mood

bookish

This is my 2012 running books-I've-read post! I've no idea whether this will show up on your friends lists or not.

Anyway, ( on to the books! )

Originally posted at http://vixy.dreamwidth.org/770880.html.

mood

nostalgic

Mother's day is coming up. I have been having anxiety dreams. I haven't quite figured out yet whether those two things are related.

You may know, if you've followed me a while, that my mother died in January of 2011. Mother's day last year was when we scattered her ashes. So Mother's day may be a bit problematic for me. If you're like me and you find the need for a bit of a defense mechanism against all the Mother's Day ads, I recommend my technique: respond to the ads mentally (or verbally) with a good "yerMOM". Example: Ad email I just received: "GIVE YOUR MOM WHAT SHE REALLY WANTS." Response: "I'll give YOUR mom what she really wants!" (Bonus: works for Father's Day too! "Give your Dad something special!" "I'll give your MOM something special...")

Defensive silliness aside, I thought on the anniversary of scattering her ashes, I'd write about her a bit. Because I've written about the disease, the dementia, the loss... but I never wrote much about herself. (I hope it doesn't sound like an obituary. I already wrote one of those.)

mood

pensive

My friend Brooke posted something not long ago that's been on my mind ever since. With permission I'd like to point you to it.

It's called Why I Have Sworn Off Intentional Weight Loss, Forever, Seriously.

Why do I think it's important? Here's a bit:

Okay, yes, there is more obesity now than fifty years ago. But it's not an epidemic. It's not IMPORTANT. What we do have an epidemic of is fat-phobia. Fat people are ugly! Fat people are lazy! Fat must be the worst thing ever! The thing is, being fat isn't... actually that bad for you. You look at the hazard scores for various BMIs and it's a smily face. Very low BMIs: you die sooner. Very, very high BMIs: you die sooner. Lowest hazard scores: actually in that overweight 26-30 zone, not the 20-25 "normal" zone. But even then, the differences between the thin side and the fat side are... not that big.

What DOES matter? Set aside the image worries for a minute, what if I'm trying to lose weight for my health? What matters is activity. Thin people who do not exercise: high risk. Fat people who do exercise: low risk. The difference between thin and fat if both groups are active: almost none. There's a very small increase for being obese.

Okay, what if that small increase matters to you? You're active, but you want to do everything. Here's the next rub: is it actually POSSIBLE to lose weight? For 95% of people... it's just not.

That sounds ridiculous. If you've known me for a while, you know I've personally lost weight lots of times. I've done weight watchers several times with success, I've gotten down to seventy pounds lower than I weigh now. Losing weight, sure, anyone can lose weight. PERMANENTLY losing weight is another question. Huge medicare study in the US looking at long-term weight loss found that at best 5% of people can keep weight off, and everyone else ends up HEAVIER than when they started, and heavier than people who started off the same weight as them but didn't try to lose weight. Yeah. The most common outcome of intentional weight loss is... weight gain. 95% chance of gaining weight from trying to lose weight. Ninety. five. percent. I don't know about you, but even if I did think weight loss was a worthwhile goal, for health or for aesthetics or whatever, 95% chance of achieving the OPPOSITE of my goal would be enough to discourage me.

mood

working

Random internetly bits...

So I created a tumblr account. Mostly because more and more of the blogs I am following via Google Reader are tumblrs. I initially created the account in order to reply to someone, but it's also a convenient (read: lazy) way to share things I find there. Currently it's got the same title as my longer blogs because I couldn't think of anything better. It's a random mix of silly and serious, whatever I think is interesting, and I found a sticky-notes-on-a-wall theme which is sort of how all of Tumblr feels to me anyway.

It's a little weird to have YET ONE MORE PIECE OF INTERNET to maintain content on, although I'm beginning to think of Twitter, Tumblr and DW/LJ respectively as short, medium and large, in terms of the type of information I'm trying to convey. (I guess Facebook and G+ are also sort of in the "medium" category for me too, except I tend to go months forgetting they exist.)

I still actually *read* a lot of Tumblrs (Tumblr accounts? Tumblr blogs? What's the syntax here? Christ I'm old) via Google Reader, because it's a lot less overwhelming to me that way. Something about having it all separated by user, waiting for me to get to it when I have time and in small doses makes it easier for me to focus than one long timeline where I've read pages and pages and I'm still only back to yesterday. (LJ and DW still have this problem, but I have it emailing me when the people closest to me post.) So I keep following people I know on Tumblr but then only haphazardly looking at the dashboard.

Anyway, feel free to follow/unfollow, etc. I almost never pay attention to who's following or unfollowing me on any of the above sites, except sometimes to go "do I know that person?" and add you if I can figure out who you are and how I know you. By which I mean, if you unfollow me, I won't hold it against you or email you going WHY DO YOU HATE MEEEEEE or anything. Most likely I won't even notice. :)

I am curious: How do people feel about crossposting? Like, for example, having a link posted to Twitter and Facebook whenever you make a long-form blog entry? Spammy? Annoying? Convenient because you spend more time looking at the short-form sites than the long-form ones? (Which kind of describes me sometimes.) Never notice because you're not on more than one site? I know some people do it, and I don't mind it, but I'm wondering about other people's reactions. Currently I only do it occasionally and manually, and I'm thinking about setting up something more automatic (again read: lazy).

In other internetly news, Tony has been making some fabulous shiny updates to the already-shiny Vixy & Tony website, and you might give it a look. It's got songs streaming from Bandcamp now! And the schedule page works better! As always you can read about our music and find out about our next gigs there and also subscribe to our very low-traffic mailing list (low-traffic because it's me that does the mailing list posts, and did I mention I'm lazy?) Seriously, go look and give him some love; the work he puts into the thing is just amazing.

More internetly news to come when I remember what on earth I was going to post. This is what happens when I do this at work...

Originally posted at http://vixy.dreamwidth.org/773356.html.

mood

amused

Someone asked about the crows recently, and the latest Brain Comic inspires me to post about them. Caw!

Let's see... a week or so ago I walked to work for once (oh hush, it's been below freezing every morning and Tony and I can carpool) and I didn't have any Wheat Thins but I had a big thing of sunflower seeds with the shells removed.

Sunflower seeds: not an acceptable substitute for Weat Thins.

Oh, they ate a few to be polite, but they were clearly like "um... really?" So I strayed from my usual path to work to hit the convenience store. They didn't have Wheat Thins but they did have Cheez-Its. That route meant I didn't see most of the Dayton Street crows, but when I was about half a block from my office, right by the bus stop, my usual office crows recognized me (they often come greet me at that bus stop when I get back from my post office run) and went SWOOP-LAND HI THERE MONKEY IT'S US WHATCHA GOT? Hee! I offered them some Cheez-Its right there, instead of making them follow me all the way to the office.

Cheez-Its: VERY acceptable substitute for Wheat Thins. Even better than peanuts and cashews, which were the current frontrunners behind Wheat Thins until now. Success!

---

A few days ago, they didn't show up right when I got to the door - they don't always, and I don't usually feed them unless I can actually see them. As I was sitting at my desk later, I saw one sort of flutter away out of the corner of my eye, like they'd been checking for food and left. So I went out and tossed some Wheat Thins in the usual spot by the planter, figuring they'd come back.

A couple of sparrows saw their golden opportunity. One little female grabbed a whole Wheat Thin and carried it a few steps before starting to nibble in earnest. (A sparrow carrying an entire wheat thin is just about as funny as it sounds.) She was less skittish than sparrows usually are; maybe distracted by the food, but wasn't bothered by my standing close by, watching. Red Monkey, Source of Foods! I was afraid she wouldn't be able to manage it, but then I saw she was breaking bits off the edge in a neat row, cartoon-corn-on-the-cob style. DING! Then she broke it in half and a male came and grabbed the other half and there was much sparrowly munching.

The crows eventually showed up to eat the rest, but they didn't seem to mind having shared one with the sparrows.

---

Yesterday, I sort of inadvertenty protected my crows from a marauding seagull.

I'd put out more Cheez-Its for my usual pair, and they were eating happily, and then all of a sudden I heard them scolding like crazy. I looked up from my desk to see a seagull trying to go for the Cheez-Its and the two crows trying to run it off, sort of darting at it in short fluttering bursts.

I got up and walked to the door-- that's all I did, I wanted to see what was going on, but the door is all glass, so the seagull saw the quick motion and went AAAAA IT'S A MONKEY and flew off a few yards. The crows, who are usually also started by quick motion even on the other side of the door, were not even fazed. They just stood glaring at the seagull like YEAH THAT'S RIGHT, AND SHE'S *OUR* MONKEY SO JUST BACK OFF, PAL and it was adorable.

The seagull seemed to take their not being scared as a clue that maybe it didn't need to be scared either, so it started to waddle on back to the food. I opened the door and walked out a couple steps and stood leaning against it-- again, that's all I did-- and the seagull started to back away again. I just stood there staring at it, and it kept backing away, and the crows stood their ground. Then the sparrows I swear this is true came out onto the planter right up alongside me, and started chirping at the top of their little lungs like YEAH YOU'D *BETTER* RUN, SEAGULL BRAIN and then I died laughing.

One of the crows made a last strafing run at the seagull just to drive the point home, and it decided it'd had enough and flew away. I watched until it was out of sight.

Then we all went back to what we were doing.

Such is life in the city of crows. ;)

Originally posted at http://vixy.dreamwidth.org/772842.html.

mood

pleased

We wrote a new song! It's been a while. I've been kind of frozen. In fact that's partly what the song's about.

See, I was sitting there trying to write some other song. And it just wasn't happening. And I was getting really frustrated. And that's been happening to me a lot; I get stuck, or someone else wrote a much better song on the same idea, or... well FINE, I thought, if that's all that's in my head, I'll write a song about THAT.

And I thought of something I heard Arlo Guthrie say in a concert (that he apparently says a lot in his concerts), that songwriting is a lot like fishing. Most of it's just sitting there, hoping a song swims by. And sometimes you're fishing downstream from Bob Dylan. ("Bob, why don't you throw the small ones back every once in a while!")

Sometimes I feel like certain songwriters I know are fishing just up the river from me.

(I don't mean Seanan, by the way. She's got an entire swamp to herself, full of snakes and frickens and ballroom dancers and monsters that want to give you a hug.)

Anyway that's where this song started. And then I started thinking about what songwriters and storytellers *do*. How a lot of what we do is taking stories that are already there, bits and fragments of the world's half-forgotten memories and ideas, and polishing them up and adding beads and lace and replacing the broken heel and removing the latch that never really worked anyway and adding a fresh coat of paint and a new layer of upholstery and retelling them in our own way. And I thought about all the different reasons and topics and emotions that motivate people to write songs. (There are one or two references to specific songs in there, but honestly a lot of it was dictated by what would fit with the rhyme/rhythm scheme I wanted.) And I thought about a wonderful Ted Talk I watched about stories, which I'd actually been meaning to use for a while in a different context.

To me, in the end, all songs are stories, and all stories are love stories.

My housemates will tell you that every time I go to write a new song, I whine, "I can't do this anymore. I don't know how." And they patiently say, "Yes you can. You always say that." And I harrumph and go away and fret. Because writing songs, for me, is not something I learned how to do and now I know how to do it, bam. It's something I have to re-learn every time. I look at some of the best songs I've ever written, and I have no idea how I got there. I have to figure out from scratch how to do it again.

So this is for every songwriter and storyteller who's like me.

My gratitude to Tony, as always, for providing the music and particularly for coming up with the idea for the bridge.

(We premiered this at Wayward and sang it again at SoulFood, but there's not a recording yet; it appears that SoulFood didn't save any of the video of our concert. Hopefully someone will do the iPhone/YouTube thing at Norwescon.)

The River
by Vixy & Tony, (c) 2012 etc. all that copyright stuff you know the drill.

Alright, okay, I give in
I can't fight and I can't move and I can't win
I'm staring at the pages 'til I hate every letter
And there's always someone else who has already said it better
And the lines all come out crooked and the words are upside-down
And there's never any room to turn around

    So tell me a story
    Aren't all stories true?
    Tell me a story and I'll tell it back to you
    There's always someone else there, up the river, up the river
    Gotta find my own way up the river

Good luck, farewell, bon voyage
To the basement and the attic and garage
In the clutter of the world we keep on diving for our treasure
And with cobwebs in our hair we come parading for your pleasure
And it looks like all I've got's a broken lamp and one old shoe
Just wait 'til I recall what I can do

    So tell me a story
    Aren't all stories true?
    Tell me a story and I'll tell it back to you
    There's always something out there, up the river, up the river
    Gotta find my way back up the river

        Lullabye, stay awake, no one knows your great mistake
        Cities, countries, castles, cats, and gentlemen in dashing hats
        Straight and narrow path you you stray from run a game and run away from
        Home - where the heart is laughter. What comes after ever after?

        Hit the road, hit the bottle, fear of flying, hit the throttle,
        Go! - Didn't you love that book? That day, the way the buildings shook the
        Man in the moon, man in space, lost a planet, lost a race,
        Sex and hate and joy and pain and love, love, love, love,
        Love

Come on, take my hand, here we go
Through the woods and through the desert and the snow
Well I swear we got there last time but I don't remember how
And the map is lost, the road is gone, and what do I do now?
I'm slashing through the jungle word by word and line by line
You have to blaze a new trail every time

    So tell me a story
    Aren't all stories true?
    Tell me a story and I'll tell it back to you
    There's always someplace calling, up the river, up the river
    Gotta find a new way up the river

Originally posted at http://vixy.dreamwidth.org/772587.html.

mood

hopeful

So there's only about a couple of weeks left to get your Hugo nominations in. And like my good friend Seanan McGuire, I'm going to ask those of you eligible to nominate to consider something for the Dramatic Short Form category that you might not have thought of.

This category seems to get flooded with All-Doctor Who-All-the-Time. Now, I adore Doctor Who, but the nominating gets a little unbalanced sometimes, because British television has shorter seasons and thus fewer episodes that the fans need to agree on.

So a while back, Seanan got me to watch this Disney cartoon show called Phineas & Ferb. At first I liked it. Then I liked it a whole lot. Then I laughed so hard I fell off of the furniture. This is seriously one of my contenders for the best show currently on television.

What it's about: Phineas & Ferb are two stepbrothers on summer vacation, finding a good way to spend every day before it's over. Their idea of a good way is to build a crazy invention and have an adventure. Their big sister Candace's idea of a good way is to get her brothers in trouble for building things, but somehow their mom never notices, even though their inventions are always HUGE, always work perfectly (though sometimes in unintended ways), and often involve the whole town. A giant roller coaster, a robot dog, a portal to Mars, building a rocket, fighting a mummy, climbing up the Eiffel Tower... er.

There is always a B-plot, in which the boys' pet platypus, Perry, is a secret agent, reporting to Major Monogram and his intern, Carl. Each episode, Perry must foil the plans of the nefarious (read: goofy) Doctor Doofenshmirtz (o/~ Doofenshmirtz Evil In-cor-porateeeeeeeed! o/~) to take over the Tri-State Area.

Why I love it: Kid's stuff, right? Sure. But it's SO NOT JUST FOR KIDS. The plot can be formulaic, but it doesn't get boring, because they play with the formula. Seeing what the kids will build next and just how far the writers will go with it is always fascinating and nearly always takes me by surprise in what they'll do with it. They have catchphrases, but they don't rely on them to be the main punchline as most shows with catchphrases do ("whatchoo talkin bout, Willis?"); they're like the base stock to which they add other flavors, and they even self-referentially play with those now and then, going hilariously meta ("we're building a robot dog. Y'know, like in the title sequence." "I'd still rather give a monkey a shower.") And there's so much going on visually that you don't want to look away even for a second, lest you miss some lovingly-added technical detail or quick sight gag.

That's another thing; the humor is FANTASTIC. It's chock full of pop culture references designed for adult geeks to get-- and so many of those are fleeting, throwaway things that you almost have to back up to catch them, so if you don't get some of them, you're not left just sitting there staring. They riff on the science fiction classic plots from robots to space travel to time travel, and they do it with innocence and joy. My favorite episode so far is "Elementary, My Dear Stacy", an episode that combines a Sherlock spoof with a Bond spoof in utterly delightful ways, with the cherry on top that Judi Dench actually voices the "M" parody character, Inspector Initials. (That and the "Time Shift" episodes - "Excaliferb", "Tri-Stone Area", "Doof Dynasty", and "Temple of Juatchadoon", one of which I'll definitely be nominating for the 2012 Hugos.)

The music. Oh my god, the music. Each episode has at least one musical number, and sometimes more, and the composers are clearly working their way through every genre of music in the history of the world. The style parodies are sometimes brilliantly subtle, everything from Beatles to Bollywood, and often pack as much humor into the lyrics (and the montages) as they do into the dialogue. I'm surprised I'm not hearing their songs in filk circles.

Finally and possibly the reason for all the other things... the attitude. The creators of this show clearly love what they do; they love science fiction, they love telling a good story, they love humor. And it's also clear they love kids. This show manages to appeal to all the adults in my household, not just as an "I'll tolerate this" but as a "YES let's watch more!", without needing to rely at all on gross-out humor, oh-god-did-they-just-go-there humor, meanness or mockery. Our main characters are never cruel, they never enjoy anyone's misfortune, they help everyone, they'll allow anyone to be a part of their game. They cheer for their big sister's successes and sympathize with her failures, even when she's trying to get them busted. They are genuinely, refreshingly, nice, and what impresses me most about that is that the show makes "nice" the equivalent of "fun", not the equivalent of "victim".

And they even manage to sneak a few healthy messages in there, in a non-syrupy, non-preachy way. Candace is maybe not the strongest female character in the world, obsessed as she is with trying to bust her brothers and impress her boyfriend Jeremy, but on the other hand, Jeremy keeps telling her pretty clearly that she doesn't have to change to impress her, he likes her for who she is (and there's at least one episode, "Attack of the 50-Foot Sister", where she comes to her own realization that she doesn't have to live up to unrealistic media images to feel good about herself). They even made a little interstitial PSA about safety on the internet-- and it's not the "beware perverts and axe murderers" that you might expect, but rather along the lines of "be careful what you put up on the internet because it lasts forever, don't put up embarrassing things, and don't be a jerk to other people."

I highly recommend catching a few episodes on Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, or the Disney channels (my Tivo records three episodes a day on Disney XD), and at least one full episode that I can find on Disney.com. You don't need to watch in any particular order, and I'd note that the first few eps in season 1 (2008) don't seem as good; as with most shows, I think it took them a bit to find their style.

Now here's the tough part. I believe this show is science fiction for the younger generations as well as the older ones, and that's important. I believe that humor, charm, and a good solid sci-fi story deserve honor in the Hugos, and it'd also be nice to see a little more variety on the rolls. I'd like to see this show honored for what it is. But to do that, we need to agree on a single episode, 'cause that's how it works! I'm joining Seanan in recommending Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension (they have it on Netflix) for nomination. Because how do you improve on a TV show this good? You make an hour-long movie special episode, complete with robot armies, alternate dimensions, monsters, cyborgs, and popcorn!

The show may not win, but I'd really love to see it nominated, because I'd love to see it get more attention for being the wonderful science fiction show that it is.

Thanks for reading!

Originally posted at http://vixy.dreamwidth.org/771843.html.

mood

creative

Psst. Hey. Wanna help me with my next art project? :)

Last year, I signed up for the 2012 Sketchbook Project, by Art House Co-op in New York. You sign up and pick a theme, they send you a sketchbook, you fill it with anything you want (and take it apart, add pages, make a new cover, whatever, as long as it fits within their size guidelines) and send it back. They digitize the book on their site (if you opted in for that part), and then they take all the books on the road! It's like a rock n roll tour, but with art! The books travel to a few different arthouse-type places around the world and people can check them out like library books.

It was great fun and a great inspiration. I haven't received word yet that my 2012 sketchbook was received, but I scanned it before I mailed it, and my scans are here.

I liked it so much that I signed up for the Limited Edition Sketchbook Project; basically the same deal, except they limited it to the first 5,000 people to sign up, and at least one spread from each sketchbook is going to be put into a series of art books documenting the project (I opted in to receive a copy of the art book).

The theme I chose is "The Secret and How to Tell It." I've got a plan; I've got all these ideas for visual images of written messages in different forms. What I don't have are the secrets. That's where you come in!

If you'd like to help me with this project, tell me a secret! It can be anything, although I'd prefer it be short-ish, so I can fit it in a small space.

The disclaimers/caveats/etc:

1) I'm turning on anonymous commenting just for this. (I'll turn it off again after a little while.) You can comment anonymously or not, as you please; I'm not putting anyone's name anywhere in the sketchbook. If someone's name is in your secret I will probably change it.

2) I may or may not use your secret. I may or may not edit your secret. Sadly it's not really practical for me to give you writing credit; this is just to give me ideas to work from.

3) Please play nice on my journal.

It's sort of like my own mini-Postsecret. Okay. *deep breath* Here goes. Let's see what we get! :)

Edit: Anonymous commenting is now closed, but I still welcome other comments if you are so moved.

Originally posted at http://vixy.dreamwidth.org/771810.html.

mood

jubilant

I've always loved my home. My city of Seattle, my state of Washington, the Pacific Northwest in all its beauty and quirkiness. I've always been proud to be from here. Today I'm prouder than ever.

Today, Washington became the 7th state in the US to allow same-sex couples to marry.

This comes on the heels of the California decision ruling Proposition 8 unconstitutional. You've probably seen plenty of people writing about that, and about this. I've been trying for days to find the words.

Do you remember the San Francisco 2004 same-sex weddings? On February 12, 2004, the Mayor of San Francisco ordered the city-county clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. gfish and I had been married just under a year, and god, how excited we were! We watched the videos and photos of joyous couples crowding the city hall steps, laughing and crying and hugging. We heard about people all over the country calling florists in San Francisco to send flowers to strangers, "take them to city hall, deliver them to whoever you see first!" We heard that couples were lined up out the door, waiting their turn for one of the overworked but overjoyed officiants there. For a month, until March 11, we watched and hoped.

(I didn't remember the exact dates until I looked them up to make this post. The signing of this law comes practically on the anniversary of those first San Francisco marriages!)

We were sure it would happen here next. We hoped it would. Given the timing, it might even have happened around our first wedding anniversary! We rushed to get ourselves ordained with the Universal Life Church so that we could legally perform marriages, ready to go down to City Hall and offer our services to the crowds of couples when it came to be our city's turn. Oh, just think of it! I couldn't imagine a better way to celebrate my own marriage than to stand side by side with my husband, helping people who wanted to be married, celebrating love and partnership and equality and joy. It still makes me teary when I think about it.

It didn't happen that way, of course. In the years since, as a notary public, I have notarized our state's "Domestic Partnerships" for same-sex couples I know, but I always felt a little ashamed. I had a right that they were still being denied; the state still said my relationship was somehow better than theirs. Anyone with the most basic grasp of history ought to know that "separate but equal" is never equal at all.

But here we are at last, eight years later almost to the day. I think of that vision, that hope I had of standing with my husband, spending my anniversary performing gleeful, chaotic weddings on the city hall steps, every time someone claims that marriage equality threatens "traditional" marriages. (Take a look at history-- including the Bible-- and you'll see that "tradition" doesn't go back very far.) I think of that every time someone claims that denying rights to a segment of the population is a "defense" of anything.

My marriage isn't threatened. My marriage isn't being attacked. I'm not any less married now than I was yesterday, or last week, or last year.

My marriage is strengthened, because it's one step closer to being right we all share, not a privilege I have at the expense of the trampled rights of other people. My marriage is strengthened because this law says love is important, and the love of all people is equally important.

Some of my straight friends don't choose marriage. Some of my gay friends may not choose marriage either. But now everybody in my state has the same right of choice about how they want to acknowledge and celebrate the people they love in their lives.

I also think of that vision when I hear politicians claiming that someone has lost rights or freedoms with these decisions. The I-can't-believe-it's-not-logic of these people never ceases to amaze me. No one has lost any rights. No religion is being forced to change any of their beliefs about homosexuality, whatever those beliefs might be. No religious institution of any kind, no officiant of any creed, is being forced to perform marriages they don't wish to, for any reason. No individual is being forced to change what he or she thinks, and no individual is being denied the right to speak those thoughts aloud.

All that's happened is that there's a little more equality in the world. A little more fairness. A little more freedom.

Seven states out of fifty. It's still a long way to go to equality. I believe we'll get there in the end.

* * * * *

Edit: A very important part that I forgot to post is that now the fight begins against the initiative to repeal. The Slog predicts that outside religious-right groups will be pouring money into flooding our state with hate-filled anti-gay ads. I fear they're right. As they point out, we don't have groups as old as they or with pockets as deep; we've just got us.

So I've just made a donation to Washington United for Marriage to help fight the anti-equality propaganda. I'm asking you to consider doing so as well. Aside from that... what you can do is talk about it. Let people know. Counter the coming storm of hate-speech with your own equality-speech. Be on the side of love!

Originally posted at http://vixy.dreamwidth.org/771377.html.

mood

working

I know I've been remiss in posting about Vixy & Tony gigs... Tony's more reliable that way, so if you don't already read him, you really should.

Anyway! So after having had a FABULOUS time at both GaFilk and Conflikt (I really will post con reports. Or highlights. I think), with an all-too-brief respite we will be playing at Wayward Coffeehouse again, on Saturday, February 18! Oh Wayward, we've missed you! 8:00 pm, no cover, address & directions at http://waywardcoffee.com/ of course.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE. Unless I'm mistaken, we have confirmed a gig with the Doubleclicks at Soulfood Books! Monday, March 12, 7pm, no cover, donate what you can if the urge so moves you.

A few things lie out beyond that but I can't think that far. Our schedule page always knows all!

Oh oh oh also I almost forgot! We did an interview with Sierra Houk at Almost Nerdy! We were the Nerd Band of the Week last week! <3 (I didn't think we were nerdy enough, but I guess nerdy is in the eye of the beholder. Or the ear. Or somewhere. Look, that's between you and your nerd.)

(Er wait... Jan 30, that's THIS week. Man I almost just lost a week there. WHERE IS MY BRAIN)

Originally posted at http://vixy.dreamwidth.org/770788.html.

mood

silly

Okay, for various reasons, including "Torrey mentioned a cute idea in passing and it delighted me" and also "Torrey told me about the Month of Letters challenge" and also "because I can", I'm going to send out valentines this year! But since I don't have time to make handmade ones, I'm going to send out cheap grocery-store kiddie valentines! Because it makes me giggle! (If I run out of those, you might get a postcard instead. Or something else. You never know what I'll do. I'M A WOMAN OF MYSTERY.)

Want one? Comment with your address. I'm screening in case you don't want anyone else to see.

Want to send me one? Use my work address, it'll just be easier that way:

Michelle Dockrey
PO Box 30088
Seattle, WA 98113

Hearts!

Originally posted at http://vixy.dreamwidth.org/770312.html.

mood

exhausted

How am I?

How I am is okay. How I am is Way Behind On Everything. How I am is SOTIRED.

Many, many emails are in my inbox waiting to be answered. The rest of several travel diaries I intended to write are waiting to be written. My Sketchbook Project sketchbook is not as many pages as I wish it had been, but it does feel like a complete work at least, and is at home, waiting for me to bind it on Monday after work so I can mail it because it has to be postmarked Tuesday. Monday will be the soonest I can do it because I leave right after work today to go down for Conflikt, for which if I'm lucky I will have some time today to listen to songs I promised to add some harmony to. (Slight reprieve: boss called in sick today, so we're not doing payroll today, so I can listen to music and noodle-sing while I work.) Oh right, and Monday is the all-hands staff lunch meeting, and payroll is after that.

Also I've been sick as the proverbial dog this week. Also I've been having scary chest pains/tightness but I went to the doctor and she said it's definitely not my heart, and here have a blood test for ulcer antibodies, and take maalox/mylanta. (Oog. But at least it's not my heart. Heart attacks/angina in women can present vastly differently from those in men, so I was worried for a while.)

Oh right, and last week I spent most of the week working from home because of the snow, which was sorta cheating since I live in walking distance from work and *could* have gone in, but the bosses said I could stay home so I did. Which left me behind on things at work, which is why I am not writing all these travel diary posts and answering all these personal emails while I'm at work.

(I did complete my list of books read in 2011. I can't remember whether postdated posts show up in friends' lists once the postdated date rolls around. So, there it is.)

Anyway, I may spend most of Conflikt sleeping when not performing, just so I'll have the energy to do the performing part. I plan to spend at least some of it in shenanigans with Brooke and Seanan, even if shenanigans involve zoning out to whatever shows Seanan can't bear to miss. But I'll be there!

Originally posted at http://vixy.dreamwidth.org/770198.html.

mood

pleased

Seattle and the Demons of Ambition: From Boom to Bust in the Number One City of the Future, by Fred Moody

This is the final book I read in 2011 (see my bookpost for 2011), but I liked it so much I'm giving it its own review post.

I think I heard about this book on NPR, put it on my Amazon wishlist and forgot about it. Then Ryan got it for me for Christmas, and I spent a couple of plane trips in December reading it.

And *wow*. Just wow. This author articulates so much about Seattle that I'd never found words for. Some things that I'd always felt, and also some things that had never occurred to me, but which resonated with me instantly, and some things I sorta realized about myself.

It doesn't seem like it sets out to be that kind of book. It's partly a history of Seattle itself, from its founding by optimistic but clueless pioneers through its repeated waves of booms and busts. It's partly an autobiography of the author, and his relationship with Seattle and with the rest of the country's perception of it. And it's partly a history of a few particular local industries, most prominently the press, music, and technology industries. And partly just random things the author loves. There's a whole (if short) chapter on the quality of the light. ( Here's a quote I particularly liked, cut for your friendslist. )

The book is brilliant, and moving, and it lauds some of the things I've always absolutely loved about Seattle, and doesn't at all shy away from the things that are wrong with it. It's not fiction, but it's tied together in part with a cast of characters you'd almost think had to be made up. Sometimes it goes off on tangents, and at least once I almost wanted to deck the author for spending a little *too* much time in his own head. But I love this book so much I wanted to start rereading it again almost immediately. (Oh for infinite time.)

Also, something funny happened while I was reading it. I was almost all the way through it when a friend from the Bay Area came to visit. We had dinner at a restaurant so typically Seattle it made me giggle-- it had boasted upscale menus and prices to match and a website that implied fancy atmosphere. We'd arrived there in the industrial-ish Ballard neighborhood to find exposed beams and ducts, rough brick walls, half the patrons in jeans, and my dinner companion definitely overdressed. (Oh Seattle, never change.) Then after a wander through Pike Place Market, my friend remarked that it was nice to spend time in a city that seemed so comfortable just being itself.

And that's it, really. Those couple of moments captured the book for me. Seattle is and always has been a place that did best when it was content to be its happless, laid-back self, and whenever it's tried to put on airs and act like all the cities that people have fled in order to come here, the attempt has always kind of backfired. Like quoting an opinion that was really someone else's and then getting asked to discuss it. We've always done better when we weren't succumbing to the demons of ambition.

I feel like if you want to understand me, and understand my city, you should read this book.

Originally posted at http://vixy.dreamwidth.org/770032.html.

mood

tired

Monday
We were all sort of tired on Monday, so we did Epcot, which is relatively low key. Unfortunately it is also relatively BORING. Several of my friends had been all "oh you're going to Disney World? You just HAVE to do Epcot!" I now have to wonder whether these were people who secretly don't like me very much.

I admit it was partly chance; the couple of things that sounded actually interesting were the things whose Fast Passes were all gone before we got there, and even for Soarin' we weren't willing to stand in line for ninety minutes. So there was Maelstrom, filled with bored Norwegian employees and comically menacing trolls, there was the Nemo ride, filled with animatronic fish which might have been more impressive if we hadn't yet watched the Nemo stage show, there was a big aquarium which was filled witth real fish, and which was mildly interesting but which some of us had seen at dinner the night before. And there was the imagination thingy with Eric Idle and Figment, which was mostly fun for watching Amy be happy. And there was the wheel o' countries (about seven countries, not exactly your UN experience) which we didn't actually get all the way through before getting so tired of it that we preferred to ride the boat back and forth a few times between Germany and Mexico. I think it was Germany that had an interesting caramel store, and China had acrobats but no vegetable spring rolls, and Morocco and Italy were just kind of embarrassing. I don't remember Japan or France at all.

We rode Spaceship Earth, where it was nice at least to have Dame Judi Dench along, although I still wish I'd been faster and changed our language to French so I could get some practice. Seeing ourselves as decapitated robots in the future was amusing. Then we made our way through Canada, where Brooke's head only just barely avoided exploding (stick your head in a sacred dance mask for a silly photo! Ugh) and I think maybe France was there? Before getting to the UK for dinner. My salmon and trifle were delicious, but we think we got food poisoning from the potato leek soup, as Seanan and I were the only ones who had it and were also the only ones throwing up later that night. (Although now I'm hearing about outbreaks of a stomach bug all over the Midwest and east coast, so maybe it was a bug after all.)

Prior to that, though, we'd all decided we were too tired to stay for the fireworks show to which our meal had come with priority seating tickets. So we took the tickets and searched for a group of appropriate size to give the tickets away to. This proved harder than we imagined! But in the end we managed our good deed, and were hoping to get off to the hot tub.

Alas, that was not to be. We were almost to the gate when Rachel called to say Micki was having chest pains. Between Rachel and Guest Services, we managed to find out what was going on and which hospital she was being transported to. (Disney does NOT mess around when there is a medical issue involved.) Rae the Angel of Having a Car came and took some of us to the hospital, where we brought Rachel and Micki some stuff they needed and were assured that Micki was okay, they just wanted to keep her overnight for some tests.

By the time we got back to the resort, Seanan and I were too tired for the hot tub. Which was just as well, because of the aforementioned throwing up. :( My body at least had the courtesy to wait until Seanan was done with her stomach issues before mine began. Unfortunately mine also lasted longer, and continued on into the next day. (You'll be spared the details.)

Tuesday
So I pretty much spent this day alternately in bed and in the bathroom. Seanan stayed with me for half the day, and the girls stopped by with Pepto and ginger ale and crackers, but it was clear there wasn't a lot anyone could do for me, so after she'd rested up enough from her own ordeal, Seanan went out to join the others at...wherever they were.

Micki and Rachel came back from the hospital some time after 4pm, and I asked Micki if she felt like resting, and she was like "are you kidding? That's all I've DONE all day!" They took the fastest showers ever and headed out to have them some fun if it killed them! Heh.

At least I managed to get a lot of sleep.

Wednesday
Hollywood! Which turned out to be my favorite park. Amy and Brooke got up early to go ride Expedition Everest a few billion more times, so Seanan and Patty and I set out at a more civilized hour for Hollywood Studios. We didn't start out with the Tower of Terror because I wanted to ease into things after being sick. So we went to the Rock n' Roller Coaster, because that is Seanan's idea of easing into things. I loved it, but it was too short! But I met a very charming retired New York City cop working in the gift shop, who showed me all his tattoos after he noticed mine.

(Yes, Disney lets you work there if you have tattoos, though I think you have to keep them covered. Seanan told me this changed some years ago when a Holocaust survivor wanted to work there. Which, I think is awesome. You've been through that life and what you want to do with the rest of your life is work somewhere making people happy? Good luck and Godspeed!)

Anyway, I was also amused that the Rock n' Roller Coaster et environs was the one area in all the parks where the constantly-playing Christmas music was more like what I'd been wishing for everywhere else-- Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, etc. (Although I could swear that Tom Petty's "Christmas All Over Again" was playing, like EVERY SINGLE TIME we walked over there. All over again. As it were. I think they had a short playlist.)

After that we went to the Tower of Terror, where we persuaded a reluctant Patty to ride the ride with us through the clever and sneaky ploy of... telling her she didn't have to ride the ride with us. (She had planned to just go through the line with us to experience all the entertaining plot stuff and then exit before getting on. All the rides let you do this, and the cast members give you absolutely NO crap about it. Seanan refers to it as the "chicken-out door" but although your friends might judge you, Disney never will.)

I'm honestly sort of fuzzy on this day, but I *think* this was when the Yeti Plot was conceived. Or it might have been the day before but just really got under way on this day. This was a plot to obtain a complete Hidden Mickey set of Yeti pins for Amy (along with pretty much every other Yeti pin we could find.) Hidden Mickey refers to a type of collectible pin that you can only obtain by trading with a cast member (as opposed to the many, many collectible pins you can buy in the stores and kiosks), denoted by a tiny gold Mickey head painted somewhere on the pin. Naturally, in order to trade for these, we needed to obtain some pins to trade *with*, so we started buying some blind boxes (boxes of two where you don't know what pins you'll get til you open them) and starter sets. Y'know, for Amy. Just to have something to trade.

Only when you go up to a cast member and ask to see their lanyard of pins, sometimes you see something that's SO CUTE and maybe it's related to your favorite Disney property or character EVER or maybe it's the most adorable crossover (my first starter set was chibi Disney characters dressed as characters from Pirates of the Caribbean) and you trade for it because you want to keep it for yourself and you think "oh it's just this *one*..." and then you find another one like that... And then maybe you discover the existence of a Hidden Mickey set that your girlfriend would absolutely *love* and you start hunting for that set too while you're at it and it's a set of seven so you need to get more starter pins to trade and maybe a lanyard to put them on because pinning them to your shirt every day and taking them off every night is starting to get a bit unwieldy...

And that's how Seanan got me hooked on Disney pin trading.

So yeah... while in the course of accosting cast members to look at their lanyards for Yeti (we were always polite and we never interrupted anyone who was helping a customer) I discovered these pretty black and white cameo-style pins of Pooh characters, a set of seven. So I started looking for those on people as well. Then I discovered the existence of two different Alice in Wonderland sets, one a sort of psychedelic-looking set from Disneyland, the other characters set in pocket watch borders. And to be honest, it turned out to be an *incredibly* fun game! Hunting down cast members to look at their lanyards and checking the pin books and pin boards at the hotels (and at Guest Relations once we learned about those), walking to all the stores we hadn't been yet and then returning to the same stores a few hours later when there would likely have been either some turnover in pins or a shift change, it was all like a big never ending scavenger hunt. Of course, when we went into the stores, I would tend to wander off and look at the clothes and stuff while Seanan went straight for the cast members, because all the shopping was as fun for me as the rest of it, but I usually caught up and she knew mostly what I was looking for.

Seanan and Micki and Rachel and I rushed back to the resort to have dinner early so that we could rush to the boat to Downtown Disney so that we could rush through Downtown Disney so that we could make it to La Nouba, the Cirque de Soleil show to which we had tickets. Running full tilt, the other three of us lost sight of Seanan, who was the one with the coupons to pick up the tickets, but we kept going 'cause I had a feeling she was doing that magic crowd thing. Sure enough, with us going as fast as we could, we got there to find Seanan already standing in line. Dude, I don't even know, she casts don't-look-heres or something.

La Nouba was BEAUTIFUL. I'm not sure I can even describe it. I'd never seen a Cirque show live before, only a short making-of video years ago. Before the show, two gents with relatively subtle clown make-up did a bit of shtick involving carrying around a platform of soft, brightly-colored boxes through the audience and onto the stage (this clown pair would end doing a little interstitial business between every act.) The show proper began with a series of characters parading slowly across a round walkway curving between the two tiers of the audience, dancing/juggling/posing their way from spotlight to spotlight. These wound up sort of introducing and guiding each of the main acts, and I found myself thinking of them in sort of Echo Bazaar style-- the Birdlike Clown, the Hunchbacked Strongman, the Four Pierrots, the Reserved Aerialist, etc.

But the really awesome thing was that, throughout each incredible act--aerialists dangling from cloths, little girls with spinners, acrobatics on bikes-- there was always SO MUCH GOING ON on the stage. Between each pass across the tightrope, or between each trapeze set, a pair of dancers leapt and twirled, some of the Characters would be watching from standing on the stage or perched on the set or dangling from the flies, the Hunchbacked Strongman would be trying to impress the Birdlike Clown but she would be unmoved, and large and small groups of dancers would walk in time around the stage, move subtly or stand still in poses. Everywhere you looked there was something going on, and you could hardly figure out where to look knowing you were always missing something! It was delightful. The Birdlike Clown assisted the Youthful Juggler while the Four Pierrots tried to imitate him.

Oh, and there was the Hopeful Charwoman, a comical cleaning lady who did some of the interstitial bits. Her business involved at first being perplexed by the circus performers, but gradually getting more and more into it (she was lifted into the air to her slight alarm during the aerialist act, and watched the juggler's act dreamily from the flies) culminated in her finding a (pantomimed) frog, kissing it, and turning into a fabulous princess with the Stoic Trumpeter from the opening scene as her prince.

It was just incredible. It was also the thing that got me to spend the most money I'd spent in the parks so far. I got the program book and DVD combination before the show and was glad I did, because I knew my descriptions to the other Agoranauts wouldn't do it justice, and afterward I got a calendar and a t-shirt.

I was *so* happy I go to go to that. It was my favorite part of the trip up til then, and one of my favorite parts of the entire trip overall.

And now I post this from GaFilk, where I will soon have a whole other diary to write! Aaaaa can't keep up! Also meant to post this last night, but I was in the Filk room and I can't connect to the wifi there.

Originally posted at http://vixy.dreamwidth.org/769784.html.

mood

content

We are at GaFilk and life is good!

We were collected by Rob and Alice in the late afternoon, were fed tasty food at the hotel restaurant (where we had an awesome table with a view of all the con arrivals wandering through the lobby, so we got many hugs across a low railing), and were settled into our room, which is lovely and contained wine and fruit and cookies. Also it adjoins the con's sort of spare suite/ops suite kind of thing, which last night provided a splendid hangout space for chatting with people and listening to Tony and Patrick play with Rob's new baritone acoustic. Then we got to spend the evening listening to Play It With Moxie rehearse, which was utter joy, and rehearsing the two songs I get to do with them, which is so much more utter joy that I may die of it. (But not until later.)

This morning we got up at a leisurely pace, had breakfast at Waffle House (I ordered grits! They were tasty. Thanks Alton Brown!) and are again lounging in the ops suite thing, where I am reading and posting and playing Pocket Frogs while Tony plays bits of 2112 on Rob's electric.

Later will be rehearsal for our concert; the concom has miraculously found us a djembe, because they are awesome.

Entertaining note: the hotel lunch menu says they have a mescaline salad. My twitter feed assures me they most likely mean mesclun. They did mention it was a brand new menu. I haven't decided whether to tell them yet.

Originally posted at http://vixy.dreamwidth.org/769528.html.

mood

resolved

So I'm only working two days this week (how did that even *happen*??) because tomorrow morning we are off to GaFilk, where we are GUESTS OF HONOR WOOHOO! This kind of snuck up on me.

And because it kind of snuck up on me, and because I'm only working two days this week, I made an effort to get a lot of work done yesterday, and decided not to open Twitter (or MOO or my browser session filled with interesting things to read).

And lo and behold, I got a lot of work done!

And that felt really good, actually.

I've been feeling guilty for how much time at work I spend on the internet, getting lost for hours in clicking and reading one interesting thing after another. I really do like the people I work for a *lot*, and I have been feeling like I'm not giving them my best. I think I've become addicted to the glorious infodump that is the internet-- I can't stand the idea of MISSING anything!

I think one of my genuine New Year's resolutions this year is going to be: no more Twitter while I'm working. Sounds like kind of a "duh", doesn't it? News flash: you get more work done when you don't poke at the internet for hours a day!

It's just that I have a very strange and limited kind of willpower; if Twitter's not open, I can refrain from opening it. But if it is open, I *can't* refrain from looking at it, and clicking interesting links, and scrolling back to read earlier posts, and following the thread of people's conversations, and and and. I tell myself I'll just leave it open and glance at it in between work tasks, but that never winds up being the case. There's always just one more thing, and just one more, and just one more... especially if there's something I'm avoiding that I don't want to do.

I was like this with Livejournal until I stopped having time to really follow my LJ friends list because... well, because of Twitter, really. And Google+ and Facebook and Google Reader and so forth. (I truly have no idea how all of you manage to keep up with one another on the various social media *and* read blogs *and* have full-time jobs.)

So, no more social media and internet surfing during work. Also no more opening the Giant Firefox Session of Doom (tm). Only on break times. Which means I'm going to be missing a lot of things. A lot more things than I already do. But I think I'm okay with that.

(A side note though-- do please be kind to anyone who didn't see something important on your blog/twitter/whatever. Your friends are not obligated to read your blog. It is not actually rude of them not to have time to scroll back over your entire Twitter feed, or to just not like using Facebook, or to not read what you write for *whatever* reason. Let's be nice to each other.)

And I've spent too much time writing this already. Onward! :)

Originally posted at http://vixy.dreamwidth.org/769205.html.

mood

happy

I'm back from Disney World! (Er, did I mention I was at Disney World from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day?) It's been absolutely AMAZING. Culminating in the BEST New Year's Eve ever. Oh man, if this didn't exorcise the beast that was 2011, nothing will.

I've got just a couple of days to draw breath before I'm off again to GaFilk, but want to get a diary of the trip down lest I forget too much. Caution: this will probably be long and boring to anyone who isn't me.

Where to start...

Saturday
Flew out Friday on a redeye, got to Orlando late morning Saturday. With the package Seanan got us, there was a special luggage tag which meant I didn't have to go to baggage claim, they would just deliver my suitcase to my hotel room, and a special ticket to get on the Disney Magical Express to our resort. Say what you will about Disney, but damn they know how to do hassle-free travel.

Met Seanan, Micki and Rachel in the Magic Kingdom for lunch at Tony's (the pasta was terrible, even by the standards of someone who eats boxed mac n cheese a lot and LIKES it, but the tiramisu was good and had a Lady and the Tramp stamp in cocoa powder), then lost Micki and Rachel to the gods of smoking but found Amy, Brooke and Patty as compensation.

"Hi Brooke! How are you?" "I'm at frickin' DISNEY WORLD!"

(while I'm sitting on a wall in front of a hedge) "Oh look at all the little birds! I keep expecting them to braid Vixy's hair." (This became a theme. I'm not sure why it's always *me* who gets nominated for the Woodland Creature Beauty Salon. I guess it's the crows?)

I think that day we did the Haunted Mansion and the Teacup ride (centrifugal force=SCIENCE! We yelled "SCIENCE!" all together on the count of three, and as we exited the ride, we heard a girl we didn't know yell "SCIENCE!" as well! Ah, corrupting the youth) and some other wanderings together, and then split up so Amy and Brooke and Patty could ride the nap ride while Seanan and I had an inadvertently boat-filled afternoon (Small World, Pirates, and Jungle Cruise) and met Micki and Rachel for dinner and promptly lost them again (this was a theme). Then got caught up in a small crowd of people trying to go the opposite way through a HUGE crowd of people trying to gather for the Electrical Parade. A woman started singing a Christmas carol in the crowd, because we were pretty much unmoving and what else are you going to do, and then she looked truly surprised when Seanan and I joined in with two-part harmony. Like, woman, you're at DISNEY. How do you NOT expect a sing-along? Anyway, then we all met up for Space Mountain (SPAAAAAACE) and general nighttime meanderings.

I enjoyed the Magic Kingdom, but a whole lot of it is a duplicate of Disneyland, to which I lived near enough through most of the 90s that I went there a lot. I'm sure it's changed some, and some of the old familiar things were a *little* different (Space Mountain was somewhat more violent than I remembered) but I was more eager to sample things I'd never done at all.

This would also have been the evening of ALL THE ICE CREAM. Seanan ordered a bunch from Jeni's in Ohio, because they're the best ice cream in the world and they deliver. Something like fifteen pints, packed in dry ice. The hotel staff were quite curious when they delivered it to the room, although they told her it wasn't the weirdest thing they'd ever had delivered; that honor goes to the herpetologist who (we were told) had a whole lot of raw chicken delivered every day so he could go out and study the alligators while his wife hung out at Disney. (Er, some time in the past. Not while we were there.)

Anyway, delicious ice cream was eaten, and everyone agreed that Influenza Ice Cream, while it sounded like a good idea at the time, was in fact terrible. Also Christmas presents were given! I gave Seanan a velociraptor hoodie. Amy gave Brooke and Seanan bright orange and green (respectively) leather coin purses which hang from belts and are spiky like dinosaurs, and she gave me a book called Beautiful Oops, which is about turning art mistakes into beautiful art but which applies to life in a way I sorely needed to hear about right then.

Sunday
Animal Kingdom!
We hooked up with Angelica, who is just finishing up an internship program. We rode Expedition Everest I think three times? That is to say *I* did. I think Amy's ultimate total was 33 by the end of the week. Also in the program were Dinosaur (twice I think), on which Angelica declared she likes to go on rides with me because I alternately scream and giggle, the spinny twisty jerky mini dinosaur coaster whose name I forget (oh right-Primeval Whirl), the flying stegosaurus ride (or triceratops? WHATEVER it was FLYING SPINNING DINOSAURS), various interesting animals in pens (we watched vultures building a nest veeeeeeery slowwwwwwwwly), and the Tree of Life which is SUPER COOL and of which I took many photos. Also a full round of the alphabet game over lunch. I'm going to Disney World and I'm bringing ... You know I can't remember "a" anymore, but I remember Gregorian monks chanting Godwin's Law, Hitler's hipster hookers, and a serious suck-up. So you can imagine how the rest of the game went.

Oh, and the Finding Nemo stage show. Which was far and away the best of all the stage shows we saw this trip. Disney World is full of thirty minute stage shows, a couple in each park, basically Disney movies distilled down short and performed live, but the Nemo one was the only one we saw that really felt like a complete story, not a few musical numbers tied loosely together. Maybe it was because iirc Nemo was not originally a musical movie, so the music for the stage show all had to be actually conceived of and written from scratch, and thus was written to fit as a complete narrative. Anyway for whatever reason, the show was absolutely delightful in its own right, and not just as a nod to the movie; I'd really love to see it made into a full length musical and I'd totally go see it. It was done with puppets, but with the puppeteers in costume as well, and singing and acting themselves. The blend of puppet movement and puppeteer movement was well done, seamless and in a way that made sense and was fun to watch. (For the big turtle, the voice actor stood on the back of the shell, which was basically a vehicle, while several puppeteers operated it.)

It was just delightful and fun, and visually beautiful in much the same way as the Lion King Broadway musical. And they made a lot of fun use of the ramps and tiers in the audience, too, so there was always a lot to look around at.

Eventually Seanan and I went back to the resort to ride the Hot Tub ride. Best ride ever! (There was a lot we didn't get around to at Animal Kingdom, and later lost a day to illness... one of many reasons i'd like to go back!) And then went back out for dinner inside an aquarium at Epcot. That ended the evening for us because Epcot closed while we were at dinner and we could have gone to another park but hello TIRED.

This is where I'll mention how awesome Disney is about food issues. At all the sit-down places, if you mention a food issue when you make the reservation, which Seanan did, your reservation ticket comes with ALLERGY in red all caps printed on it, and this triggers the "chef must come to the table to talk to you" button. Seriously, one time we said "no really, we've eaten here before and we know what we can get" and the waitress was like "he *has* to come out." This was kind of awesome. At the "colonial" dinner place in the Magic Kingdom on Saturday, where it's basically family style turkey dinner with sides, the chef came out, asked about what I would and wouldn't eat, listed for me which sides were safe for me, and offered me my own entree of a veggie burger with sweet potato fries in addition.

(This would later come back to bite me, alas, when I got a bit blasé about it at one of the quick-serve places, where they would have been happy to tell me things if I'd *asked*, but where since it's a fast food counter they aren't thinking about it if you aren't.)

With that I think I'll post, or else I fear I never will. Stay tuned for the next installment!

Originally posted at http://vixy.dreamwidth.org/768938.html.