Ah the delicious irony: censoring a post I once titled Big Bloggerbrother

What a difference a year-and-a-half makes. Rather than boring you with a long, drawn-out pontification about What I Did on My Depression Vacation, I'll just summarize:

• Jack moved in with me and promptly became very ill (was it me?) and then disabled with a chronic, genetic immune disorder known as CVID
• Finished that semester of Practical Spoken Russian, but hardly wrote another word on my novel
• Went to Singapore again for work for a pre-launch strategy session for our new website
• Went to Hollywood with Chris for an Adobe CS3 conference, where I failed to properly fulfill the role of wingwoman (sorry; next time I'll shout: you do NOT want to tap that!)
• Went on a driving tour of the Cascades with Sam (which was a blast, except for the bugs...Sam and I hate bugs and we are petitioning for their removal from the planet), coming back down via the Oregon coast and ending with two plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland (Taming of the Shrew and As You Like It)
• Started seriously working out, went on NutriSystem and lost 20 pounds and got back into a bikini
• Went to the Maui Writers Conference on (duh) Maui; worth it for the week I spent there before the conference at a cheap condo, cuz, hey, it's Maui; not really worth the nearly $3,000 spent on the conference (which I really should have known; fantasy writers are not "real" writers); but I had dinner (and lunch) with Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights, so that was cool (P.S., did not get a publisher)
• Sank into a deadly depression and gained back 20 pounds
• Got my stories "When She Was Good" and "Handy Man" published in Best Lesbian Erotica 2008 and More Five-Minute Erotica
• Went to Pantheacon with Jack and Sunny, where Sunny and I discovered we're both on a new path embracing Dark Magic
• Took an acrylic painting class with Steph and painted one of my photos of succulents from the Ali'i Kula Lavender Farm on Maui, which was then put into the instructor's gallery display for the class (which I felt pretty good about, even though it was a silly thing)
• Did a final, full edit and rewrite on Under Galga (in between hard drive and power cord dying on my MacBook) and wrote a 12-page synopsis in preparation for submitting it to an e-book publisher (because, let's face it, I will never be a "real" writer)
• Went to Lisbon, Portugal for a conference for work, and then spent three days in Barcelona with Chris (who has been living there and "telecommuting" for five months)
• Became completely disillusioned with the Democratic Party after the vile treatment of Hillary Clinton and the Big Bold Return of Pre-70s Sexism Complete With Code Words, wink-wink, nudge-nudge, nowotimean?

So that was my year (and change). What's next on the Betty agenda? Taking a housesitting "vacation" in the East Bay to do some writing on Arkhangel'sk in a quiet, gardeny house with no psychotic, screaming cockatiels for a couple of weeks.