Life and Stuff....

 My weekend was pretty good.  As I mentioned earlier, I was invited sort of last minute to do a signing at the Holiday Geek Expo.  The only time I really had available was early Sunday morning, but that worked pretty well.  There wasn't a huge amount of foot traffic, but I had a secret weapon:  I was giving away my books.

I have an overabundance of copies of RESURRECTION CODE.  That book was the one that was published by Mad Norwegian Press and when they reverted rights to me, they shipped me, like, three or four boxes of printed books.  Each box contains about 40 books, so that's a lot of books not only taking up room in my already cluttered house, but which I have to count as "inventory" for my taxes every year.  I could have taken the books to sell; I am set-up to charge sales tax.  I don't, however, have a smart phone equipped with "Square" or whichever lovely small business app I should really have, and so I would have had to have cash on hand AND MAKE CHANGE, which I dread.

Plus, let's be honest.  I've been kicking around the Twin Cities a LONG time now.  I'm sure there are plenty of people who have never read a word I've written. HOWEVER, I'm not likely to run into those people at a very geek-specific event run by a lot of the folks connected with CONvergence, now am I?  So, giving the books away seemed like a lovely way to get rid of them.  Who can resist a FREE... well, anything? Even a second copy of a book you already have seems like a good deal when it's FREE.

I ended up being able to give away at least half of them. The books I couldn't give away, Anton took.  I told him to give them away to charities or as freebies at cons or use them for doorstops for all I cared.  I mean, don't get me wrong.  RESURRECTION CODE is a lovely book. I just don't need boxes and boxes and boxes of them cluttering up my house, is all.

So, that was Geek Expo.

I came home and picked up Mason who has been agitating for a haircut ever since he started swim team.  His hair was not only starting to curl at his ears (something which *I*  find adorable, but which he hates,) but also the constant chlorine exposure was making it kind of frizzed and frazzled looking.  That took up all the time I had before rushing back out to Claddaugh to finally meet up with my contact at Quatrefoil, Nanette.

Nanette and I had a lovely talk. I have no idea if I impressed her or not, but she did invite me to the next board meeting and talked a lot about what kind of commitment being a board member would entail.  So, that felt cool. When I was talking to my friend Josey about this position, she said something that's been sticking in my mind a lot.  "It's such a grown-up position!"  It really it. Being a board member of a non-profit?  That's like totally something people who are ADULT do.

In all seriousness, I do think supporting a queer library is super-important right now in this time of ever growing darkness. If we are saved at all, it will be not only by our history and out stories, but also locally--city by city, county by county.  One of the things I learned about Quatrefoil that I didn't know, was that they now have a space that they can offer to any GLBTQ+ group that needs one. (I don't think they charge, but you'd have to double-check. I just went and it's not terribly obvious from their website.  But I did just discover they have a monthly D&D group!! What? Why did no one tell me THIS!!????)

Otherwise, I've been doing a lot of letter writing.  My membership in International Pen Friends nets me 15 names of people all over the world, as I think I've written about here before.  That's a LOT of letters.  Plus, I'm discovering that this does NOT seem to be a one-to-one exchange.  For instance, on Saturday I got a letter from a woman in Germany who was _not_on my list.  So... my thinking is that I may be getting an additional fifteen pen friends... ?? .... Eep!  But, I will say, the letter from Germany was pretty cool. The woman who wrote is about my age and LOVES stickers and fun paper and she inspired me to get crafty and make my own stationary from the scrapbooking supplies we have leftover from Shawn's mostly-brief foray into scrapbooking (Shawn still does this ocassionally, just not with the same focus as when she started).  I may have had WAY too much fun doing that yesterday.  It's also amazing to me how doing silly little artistic things like this actually brightens my mood.  Highly recommend as aggressive self-care during the Orange One's reign.

Speaking of, my friend Theo Lorenz has made a lovely "Aggressive Self-Care Coloring Book" to help you survive the end of 2016 and onward: https://gumroad.com/l/YyBkJ This is a "pay what you want" project, so your self-care doesn't have to come at a steep price!  it's a print-your-own, so it won't make a good stocking stuffer unless you get crafty yourself, but... you might just need to hide under a blanket, turn off the news, and color while more horrific cabinet posts are filled by people less qualified to run the country than you are...!