Yes, you read that correctly. Last night, we went to the 21 & over night performance of "Night of the Living Dead" at the Seattle Children's Theatre. Here's the link: http://www.sct.org/browse/Production.aspx?prod=4497 . I'm not a fan of zombies and steadfastly refuse to watch any zombie movies with Russ, but this production was great! I laughed so hard my cheeks hurt at the end. Zombies or not, it reminded me of how much I love watching live productions on stage.

Yesterday, I dyed a long, lace & cotton dress of mine from cream to green. My hope is that dyeing it dark green will make it less transparent than it was. If it looks okay when it's dry (and still fits me), I'll probably wear it to the NaNoWriMo kick-off at Denny's tomorrow night. If not, or if I chicken out, I shall wear something more modest. Should be an interesting, entertaining party, even if I don't get much writing done.

I also received my contributer's copies of Lilliput Review #165. I've got a poem in there on the same page as Ed Baker and M. Kei, and across from a R.H. Blyth translation of an Issa haiku. I know the arrangement is chance, but still, it's pretty cool! Visit Lillie's website at http://lilliputreview.googlepages.com/home .

Continuing backward in time, Tuesday night was Portuguese class. All I can do is heave a sigh. She's a nice person, Ana, but she doesn't know how to teach. She even asked us (all 6 of us...down from 17 people who showed up the first night) what we'd like to learn and how. We told her, and I had hoped that maybe we'd actually learn something in class, but no. I won't complain any more, but if she's teaching Portuguese 2 next term, I certainly won't be taking it.

Monday night I went to Hugo House for the Charles de Lint reading. Actually, I showed up a few hours early so I could hang out in the Cabaret and write. After having a good chat with Fay at the desk, I got a bit of editing done on my novel (Nullum Desiderium) before folks started showing up for the reading. It was excellent! De Lint read his entire chapbook "Yellow Dog" aloud, and he has such a storyteller's voice that I was utterly mesmerized the whole time. I think the whole room was. Then he played some songs on his guitar and sang. Some were ones he'd written, and others were covers. At the end, I bought a copy of "Dingo" and "Little (Grrl) Lost," the latter of which I'm about halfway through reading. It's even better than I thought it would be. (I'd read part of it in "Firebirds Rising" months and months ago.) Here's a link to the book: http://www.sfsite.com/charlesdelint/littlegrrl-desc01.htm

So that about sums up this week so far. I did finally fill out my ballot and pop it in the mail, so I can feel like a good citizen now. Next on the agenda: pumpkin carving!

I probably should have gone to bed sooner last night instead of watching clips from The Daily Show with Russ. Or maybe it was hormones. I certainly can't blame the weather; it was as beautiful a fall day as one could ask for, crisp in the morning, but with bright sunshine, sunshine you can feel soaking into your ear and cheek when the breeze isn't cutting through you. Or it could just be that I'm still an amateur in social situations. Once in a while, I feel like I've got it, the key to social interaction, how to speak without awkwardness tripping up my tongue, but today wasn't one of those days. Until the end.

The hour and a half bus trek to Hugo House this morning was fine. I wrote in my journal, like I always do, in spite of the bouncing bus, even had time to get a cup of tea at Seattle's Best across the street from the #10 bus stop. Upon arriving at Hugo House at 9:20 (class was due to start at 10), I checked the front door. Finding it locked and no one inside, I settled myself in the sun on the steps of the loading dock. I guess it's the memories of the docks at old Garten in Salem, back when I was a kid, that endear them to me. A place to feel like myself, safe, comfortable. The sprigs of fennel sprouting up in the neglected planter and in flowerbeds added to the ambiance, as did the constant squeaking song of an Anna's hummingbird, first from the top of the maples across the street, and then closer as it checked out the buddelia bushes, their purple blossoms almost gone, but still fragrant.

After about ten minutes, a familiar face from a previous class appeared and we chatted in the sun. Well, she talked and I listened. This is par for the course in conversations for me it seems. Maybe I need to be more assertive, but to do that, I'd need to be more confident that I actually have something worthwhile to say. In any case, other people began arriving in ones and twos, including Mr. de Lint. The front doors were still locked. Seems that someone was supposed to show up at 9:30 to unlock them and never did. So we congregated out by the dock in the sun, chatting until 10:25 when someone showed up with Teresa's wayward keys, at which point we migrated inside to slightly warmer environs, finally settling upstairs in the Winslow Room.

The class was fine, the chairs all full. Unlike previous classes, we actually took a few breaks to get up and stretch, which was appreciated. We did a few writing exercises, but I'm no good at writing in workshops. I freeze up, don't know what to write, and when I do manage to get a few sentences down, they're clunky, drab, and as often as not, not worth reading aloud. I was the only one who declined to read her exercise the first time around, and almost passed a second time. They were good writing prompts, though. Maybe next time I take a class there I'll bring my Beastie (MacBook) and see if that helps melt the writer's block.

At 4:30, the class ended and we dispersed. I lingered long enough to thank Mr. de Lint for the class, half-apologizing for not being able to make use of his writing exercises in class, but he said that he had a difficult time writing in workshops, too, which made me feel better. Then someone wanted her picture taken with him, so after obliging her, I slipped out of the room, back downstairs, and outside to wait for Russ to come pick me up. I could have hovered inside and listened to the reading that was going on in the Cabaret, but I was feeling...how to describe it? Fragile? Tired? Unimportant? Insignificant? Dejected? There were, as there always are in these classes, some brilliant writers (OK, so two of them were a recent Clarion West grads), and I know I shouldn't compare them to myself, but I do. It's a fault of mine, and it rarely does me any favors. Don't get me wrong: I'm glad I took the class. The exercises we did are ones I plan on using at home to practice my writing, and Mr. de Lint's comparison to practicing piano scales and practicing writing was a good one, one I hope to be able to take to heart and follow through with, but like I said, more sleep, less hormones.

Feeling more inexplicably dejected than afterglowy, I climbed the steps up onto the loading dock, seating myself cross-legged at the edge to wait for the red Prius to arrive. I was there for about five minutes, scribbling about the class in my journal, when Charles de Lint rounded the corner of the dock and saw me there. (Teresa, his hostess and ride, must have been finishing up with class evaluations inside or something.) To my surprise and joy, he just sat down right beside me, cross-legged, on the dock, casual as can be, and for the next 5 or 10 minutes, we chatted. Just chatted. It was the highlight of my day, of my whole weekend, just sitting there shooting the breeze about books and writing with one of my all-time favorite authors, the author who initially got me intrigued with modern urban faery fantasy. I could have sat there until the sun dipped behind the Olympic Mountains and the temperature dropped, and it wasn't even that fountains of golden wisdom were pouring from his lips, but just the fact that he sat down there to chat with me like I was a fellow writer really meant something to me. I know it sounds cheesy, but it was exactly what I needed, that connection, and while I probably won't remember what I learned in the class a year from now, I'll always remember sitting on that concrete loading dock on a sunny October afternoon and chatting with Charles de Lint.


Here's the link to his website: http://www.sfsite.com/charlesdelint/