Updates from Life

**Survived the last days of SURF grants. Didn't make anyone cry. I am going to consider that a win.

**So far, no sign of serious necrosis in my arm. I will be glad to be done with the meds tomorrow though.

**Went to my first non-local Calontir event this weekend, a small colloquium event called Silk Road, focusing on Eastern Personas. It was a lot of fun, and I met a lot of really awesome people. I look forward to going to something else soon.

**Nothing super pressing this coming week. Thank God.

**Going to be Velma Kelly from Chicago for Halloween. The fiance is going as Billy Flynn. I still need to go get some accessories together.

Maybe I should lay-off these novels for a while...

So I have been reading the Southern Vampire Mysteries cycle by Charlaine Harris, because they are fun, and carnage heavy, and not hard reading, and I have been really enjoying them.  They are also the source for the new series, True Blood on HBO. In the universe of the novels, the lead character, Sookie Stackhouse, comes into contact with all sorts of magical beings besides vamps, like Were-wolves, Were-Tigers, and Shape-shifters who change into dogs.

As I was walking home tonight from the Walton Arts Center were I was watching the instillation art piece, Slow Dancing,a dog suddenly ran across the deserted intersection in front of me, stopped and looked at me, and my first thought was "I wonder who that dog is?"  Not who he belonged to.  I may need to step away from the novels.