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I think I've mentioned here before that once a week, when I switch my sleep schedule and stay up all night working, I take a sleeping pill when I get home at 7am, just to jolt myself into sleeping days for the week. Seems to work well, and because I don't take them very often, they're always strong, and always work.

This morning, after I'd drifted off into sleep, I got the hiccups. I know this because I remember hiccuping and startling awake, wondering what the hell had just happened, and then falling back asleep. Then I'd wake up for the next hiccup, only to fall immediately back into deep sleep. Lather, rinse, repeat. It was pretty funny for someone like me who can be woken up by a whisper in another room sometimes and normally has problems falling back asleep. I have to say, it felt good.

As does sitting here in Peet's, having written for a few hours, and when I'm done with this post, I'll go to work for the night. I do love what Gloria Steinem said about loving having written. After-writing is always the best part of the day, even if it's only the short drive to work where my day starts over. That drive is happy, even if the words themselves actually sucked.

RWA National was amazing, terrific, awesome. I didn't get enough sleep (surprise!) and ended up with a migraine the night of the RITAs, but at least I made it through the ceremony and got to see my chapter-mate Elisa Beatty win the Golden Heart! We were so very proud!

I spent plenty of time in meetings and attending parties where we got to wear our best clothes and our highest heels (if we wanted to, of course — but I did). I hung out with five of the PensFatales (oh, we missed the ones who couldn't make it). I spent time with my agent, who is SO AWESOME. I had a massage in a spa and pretended I did it all the time. I met many, many people. I decided Orlando in July is too hot to support life, and I'm not sure how they fake it, and I sat next to a hairy drunk guy on the plane and thought terrible things in his sleeping direction until he woke up and talked about being Etta James's keyboard player for twenty-five years. Just goes to show — when I judge people, I am usually completely wrong. I should know this by now.

A wonderful, writing-filled time. And it feels so great to be back to the writing, too! I didn't work while I was gone, a conscious decision, and I feel refreshed just for being gone from the page those five or six days.

Yes. Happy. Working hard. I think those might be related.

Please don't anyone admit that they saw Digit doing this:

What Clementine looks like when she's waiting for Lala to get home.

 

An alternate look: OH SO SAD.

Where Miss Idaho and Clementine wait.

Close up of Miss Idaho while she waits. Her tongue doesn't fit in her mouth.

Our new candelabra (it used to be my mother's — it makes us feel like we're in the Haunted Mansion):

You see? Spooky:

And now, my darling chickens, I'm off to Orlando! Tuesday I fly to the Romance Writers of America National Convention, and I'm going to have so much FUN. For the first time, I'm only taking the iPad. I'll let you know how that goes. I'm not planning on having much time for writing, and built that into my schedule, and I can check email on my phone, so even if I'm a bit cut-off, that will be all right. I'll take photos! You know I LOVE this convention, so I'll share what I learned when I get home…

This is a small thought, but it feels important. Over the years, I've been lucky enough to meet readers of this blog, and there's a common refrain: "I feel like I know you, but that must be weird. I know I don't…" I usually ask if they leave comments, and if so, what their email is(because I have a strange brain in that I forget names but remember email addresses, so that can jolt me into recognition). I always want to reassure them, and I'm never sure quite how to do it.

Thought: We *do* know the people we read online, exactly as well as we know other people in our lives. Online, I choose the stories I tell you, yes. But in real life, I do the same thing. My family, of course, knows me better than this, because they know how I act when I'm acting badly (hopefully that's not often). But everyone else? Friends, coworkers (happy to have some nice overlap there), they know the me I present to them. It's the same for you.

And just because you know me from the internet doesn't mean it doesn't count. In fact, I tell stories here that I don't tell anywhere else. You listen. You remember. And I remember that you're doing that, and I'm grateful.

Tonight, I started missing my friend Grace. She lives in Canada, and she doesn't have a blog, but she's been commenting for years and YEARS, and I know her, or at least I know what she tells me. And that's enough for me. I love her. She's my friend. I realized I hadn't heard from her in a while, not a proper email, so I just nagged her a few minutes ago, and now I'm blogging about her, so I'm sure she'll pop up soon. (I think she should start a blog. She, like many others, probably thinks I should check FB more often. Which I just did when I realized I could, and I spied on her a bit, and now I feel better.)

But this is real. Remember years ago, when we'd talk about our online circle and people thought we were nutso, talking about invisible friends? We weren't nuts then, and at least people understand it a little better now.

I love this circle, and I'm glad you're a part of it. (Insert Mr. Rodger's theme song here.)

Mwah.

Man, I put the internets away, went and washed my face and brushed my teeth, and then came back and got them out again, because you should hear what I did today. Well, I got my hair colored and cut

an I-just-woke-up pic — see the many layers of colors? Platinum silver on top so I can grow into my gray hair, which was the point, red underneath, brown under that

and went and saw the Mighty Slim Pickins, who were great.

But I also did something completely new:

Sensory deprivation. I went and floated for an hour inside a flotation tank.

Bethany talked me into it — she'd been floating in Oakland a number of times, but this was her first time to Float Matrix, and it was my first time ever.

Let's start here: It's freaky.

I loved the ambiance of the place — it was beautifully outfitted, just like a nice spa. The very nice man who owns it, Kane (HELLO ROMANCE NAME), was very knowledgeable and comforting at the same time. I think he saw the wild look at the back of my eye, like a horse getting ready to bolt (except that the only thing I know about horses was the old horse my dad boarded when I was a kid, 20-year old Darby, who wouldn't do more than walk sedately–that's not what I looked like today. Maybe more like a cat caught in a thunderstorm. Enough with the similes!). He ushered us into a nice changing room where we showered and scrubbed and changed into robes and flip-flops, both thoughtfully provided for us.

Kane asked me just before he pulled back the curtain, "Did your sister tell you what these look like?" She hadn't. I shook my head. He pulled back the white sheet to reveal a COFFIN-LIKE metal tank. We all laughed, but my laughter was hysteria. They chose to overlook that. 

It's a flesh-colored swim suit. I know what you thought.

This is where I nearly melted down, although I was SO COOL in person. Really. Ask Bethany. 

Inside that tank is water, heated to body temperature. The air above that is body temperature or a little warmer. And dissolved in the water is one thousand pounds (really) of epsom salts. So  you put in your earplugs, get in, turn around, and shut that door behind you (there's a dim light inside, yes). Then you lean back and float. You really, really float. It's hard to push your limbs down, but you don't need to. Just float. (Nekkid. Naturally.) 

Now, you reach to your right and click off that dim blue light. Now it's completely pitch dark, not a speck of light, and those walls that just surrounded you fly away, and you're suspended in an enormous realm, somewhere completely unknown. And SUDDENLY YOU ARE IN THE TOMB. Wait, I mean WOMB. Whatever. I had a sketchy couple of seconds at the beginning where I was all like, get-me-out-of-here-right-now-are-you-fucking-kidding-me-with-this. But Kane had warned me about this — the brain is programmed to receive lots of stuff, and we constantly have noise and images and smells around us, and suddenly we're plunged into this deprivation — it's anxiety producing. He said to focus on my breath. I can do that. I did.

And it got okay. More than okay. It felt amazing. It felt like a massage, only you know how sometimes massages hurt? This didn't. Everything felt great. It was like lying on a bed, only without any pressure anywhere — just perfect support. Warm. Calm. Dark. SCARY OH GOD SCARY and then I'd breathe again and it was great.

Also, Kane mentioned that epsom salt is magnesium sulfate, and I've been trying to work more magnesium into my diet for the migraines — this was a great way to take it in, through the skin. And I've been fighting a migraine for a couple of days now, and guess what? The low-grade threatening pain is gone.

Bethany was in a tank near mine, and she said when he knocked on hers and turned on her light, it felt like she'd been in for twenty minutes. She might have fallen asleep. Me, the sixty minutes felt like two hours. Time elongated. Also common, apparently.

I'll do it again, if only for the post-massage high feeling. I have a goal, also, of trying to meditate a little more next time. But an hour is a long time to focus on one's breathing. I focused on a couple of To Do lists, because I'm incapable of not doing that. And I think the second time, I'd know what to expect, and that would make it easier. But I love trying new things, and this was completely new, and terribly awesome. You should go and tell me what you think. 

I have GOT to tell you about this.

I've been asked to be Miss September in a knitting pinup calendar.

(I just sat here and looked at that sentence for a while. I never thought I'd write anything that awesome.)

It's being being produced by Steph Whiteside (you might know her as QuirkyKnitGirl's Ivy) & The Gray Lady Artists Collective, and they're fundraising for backing right now over at Kickstarter. Here's how it works: If you pledge $20 to help them reach their $3000 goal, then you get a copy of the calendar when it comes out (you're not charged until they reach their goal, when everyone is on board). $25 gets you a signed calendar, $30 gets you a copy of the calendar and a 5X7 of the pinup of your choice (more at the site).

From the site, "We're a group of knitters who decided to show the world that knitting can be sexy! We're all real knitters and real people in all shapes and sizes." I love that! Yay knitters!

I got the chance to ask Ivy a couple of questions and thought you might like to hear the answers.

1. What inspired this idea? 

I was inspired by this because I realized one day that, you know, I spend a lot of time in a world and culture that tells me that people who knit and craft and do otherwise domestic things are really boring and unsexy. Now, I also spend a lot of time with some pretty amazingly talented and hot knitters and crafters, so I know that's not true–but it seems a shame to have that stay a secret. I mentioned the idea to a few people, and they all loved it, so I sort of tossed it around for a while. Then I met Erin, who is the photographer and owner of the Gray Lady Artists Collective, which is a new artists collective based in Oakland, and she thought it was a great idea as well, so things just took off from there. I'm super excited to get going on this, and bring the sexy side of knitting to the public.

2. What makes knitting sexy?

For me, knitting and crafting is a very sensual experience. Not necessarily in the way that people automatically think of the word, but in the true sense–when I'm knitting, it's all about the color of the yarn, the feel of the fiber and needles. It's very much grounded in feeling and being with your senses, that kind of experience.

Plus, I mean come on. We take sticks and string and then we make CLOTHES. How cool is that?

Me, I'm just sitting around trying to decide what sweater I should wear. Miss September! It is ridiculous that I'm so excited about this.

I'm talking about zeitgeist over here, and I've put up a GREAT link. You'll love it. I'll see you there!

(Boy, I'm sleepy.)