I'm finally home again. We were in the UK for the holidays, but both my inlaws and Craig got flattened by the flu so they ended up being very quiet and private. Add in Craig's grandmother getting hospitalized on Boxing Day, and...well, it was wonderful getting to see everybody, at least. :)

I'm currently trying to get my life back in order after being gone for 3 weeks. That means a month's worth of mail to process, kids to sort out going back to school after being on independent study for 3 weeks, getting the house in order. Seeing the Torchwood promos and clips last night helped tremendously! My head is going to explode from all the GUH. It's a good thing I got S1 on DVD from my inlaws. Now I just have to watch it before S2 starts.

Other good news is that a short story I'd submitted last fall got accepted by Ellora's Cave. I honestly wasn't sure it would because EC is notorious for being focused on the sex and liking the kink. The story I wrote - while it has a ton of sex in it - is HUGELY romantic m/f without any kink. Just a woman getting the chance to see her dead husband after fifty years and wanting to enjoy him as much as she can before he disappears on her. So squee!

OK, my body clock is still on UK time. In spite of being up for over 24 hours before going to bed last night, I was still wide awake at 3am this morning. It's now 4:30, everybody else is still asleep, and I've done as much catching up on the web as I can do right now. So I'm off to shower and then maybe work on sorting mail before everybody gets up. Have a great day, folks!

So I spent Saturday in LA. Because I'm a sucker for face time with James. Funny how after all these years he still gets to me. Not in the same way, but enough for me to still be caught up in just watching the man interact for minutes on end.

( A day of James )

Though I'm sick now, lol. So maybe it's an okay thing I don't do them more often.

Oh, and _sharvie_, I haven't forgotten. I'm spending the day getting caught up, so I will e-mail you the stuff I promised tonight. And get that story up. :)

So in summary...James healthy and happy, me not so healthy but still happy, lol.

I'm in LA today for James' album launch and concert. So if you see me, don't be shy, because I'm more likely to be shy than you, lol. Come up and say hi!

You know, I say I'm going to be strong and that I'm too busy to do this kind of thing. When the announcement came out that James was having a concert in LA, I even talked myself mostly out of going. We didn't know when Craig was going to be in India, and I've been busy, and...there were lots of good reasons not to go.

Then they announced that damn album launch party.

I'm weak. And Craig said he wouldn't go to India until after so that I could go down to LA. I just got my confirmation e-mail from the organizers saying I've got a spot.

So...who else on my flist is going to be at the party and/or concert?

So how many people on my flist are going to squee, hearing that James Marsters will be in Cardiff in July filming an episode of Torchwood's second season? Or that he's doing a concert while he's there?

Wow. I'm actually in the UK on the 21st. I'm all of a sudden tempted.

ETA: Yeah, I didn't last long. 2 tickets bought and paid for. I'm such a fangirl.

I did not know Shadow Puppets was up for pre-order.

I'm going to have to get that now. The long trailer/preview they showed on the QM last year was entertaining, so at the very least, it'll be better than some other things I've bought that James was in *coughs*Strange Frequency*coughs*.

Not a fun couple of days.

Alicia came into our bedroom the middle of Thursday night with a raging fever, so she spent yesterday sick at home. She missed out on a birthday party which I had to hear about all day, and kept me home when I needed to get out and get some stuff done for the con I'm leaving for next week.

Today was more of the same, though her fever was gone. I had to go out to the oak furniture store and place the order for the cedar chest we want for our bedroom. It took a frickin' hour. If we didn't love the store so much and if their prices weren't so amazing, I would've walked. But I didn't.

And then tonight, the news about JM's play getting cancelled. Which means I'm not getting all my friends coming to see me this summer like I'd hoped. Or James onstage. And it's very depressing.

On the plus side, pepperlandgirl4 and I wrote some cowboy romance. We have a novella due for Amber Quill in September and since we knew it was going to be short, we decided to start it. Well...we might not make the novella requirements. We're capped at 40k. The scene we finished this evening is over 5.6k. And it's a flashback about how they first met, not even part of the main plot at all. I have a sneaky suspicion this one is going to be too long and we're going to have to come up with another idea for AQ. Not a problem, but annoying.

I have been playing catch-up ever since getting home Monday afternoon. I think I'm just about going to get caught up in time to leave again on Tuesday. Oy.

( Creation Con )


( American Idol )


( Writing )

Other than that, I've been playing catch-up here at home. I didn't check any e-mail for LLGA and WFA while I was gone, and had a whole mess of nominations to get coded for both. There's laundry and shopping and cleaning, as well as preparing for my trip next week. And the birthday party I have to take Alicia tomorrow. And softball. And tball. And the fact that Craig is incapable of doing anything with the mail or bills, so I have to get that all caught up before I go, too.

Well, family vacation is over. Craig is on his way back home with the kids, and I'm currently ensconced at oanimation's apartment for the afternoon. A weekend of fangirling ahead, woo hoo! The only downside is that I've managed to pick up a cold this week. Blech. But I shall live, because...

James is going to be in my neck of woods all fricking summer long!!!

How tickled am I that he's going to be in a play in San Francisco for most of the summer? So over the moon that I can't stop grinning. The only bad part is knowing that our summer traveling is going to impact when I can go see him. I already know of some people who will be descending on me this summer, though I haven't shared that information with Craig yet, lol. But to get to see James in a play? God. Heaven. And no huge costs for me to go. Just theater tickets and a Bart ride. :) I've already said to Craig that it will be my birthday present, and hell if I'm not going to go when the girls descend. Plus, the advantage to being here is that I could even go mid-week if I wanted, since I'll bet most of the weekend shows get sold out.

And this weekend is more James goodness. Q&A's, the concert tomorrow night, autographs, photo ops...plus my girls. Life is good. :)

So who else on my flist succumbed to the JM concert at Grand Slam in Burbank already?

18 more days until Craig gets home.

It could be worse. We chat twice daily usually; there's a 13 1/2 hour time difference (which is just weird having the half hour on it), so I catch him when he gets up and before he goes to bed. He's so bored that he's going to a cricket game tomorrow for something to do. I guess I'm not the only one having a hard time of it. :)

To make up for it, we're going all out for Valentines this year. Usually, we don't fuss. Cards and maybe getting dinner so that I don't have to cook. It's so close to ALicia's birthday that it's not always practical. But this year, because of his prolonged absence, we've decided to have fun and treat ourselves. We've arranged for the kids to spend the night with friends so that we can do it right. We're going to do the dinner/show at Teatro ZinZanni, and then spend the night at the Mark Hopkins Hotel. It's got a sky bar on the 19th floor that is supposed to be amazing, and Craig is eager to see the views. Me, I just want grown-up, one-on-one time with my man. And sex. :)

Watched my DVD of JM's Words and Music today...( Read more... )

I have a confession to make. I'm *sooooo* freakin' jealous of everybody who's going to see James this Saturday on stage that I can't see straight. The concerts I don't care about, but...he's doing theatrical monologues! On stage! In a theater! Yeah, it's great to see him on Smallville now, but nothing----and I NOTHING---compares to live performance, it doesn't matter who the actor is. Well, to me, anyway. Even when the show sucks, there's something about me being in a theater that just makes me feel more alive than I do anywhere else.

But when the show is good, and the actors are right on...guh...I'm just melting in my chair here, reliving some of the performances I've been fortunate to see.

Like...Jessica Lange and Charles Dance in "Long Day's Journey Into Night."
Like...John Malkovich playing Pale in "Burn This."
Like...Michael Maguire in "Les Miserables."

The list goes on. I have to stop before I melt all over the place.

So, yeah. Jealous here. Freely admitting it. Hoping that pictures or video of it *somehow* turn up.

And god, do I need to see a play soon...

Well, the BIL/SIL are gone and we're back home from the airport from dropping them off. My house seems so quiet, though it's going to be nice to get routine back. It seems like I'm always saying that. One of these days I'm going to realize I can't predict anything and just go with the flow. Ha. Right. Not going to happen.

Like with writing. I have this one fic that I've been stewing for a month now, teasing a couple people at Phauxcon with some of the ideas. It was supposed to be my recuperative fic for all my angst that I've been writing. Well, I wrote the first chapter and decided it completely wasn't what I wanted. No big. That just means coming up with a new opening. Except in the interim, I've been bitten by a new original fic bug---the characters had told me their names before I could blink---which I slammed out the first chapter on yesterday (without a title, just ask sadbhyl how huge it is for me to start writing without having a title), and then another title won't leave me alone. It's demanding I find its story. It's *very* frustrating.

Ah well. We shall see what time will tell.

Oh, and for the JM fans on my list who might not have already seen this: James Marsters Interview. It's a phone interview done for the radio, very recently, though I'm not sure when. Thanks to evenstar_estel for bringing it to my attention!

I think I need to hand over my JM fangirl card.

I'll admit it. I've been following the reports and pictures that have been coming out of the UK regarding James' concerts. There have been some nice ones, and it's always good to hear that people are enjoying themselves.

But...then I saw the pictures from the Friday night. In the black pimp shirt (the one he wore at Halloween that was open to his navel) and all the bling bling, and I just...couldn't look any more.

To make it worse, I listened to the songs on the CD, courtesy of the splendiferous sweet_ali. And you know, if I wasn't getting the CD as part of his concerts this summer, I wouldn't buy it. There's probably two songs on the whole thing that I can listen to without wincing. I'm afraid that I just don't get all these glowing reports I keep seeing about it.

*hangs head in shame*

I am a bad James fan. I *want* to like the look and the music, I really do. And I still think James is incredibly attractive. But the whole bling bling thing...was the man wearing *every* necklace he owns on Friday? And don't get me started on that blues song everybody has been gushing about. It's *got* to be something about the performance, because the recording...Craig was giggling as badly as I was while we listened to it.

Of course, this is all just my silly opinion. I fully respect everyone who loves either the album or the navel shirt. I just...don't care for these particular aspects of James.

*slinks off to the bad fangirl corner*