Sorry so long between entries these days. Busy.<\/p>\n
I'd hoped to catch up on some stuff over the weekend, but it ended up being a busily social weekend again.<\/p>\n
Saturday I dragged Mary Anne along to the birthday party of nj<\/a> (nj's LJ<\/a>) and Morrisa<\/a> (Morrisa's LJ<\/a>), where I got to meet Baby Miranda<\/a> for the first time. Morrisa was wearing an excellent bright orange outfit; Miranda wore a nifty little chef's cap. My co-workers all gathered in one room and played poker (Texas Hold 'Em, of course). n&M's parties are an odd mix of social groups for me: maybe a dozen of my co-workers; various talk.bizarre people (some of whom I used to be in a writing group with) (and three of whom are exes of an ex-housemate of mine who Mary Anne went to Clarion with); a couple of people (like Zed<\/a>, also a talk.bizarrite iIrc) who I was more recently in a different writing group with; old friends like Sarah L.<\/a> and Arthur E.<\/a>; various people who I've met here and there along the way but don't really know. I gave n&M a copy of The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases<\/a>,<\/cite> which I suspect is right up their alley.<\/p>\n We left the party to head across the bay for Mary Anne's reading at Writers With Drinks<\/a>; various miscalculations, mostly on my part, led to us arriving late, but luckily Cliff had saved us seats near the front. Good readings and performances by all; brilliant and funny introductions by Charlie Anders<\/a>. I picked up a copy of the latest issue of Charlie's magazine, other<\/a>,<\/cite> but haven't had a chance to read it yet. We all wandered over to another bar\/pub and hung out for a while. There was some glancing at the Olympics on TV (me: Oh yeah, the Olympics is going on; forgot about that) and a very brief chat right at the very end of the evening about translating sf, something I think is important for the field but which I'm not sure how to go about. More on that another time.<\/p>\n Um. So that was Saturday. Sunday I did some SH<\/cite> stuff and had dinner with Arthur.<\/p>\n The other thing that's been going on a lot lately, though I haven't been nearly as observant about this as I'd like, is birthdays.<\/p>\n Last week: Kendra; Fidel Castro; Melissa R. This week: Andrea E., Wendy S.<\/a>, Robert de Niro, Ellie W., Morrisa S., Beth F. Next week: Dorothy Parker, Ray Bradbury, Laura A., Tamara M.<\/a> Week after: Jenn R.<\/a>, Chaos G.<\/a>, Mary Shelley, Ed B., Stephen S.<\/p>\n You get the idea.<\/p>\n So happy birthday, all, and sorry so flaky lately.<\/p>\n