MOOP!

So there was a post on Tumblr, "Things you will see on a road trip across America"⁰. It spoke to me, far more than the Regional Gothic trend did, and I was quick to respond with my own listing. You may read my additions ( under the cut )

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Of course, then I started writing more about it all. Have some blather about road trips. It's not under a cut, because I do not love you enough.

According to my quick count, I have visited (or at least driven through) 36 states. Let's look at some highlights...

-From very young to age 11, the family drove to Peoria IL every year to visit Great-Grandma Deemy. She died in 2000, which was the year of...

-The Big Trip! Mom, her best friend Neva, and me and the sibs spent 2-3 straight weeks on the road. We drove from Maryland to Colorado, took a turn north up through both Dakotas, cut east back to Minnesota, just missed Michigan, and swooped back to MD. It was an absolute fucking delight. Kansas is terrible, we somehow skipped Nebraska entirely, and mom spit-swore she'd take me to the Mall of America to ride the roller coasters before I turned eighteen. This is why I don't trust my mother. ;)¹

-From very young until college, we drove to Winsted CT for Thanksgiving, and also usually for a visit in the summer. Dad's parents (St G'ma, G'pa Gus) live up there, on a wonderful horse farm with rock-walls to climb on and a pond and art and books strewn everywhere. I haven't been to the farm in several years --Thanksgiving started moving around my sophomore year of college-- and I miss it terribly. I should organize a visit some weekend!

-Starting in about, oh, 2002 or 3, us kids (Shan, then Al, then me) attended Stayaway Camp in Maine. Have you seen the Parent Trap? That is the camp we stayed at. No literally, they wanted to film at Wyo, but they were told to piss off, there was a camp to run. Anyways, there would be 2-3 trips up a summer (dropping off, changeover day, picking up) with some subset of siblings and parents, and staying the night in either Winsted or Boston.

-For two of those years, when the sibs were at camp and I was not, me and the rents drove down to South Carolina for a conference at Myrtle Beach. This is relevant because it means I've visited both South of the Border and Wall Drug.

(The second year, when it was just me and them, mom started to have some really funky vision problems and dad had to do all the driving home. Turns out she had MS. Anyways, that was 2002, which means Shan started camp in 2001, which works out since I did 2003 and 2004. Good talk.)

-Moving on to adulthood, I went to college in Boston (well, Cambridge). The family did many runs to pick me up or drop me off with my stuff, several of which did not involve my mother (see also, Dragon*Con.)

-Didn't roadtrip much in college, but right after I graduated, I got to do 14 straight hours in a car with one other driver (mom --although Shan did drive a couple hours), two siblings, and two cats. We moved to Chicago! Cats do not like it when the car goes 80 mph. They are fine when it is up to 85. No officer, I had to speed, I was doing science!

(Two days later, I did half that again, doubling back to Hiram, Ohio with Alys in tow. Dad was out of town, mom had to wait for the movers, I was her Official Adult for her college orientation. This was a profoundly uncomfortable experience for us both, I suspect, plus we had a serious argument about whether World/Inferno Friendship Society was a hipster band in the first thirty minutes of driving and were both super tense and stressed for like an hour. That bit I mentioned about the Lion's Den? I think it was figuring that out which calmed us the fuck down and brought us back to giggling like loons.)

-Sparr and I have made the Boston-Atlanta(ish) drive a few times. One of these times, I drove 17 of 20 hours (I did not make that up above for humour value). One of those times, our rental car was totaled and we had to frantically scramble to get home. The last time went quite without problem, except for the entertaining logistics of picking people up or dropping them off in at least five different locations.

-In early fall 2012, I was unemployed. My favourite ex-partner decided to move to Seattle. Their rich friend offered a plane ticket home. Mel and I packed up a uhaul (technically a Penske), drove to Cleveland (where we spent a day with their mother and raided a storage unit), drove to Chicago (where we spent about an hour and a half with my mother before she left for some vacation and we hung out in the house and watched movies --maybe George of the Jungle?), and drove and drove and drove and drove to Seattle. The Milky Way is every bit as stunning as I implied, Buttes will never not be hilarious, and having a governor keeping you from going over 75mph when you're on a 70mph speed limit road going DOWN THE ROCKIES is the shittiest thing.

I think that's the most of 'em. There's some small ones with strangers (from Indy to Chicago a couple times after GenCon, and I'm about to do Boston to Syracuseish) but most of the long trips have been with friends or family. States I have been to without driving there: Florida, Texas, California, and Arizona. And I suppose technically Tennesee in that I *have* driven to Georgia before, but the trip we went to TN, I flew to GA and then we drove up there. Dunno if that counts or not.

I hold no respect for America the Corporate Identity but I do fucking love America the road-trip liminal space of folklore and legend. Given a world without capitalism and a Tesla Roadster², I wouldn't even bother with a house in exchange for a rotating selection of friends riding shotgun as we roam around this world.

~Sor
MOOP!

0: Although I appreciate the thing someone pointed out, which is that they mean "USA", not America.

1: In case the smiley is not obvious, my mother is THE BEST MOTHER and I trust her very much and have forgiven her, but it's fun to tease.

2: I am adding this footnote seven years later to acknowledge that this reference did *not* age well.

(I told him I was taking the photo for my mom, and he replied with "Tell her Happy Mother's Day!" When I did, mom replied with this text: "BEST Mother's Day greeting EVAHR!!!". I think I am the best child this year, even if I am a week early.)

Last year on Free Comic Book Day, I was in California. There's nothing wrong with this in and of itself, but it did mean I couldn't go to ALL THE COMIC SHOPS. This year I was happily home in Somerville, and I traveled only about five miles round trip which meant I got to hit up four separate comic shops (and I forgot about Newbury Comics completely, though I heard they were out by the time I was adventuring).

Furthermore, this was the first year I've ever been even remotely employed for Free Comic Book Day. I wisely set myself a spending limit of NO MORE than ten dollars per store, packed a sandwich and a folder to put comics in and my bike stuff, and went on my merry way.

It proved to be a very satisfying haul indeed. ( Photos, more words, and lots of links under cut. )

After I was done terrorizing the local comic book shops, I headed over to Artisan's Asylum, to sample a small taste of Somerville Open Studios. I spent some time chatting with Sparr, and lots of time wandering around and looking at beautiful art that I could never in a million years afford (and okay, some really gorgeous stuff that maybe someday I can afford too).

( Rambling and links! )

Anyways, it was an awesome day, and tomorrow I will likely engage in Skype-cleaning adventures with tricia868 hopefully interspersed with further Open Studios Adventures.

It's looking to be a pretty great weekend.

~Sor
MOOP!

Original Tags: comics, swag, photos

So, here's what my life has been the last n weeks.

*I graduated. This was apparently a big deal or something.

*I took, and as of two days ago, passed my MTELs. Now I can get my teacher's license and get a job or something.

*I am currently in Atlanta. Two days of rest and relaxation with Sparr and the various folks around his living space, and then he and I go up to Columbus, OH on Wednesday for Origins.

*I helped my family move from Columbia MD to Park Ridge (just north of Chicago) IL. This involved driving for about six hours on Tuesday (mom drove the other half.)

*I drove my little sister to and from her college orientation at Hiram college. This involved driving for about six hours on Thursday and Saturday. No mom to help. On the plus side, I own a lot of music, and some of it she likes.

*I spent last weekend in Layfayette Georgia in order to go to my very first burn. Burns are hippie festivals; Burning Man is the best-known example. It was really quite fun, and I enjoyed running around the woods surrounded by hippies, and watching various people perform various arts, and learning things, and posing for photographs and jumping on the trampoline and etc. Also, there was fire, and it was fantastic. Alsoalso, I got to see in passing Amber, who is bright and sunny and really likes me and seems to want me to move to Atlanta almost as badly as Sparr does. She makes me smile a lot.

*I might make a real post about that one.

*Oh, also I went to Balticon a couple weeks ago. I slept in a car, and hung out with old friends and new friends, and again played less werewolf than usual, and broke my JungleSpeed totem (okay, technically Braffy broke it...) and wound up giving kisses to a gorgeous woman with fantastic pink hair, and flirted with the pervy artist, and in general it was all quite good. And like last year, it was a completely significant-other-free con. Which is a little strange, but mostly very freeing --the first time I went to Balticon, I went without my partner, and I kinda really like not being responsible for anyone else's happiness at the con. Not that I don't love being with my partners at cons, you understand --I do love it, very much-- but once a year...I'll gladly take the vacation from feeling responsible for other people's happiness. Because I am responsible, some, no matter how hard I try not to be. At least for my boys.

*Alys graduated high school. Go her!

*This is the first 750words entry I've made in twelve days, and the third this month. Please whine at me to do this. I won't be able to during Origins, but I should at least get my act together the week after, and once I'm back in Boston.

*Looking to get back in Boston somewhere around the fourth. Hoping to spend a night in NYC with...someone. Need to talk to relevant someones and see who has a couch and wants me to sleep on it. (I mean, I also have friends in the city who have couches that I can sleep on, but if I have people who actively want me as houseguest, I'll strive for that first.)

*Week after Origins is Girl Scout Day Camp. This might be my last year, but if you volunteer as an adult for five years, you get a pretty volunteer pin. And next year would be year five. So yeah, MD peeps, I might be looking for crash-space a random week in July or June 2012.

*I dodged the sunburn from camping in the middle of fuckyou Georgia all weekend (I hate the weather here, does it show), but the trade off is that I think I might have some poison ivy on my arm, and I certainly have bugbites everywhere. Still, that doesn't cause cancer, so I'm okay with this. I did my best to keep Sparr and Sarena sunscreened (two of my three campmates --Joe is a redhead and so did a very good job of keeping his pasty self covered) too, and I think it mostly worked.

*Made foodstuff with Sparr earlier --potatos and eggs such to put into breakfast burritos. Was good! Also, I made the mistake of asking Bethany how many people I should cook for (since she is the normal cook hereabouts) and she answered "sixteen".

I did not cook for sixteen people, because Christ, how would I?

That's all for now.

~Sor
MOOP!

(Okay, so, for a very long time now, I've known that MOOP is a burner term meaning Matter Out Of Place --probably learned it less than two years after I coined the term as my own personal word. Holy shit though, people actually use it, like all the time. It's how the burner community refers to trash, or to the action of leaving trash "Yeah, I was MOOPing all over the place last night, I should clean up" or "Jeeze, who left all this MOOP at our campsite."

The weekend was _so weird_ for that alone.)

So, apparently I continue to have a crush on every boy. Inspired in part by blintzes, xxxenophile, good conversation, and a directness that refreshingly mirrors my own.

I'm interested. The last time I specifically mentioned this tag, the boy in question was rather intended for light and fluffy and friendship and sex, and rapidly became some strange form of love and trust¹ and intimacy that makes me consider perhaps parts of my life could maybe ought to be restructured to ensure he's always in it.

And indeed, the boy in question this time is rather intended for light and fluffy and friendship and sex. My dance card is plenty full, and I don't think he's actively looking for further commitment, so he's quite likely to stay that way. But still.

This is a note to watch eight months and see what's happened. Because I love testing my ability to identify the people I want in my life within only a few hours of meeting them.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: I trust Sparr not to leave, in a way that I have never before trusted any boy with that particular part of myself, and indeed, I think being able to trust him with that has made it easier to trust the rest of my darlings. It's maddening on multiple levels that he can do that to me. It's maddening a lot of what he can do to me, and it's all good. In answer to that post, I love you too.

...and for completely unrelated reasons to him, it is scary to publicly declare my love for a boy. I like that I am sometimes able to do it again.

Clean all the things, damnit. Dear stuff I have to get done: Oh, it is *on*.

So, this post is my post to keep coming back to today, so that I have a list of things that I have actually accomplished. Whee!

STUFF ACCOMPLISHED TODAY:

*Took one of my few remaining emergency Concertas, figuring even placebo effects would help today
*Brushed my hair
*Braided my hair (albeit badly, it's hard to divide it right)
*Completed the first draft of my essay (stitching paragraphs together)
*Completed the second draft of my essay (cutting said paragraphs to fewer than 500 words)
*Sent copies to mom and Sparr for betaing
*Half-completed the third draft of my essay (based on Sparr's suggestions, still waiting for mom)
*Found my copy of "Sirens", which has been missing since I got to MD (I thought I left it in the car to Balticon, despite that not making sense)
*Eat breakfast¹
*Script movie
*Finish getting my essay beta'd
*Final draft of essay
*Real final draft of essay (with dad's thoughts too)
*Wrote 750words!
*Beta script
*Rescript movie
*Beta application (via mom)
*Format application
*Print application
*Ate dinner
*Print essay
*Shoot movie
*Take headshot for MatM application
*Sound for movie
*Edit movie
*Burn DVD(s)
*Test DVD(s)

STUFF TO STILL ACCOMPLISH TODAYTOMORROW:

( Ohgod. Is boring )

~Sor
MOOP!

1: Or rather, am in the process. Also, these are the worst eggs I have made for myself in like...four years. I'm very disappointed. I blame the lack of cheese in the house, and probably not actually using enough Teriyaki sauce.

2: None of you are actually reading this. Know how I can tell? Because I don't have half a dozen comments (or even one!) telling me I forgot to close my italics tag. Colour me traumatized, except this is a hells boring entry.

I am at Origins. It is awesome. I am not tweeting nearly enough, because I am lazy and it's hard to type with the PoSBox¹.

We played one *epic* game of Werewolf last night --it was a no nighttime round, designed with people mingling in mind. It ended with a seer confirmed voting block, after we lynched Tony for being a wolf. The like...three of you who know Tony and aren't here know how awesome it is that we actually managed to get him.

My voice has disappeared faster than any Origins ever. Seriously, it was starting to seriously go last night(Thursday) and today it is practically gone. Luckily, I survived Andy vs Everyone. Hopefully, I will still be able to talk at six tomorrow, to survive it again.

Annnnnd that's life. I need more ice cream sometime.

~Sor
MOOP!

(Unrelatedly, holy hell, Sparr's laptop is huge. By which I mean, dunno, five or six inches bigger than mine, but when I'm trying to lounge with it on my lap, that is a lot.

Also, dear Alys, laptop is not a euphemism. OR IS IT?!)

1: PoSBox is my current cell phone. It lives up to its name.

I have been in one place I've never been before, and one place I haven't been able to be in a year and two places where I should be more often and all of it has been just *lovely*.

And this is how my weekend has gone. How're you lot?

~Sor
MOOP!

Meeeeeeeeeeme!

( the ten meme )

It's over!

~Sor
MOOP!

1: Sorceress is a title. Sorcyress is a name.
2: R = None of your damn business, D = my real last name, A = None of your damn business.
3: 'of the family of'
4: 'of the location/world of'
5: 'of the god'

6: And in all honesty, "sneaking out? No."
7: Used here to mean "independent" and not "Indie"
8: Not actually proven and probably not a fact.