Back Again, Again. Again.

Another con marked off the to-do list this year. This time it was a direct flight to Chicago, but I ended up getting back about 1 AM last night so my boss thankfully let me come in a little later this morning (and I'll be leaving a little early today). That means I get my coffee allotment before I come in. I've had a productive morning, wrapping up the first draft of a little project that's been simmering on the back burner for a while.

I've begun drinking Perrier water. I think my dad would have a conniption if he knew that (and since my mom reads this from time to time, she'll probably tell him. Just goes to show you Cosmo was right: there are no more secrets). The reasons for doing so are twofold. First, I like unflavored sparkling water. I ran into it by accident at a convention, and realized I like it. Second, it's cheaper and healthier than booze. And we can get it for a song at Costco, so why not? A bottle a night runs me exactly 51 cents. Now average that against a can of beer, or a bottle of wine, and I'm already a winner!

This weekend I was a naughty monkey diet-wise. I was in Chicago in a part of town with absolutely zero restaurant options, so I ended up having pizza a couple of times. I admit, my body responded to the carbs better than I expected it would. I haven't gotten on a scale to gauge the effects of my little binge, and I won't be able to until tomorrow, but I don't think the damage is that permanent. Looks like this week is going to be a seven-gym-day kinda week.

I'm really looking forward to this weekend. It's going to be the first time I'll be home and I won't have any real obligations for, well, a long time. The Skeleton Key opens this weekend, and I'll probably catch an early show of it. It's the first movie I've wanted to see in the theater since Batman. I'm also looking forward to The Brothers' Grimm next weekend - I read a very favorable article about Terry Gilliam in Time, and the movie sounds right up my ally.

I wish I had more to report creative-wise, but most of my energy there has been devoted to developing a campaign for a roleplaying game I'm going to run with the Thursday group. Jon inadvertatly gave me a great idea, which has since (he'll be happy to know) mutated into something completely different - but I'm very excited about the results. The background story for the campaign is byfar the most extensive I've ever written (it's my Pirate campaign world, brought into the mid 1800s, with a whole new Threat To Humanity that Only the Characters Can Stop). I've got five pages of background materials and notes, and even more on the various NPCs in the game.

In fact, looking over it all, I can't help but shake the feeling that the world would make a great novel - or even a series of novels. I toyed with the idea of developing some of the stuff from my Pirate campaign into a story or something longer, but since I started with only the most bare of skeletons and grew the world on impulse rather than plan, it never seemed appropriate. Now that I've got the history of this little Earth (it's really our own planet, just with a whole bunch of stuff that never made it into the history books), I could conceivably set a story there pretty much from any point after the dinosaurs became extinct until, say, 100 years from now.

In case you can't tell, I'm kind of proud of myself!