitchen, still nude and sweaty, and felt the really cold, crisp breeze blowing across me. (This was not even as much fun as it sounds.) My biggest concern was inadvertently flashing my neighbors, who were standing on their deck during the quake. But it was a very fun quake, really, as nothing broke and I didn't lose power and seeing the windchimes crashing back and forth was fun.
After it was all over, I went back inside and turned on the TV to see the reports. Miraculously, the cable was still working (AT&T always did run against type; I'd have expected them to crap out at the first opportunity) so I had TV to watch and also cable modem to get online. The news reports said the airport was closed so they could check out the runways and also, as it turned out, because the air traffic control tower had gotten mashed and was out of service. I knew that my 1:00pm flight was not going to happen so I looked online to find flights to Tampa that would get me there in time for my speech the next evening. As it turned out, there was no way to get there at all: between having the aiport closed and the general lack of flights between here and Tampa, it just wasn't going to happen. I ended up giving the speech by phone and promised to come down there for real in November. Well, it was certainly an original excuse for not showing up!
In June, I donated my 72nd pint of blood! I've got a "9-gallon" pin that I'm very proud of. I'm but one gallon away from my life goal of hitting 10 gallons of blood donations. (After that, I'm going to shoot for 100 pints, but 10 gallons is a mark to be very proud of.) I also emceed a cancer walk and fundraiser at Franklin Pierce High School in late June that did very well: they made $42,000, which is exceptional for a first-time walk such as this one.
I'll be hosting a Clarion writers' party at the end of June, probably be looking for more work in July, and enjoying the summer. I have no travel planned yet this summer save for spending time in Tacoma whenever I can, but I am sure that something will be coming up.
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