I take back everything bad I ever said about Blogger Support. They are helping and it's working. Yippee!

I just KNEW that would work. Apparently, someone has fixed my account, after I e-mailed lots of folks. It all seems to be working perfectly. (Knocking on wood even as I type.)

Updates will be sporadic over the next week I imagine, as we'll be at World Fantasy Con and then hanging around for a bit after, but then most of the people that read this thing will be there too.

Say...Was That a Kiss? is finito, completo, done done done! And it looks great! Really. And I'm so pleased with all the stories and poetry. I wish we had more art, but maybe next time. I just ran off copies of fliers for ...is this a cat? and Say... Now, if we can just remember to get Hershey's kisses and wax lips to hand out or something. (Barb: remind me to tell you about Christopher's first "kissing booth" idea, in which you and I would essentially be carnival workers. Right. At a SF convention. Right.)

I also have a profound hope (well, a hope anyway) that I'll be able to finish that damn fairy story today before we leave. We'll see.

Happy All Hallow's Eve to all you guys. See most of you soon.

The fantabulous Barb reports that she's seen shaken and stirred on the web. Fancy that. I do not understand this blogger world. It is a world of insanity, mayhem and injustice. Where posts are lost, ftp paths are meaningless and brave citizens crumble beneath the wait of the soul-crushing mechanics of the support system. I probably shouldn't say things like this in case they actually check out my complains, but hell, who are we kidding? It's like flapping your wings into the void.

Oh yes, it's that kind of day. I'm contemplating leaving work right now, before the Sudafed kicks in. Got Say... to printer at 3 a.m. Very tired now. In a fog. Surreal foghead girl does not do well on little sleep. Not well at all. Menthol smell cough drops keeping surreal foghead girl upright. But cough drops almost gone and girl not even coughing. It's like a soap opera in my mind.

Lots of diversion today. Damn fairy story still not done and not likely to get worked on la day. Weird damn time travel story edited and sent to Christopher for him to read. I suspect it will be just inside my ability to go get my hair cut this afternoon and then pack. Ah, packing, yes, it must be done, it must be so... And there's an all new slaying girl show coming on tonight.

Slayer. Good. Grunt. Snort. Voidless diatribes.

With my luck, this nonsense will probably post. (Better than nunsense; why, lord, why?)

Christopher reads at 3:30 p.m. Thursday at World Fantasy. If you're there, I expect to see you at the reading.

Grunt. Snort. Goodbye, sweets.

The new blog is not appearing. Why? So, so tired.

The Top Secret Project is being printed today. Yay!

(This post is actually from Sunday, but I saved it from the um, suddenly mysteriously working now that I deleted it Why Do I Bother? and am putting it up here. So don't be all confused by the fact that I'm talking about seeing MJ after the post about actually seeing it.)

Yesterday was spent doing errandy-type things. It always feels weird being away from home all day during the weekend; we usually can't because we don't like to leave George for more than five hours at a time when we have a choice. But George is being baby-sat, while we go to Minneapolis, so freedom reigned. Or at least the kind of freedom that has you bouncing along from salon to shop to shop to lunch to shop did.

Very tiring, all that, erranding. So, we went to see The Ring. Despite the fact that someone who isn't me but shall remain nameless (um, because you'll be able to figure out who it is) was immediately seized with fear that we'd made a direly wrong decision as soon as we got in the theater. "It's so dark and gray and gloomy outside. We shouldn't be seeing a movie like this," was that person's sentiment. Neverless, we pulled my jacket up to our chins (cause you can cover your eyes if you need to) and watched it. Quite good; I recommend it. Far beyond the larger ilk of American scary movies (or scary movies anywhere, for that matter). Naomi Watts is very good. I couldn't help but be a bit annoyed by the now-cliche "Sixth Sense" big saucery-eyed "I see dead people" and do weird art that scares adults kid, but his time on screen was mercifully low. The scary imagery doesn't quite match up to the original in its creepiness (but it is creepy, and there's one sequence near the end of the second act that's inspired visually, that's totally new). However, the story does make more sense. The whole section I could have done without where there's a lot of strolling along the beach and exposition is replaced, and rightly so, in my opinion. Now, I will go prepare to be stoned.

Anyway. Today is Michael Jackson "Thriller" Day. At 7 p.m. the streets of Lexington will be '80s-fied. Till then, we'll write and edit and try and get Say... done.

And be so, so, so happy that soon we get to see a large gaggle of our friends. No links today, because I keep getting kicked offline. Go play outside.

So, now I hear that later posts were showing up. Just not to me. I really can't figure this one out, so I'll just keep my ear to the motherboard and hope this one works.

We're still trying to finish up Say... for World Fantasy, and have yet to start packing, etcetera, et al, et tu, brute?

The Thriller recreation was absolutely phenomenal. The streets were packed. The seventeen-year-old Michael Jackson impersonator was spot-on, to an alarming degree. I didn't get to take a camera, because we were late (and I probably would have just got pics of the massive crowd anyway), but I did tape the news and I'll bring the tape to World Fantasy. No pics in the newspaper either, but a little story here.

The recreation started at the old restored Kentucky Theatre downtown. They had a truck with a massive soundsystem driving just in front so the music was constant. A faux grave yard was set up in front of the new courthouse building downtown and the zombies literally rose from their graves. One little girl zombie rose a bit too early and a dog ran up to her from the crowd. The zombies, and Michael, nailed their dance numbers, and the costumes were scary and fabu. This was the coolest thing I've seen in a long time and I wish every one reading this could have seen it. As pics get posted online, I'll link to them from here. Next year, I will be a dancing zombie. Oh yes, I will.

Because, you see, I have experience. In fourth grade, when MJ was the hottest thing going (I had a red zipper jacket, a birthday pressie from my cousin Nanci), there was this kid named Joey Harrison who was obsessed with MJ and Thriller. He wore MJ outfits, gloves, sparkle socks, the infamous red and black jacket, every day. And he had a boombox on which he would play Thriller during recess and dance, dance, dance. All the girls loved him. When he decided to do the Thriller video for the 4-H talent show, it was tooth and nail to get a part as a dancing zombie. Joey wanted me to be the dame, but I said no, and was a zombie girl. Of course, we won the competition. And yes, there's probably a videotape of this out there somewhere. What I remember most clearly is the practice where we tried using a smoke bomb for effect. I think I'm still coughing.

After, we went to a horrid hotel bar called The Big Blue Martini, where the people were all depressingly entrenched types. Then we found a nice bar with a good band and had the best grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches ever. Home for more depressingly slow work on Say...

Razed earth policy of experimentation. When all else fails, start over. See what happens. It's always only a test.