This makes me happy

Oregon becomes the ninth state to approve spousal rights in some form for gay couples, joining Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Maine, California, Washington and Hawaii. Massachusetts is the only state that allows gay couples to marry.

I got a phone call last night that went something like this. “You were recommended to us and I’m calling to see if you had time to build a giant moth this week for our show.”

“Maybe. What’s the actual due date?”

“Tomorrow.”

I laughed, knowing what the last minute pressure of a show is like. “No, really.”

“Tomorrow. I know. We thought our prop builder could do it, but it turns out that we need a puppet builder.”

Yay! While it’s frustrating that the build is now at the last minute, I’m delighted that they now understand the difference between a puppet and a prop. The two have many overlapping qualities but are not the same.

I went down and met with them last night and agreed to do the build but explained that I wouldn’t be able to deliver until Thursday. So now I’m off to shop and then to build a giant moth.

By the way, when I say “giant” I mean the size of a kitten with wings, not Mothra.

That’s right, we don’t yet have internet at the apartment. We get it next Friday, you know, while I’m away at Readercon. Until then, postings will be somewhat sporadic I’m afraid.

We spent yesterday cleaning and unpacking. The bedroom is assembled and has no boxes. Yay! Rob has disassembled the stove and is deep cleaning it. It’s a nice old Welbilt, which has thirty plus years of grease buildup on it. We shudder.

The living room is starting to emerge from the chaos of boxes, but it will take awhile.

I have to give a huuuuuuge thank you to Emily, Jodi and my brother, Steve, for their help moving us in.

Here are some photos from moving day.

Arrival in NYC

I woke up during the night with a toothache, which was Just Not Fair. At all. I tried sleeping anyway, I tried taking ibuprofen. Nada. In fact, it got worse, radiating through my ear and sending shafts of steel straight through my brain and out the top of my head. Visions of root canal opened in my head.

So, I got up around four and called my dentist’s office, leaving a fairly pathetic voicemail asking them to call me when they got in and make the pain go away.

At 8:05, five minutes after they opened, Angela called and sounded so sympathetic on the phone that I knew I was doomed. They got me in with an immediate appointment. Definitely doomed.

I walked in and apologized for being ill and the technician’s eyes lit up. “Sinuses?” she said.

I nodded, “And a cough. Sorry about that.”

“I have three kids, it’s not a problem.” She went to the computer screen. “So tell me what’s going on.”

“Well, about three days ago, I woke up and my jaw hurt. I thought ‘Jeez, have I been clenching my jaw.’ But then last night it got worse and woke me up.” I proceeded to describe those symptoms. “It hasn’t been as bad since I got up.”

“But the pain medication didn’t do anything?”

“It kept getting worse.”

“Let’s get an x-ray and see what’s going on there.”

She worked really fast, remembering that I have a hair-trigger gag reflex, and got the image up on their nifty computer screen. Then the doctor came in. She was quickly caught up on my symptoms and then looked at the x-ray.

“See that thin white line dipping down across the roots of your teeth?” When I nodded, she continued. “That’s your sinus cavity. It’s pressing down on your nerves. We’ll go ahead and test to make sure that it’s not a dental issue, but I think you’re looking at a sinus infection.”

She poked, prodded, stuck cold things on my teeth and everything was normal. Yay! No root canal. (By the way, thank you to Angela and Brandi at Laurelhurst Dentistry who sent me my xray.)

So then I trotted off to the doctor and repeated my symptoms. He shook his head, “I am exactly the right doctor for you to see because I am three weeks ahead of you with these symptoms. So I know that the first line antibiotic does nothing on this particular strain. Which means that you don’t have to spend five days wondering why you aren’t getting any better. What you have is the flu that’s going around plus a secondary infection.”

I somehow got to this point in my life without ever having had a sinus infection, ear ache or toothache. At the moment it feels like I have all of them.

I now have antibiotics. I’m armed with the knowledge that lying down will make the pain worse. That part of the symptoms with this is that it doesn’t respond to pain medicine, so I won’t bother trying. And, that the antibiotics will have no affect the flu portion of the illness, but in a couple of days my head won’t hurt.

The important thing is that I don’t have to have a root canal. On the whole, that alone makes it a good day.

Fellow Codexian, Christina Crooks has arrived to stay with us for the next three months. While she’s here, she’ll be shopping for a house while we pack up ours. Yay! Moving boxes, galore!

Our house was built in 1907, so for it’s 100th birthday we are giving it new windows. They just arrived today and the workmen are installing as I type. Yay!

Jodi is in from NYC to do a little bit of ADR and to do some visiting. He’s here until Monday. Yay! We’re headed out for dinner tonight. On Friday night, Julie arrives and then Sarah on Sunday. It’s like old home week.

Yay! All-Star Stories just released the cover art for the Twenty Epics anthology. This is the first time that one of my stories has appeared in a book, so I’m fairly excited. I’ve been trying to figure out which character on the cover is related to my story, “Bound Man”

I offered to look after Peter and Marlene’s kids so that they could go out on a date. The kids were absolute angels for me and went to bed without fussing. Remarkable.

I’m heading back to Portland tomorrow. Yay!

I was doing a live hands scene for the Mayor which involved throwing a fried egg off a spatula. He said, “that was really funny” after one throw. (Yay!) But after the whole scene was over, I was standing close to the director’s table and he said, “You are the best woman–best person with hands that I have seen. You do a lot of subtle details. It is not easy being in sync with the puppet. You are very good.”

I think I blushed; why is that an evolutionary reponse to a compliment?

I’m not actually called to the studio until noon, but this morning was a yoga morning so we all came in. We’ve asked the massage therapist to go back to Jodi’s place (it’s five minutes from the studio) so we can have brunch and massage in a more welcoming environment. Yay!