So, I’ve spent the last two days in Houston, Texas, attending Quilt Market 2008. It’s a work trip, and I didn’t know quite what to expect beforehand. I guess I sort of expected a lot more of the “traditional” quilting audience… and I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see something quite different and meet people who are just cool as all get-out.

Now, here’s the full disclosure part. I don’t normally write about work stuff on here because, well, I don’t want to be “a publishing marketer who blogs.” I’ve been keeping up with this for much longer than I’ve been working where I work, so it seems like this should be “me” and not the work version of me. If that makes sense at all. It might not. I’m quite tired.

The point is that I’ve been attending in my capacity as the marketing manager for a book published by Wiley: Seams to Me by Anna Maria Horner. You can buy it pretty much everywhere online (and get autographed copies from Anna via her online store) and you should read her blog (and not because I do… she’s got a great writing style and a fantastic eye, so every image is just a pleasure to behold. Maybe even something to aspire to?).

So - over the last few days, I’ve been hanging at Anna’s booth, interacting with buyers and wholesalers and distributors and just fans of Anna, helping her out with answering questions about the book while she signed copies and talked with her legions of admirers (seriously.) I also got to meet some of her colleagues/friends - other incredibly creative designers who are also well-known in the industry and just super cool peeps to boot.

For example, Heather Bailey of “Hello My Name is Heather” blog fame (and many many other things including fabric designs, patterns and patented hair ties which I will be ordering shortly). She’s lovely and fantastic and so nice. We sat next to each other at dinner last night and sang They Might Be Giants lyrics together. Good times.

I also had time to chat with Melissa Averinos of Yummy Goods blog fame. She’s fantastically funky and seems to have the charming touch of the wacky that I sometimes feel I have. Sometimes. She’s got a store, a new line of fabric called Sugar Snap (I need to order some and learn to sew, truly), as well as some cool finished goods (cuff bracelets I’m going to try and score tomorrow), as well as an incredible sense of taste. She runs a shop (also called Yummy Goods, I think) on Cape Cod and was showing me some of the things she found at Quilt Market that she’d be ordering up to sell in her shop. If Cape Cod was closer, I’d totally be shopping there. Yes, indeedy.

And, of course, I’ve been spending the most time with Anna Maria Horner - a human dynamo, really. New line of fabric, new book, mother of five… and a super funny, superbly warm and generous Creative. An aspiring designer stopped by the booth to say, “Hi” and tell her how inspirational she is, and it turned into a bit of a career counseling session complete with portfolio feedback (since the designer had it with her). Also, Anna made me a gorgeous skirt using some of her newest fabric line (NOT YET AVAILABLE IN STORES! I feel all exclusive and on the inside). I’ll photograph it later since it’s wrinkled from having been worn and sat on all day. Here are some photos of her award-winning booth:

More later. Internet connection through the hotel is a little dodgy and uploading photos appears to be an issue. Either that, or the laptop doesn’t like my multi-tab habit. These things happen.

Update: here are more of my pictures from Quilt Market on Flickr.

The view from the 19th floor of my hotel.

Tomorrow afternoon, I’m flying down to Houston. For work. I get back on Monday. This will be ten straight days of work. Apparently, in civilized places like the UK, there are legal limits regarding how many days of work in a row you can actually work. This is not the case stateside. And I guess that’s why we’re working ourselves to death and not taking all the vacation time allotted to us each year, despite the fact that we complain we don’t get as much as the rest of the world. And don’t have any legal right to a vacation either; it’s simply something our employers can deign to give us, if they so desire, but they’re under no obligation whatsoever to do so. But I digress. I have a good amount of vacation time from my company, so that’s not my complaint.

Anyway - Houston. Weekend. Yes. This is a bit of an adjustment as I’ve been wearing my wool and angora coat up here… and loving how it’s 38 degrees (F) in the morning. It wakes me right up. It’s going to be 83 degrees in Houston on Saturday. Taking that into account, packing is confusing the crap out of me. My brain doesn’t accept that as real.

So there’s that, and I don’t fly much domestically. And that’s a bit more of a pain in the ass than flying internationally, IMHO.

Internationally? Of COURSE I’m checking my bag. I don’t need to worry about the 3-ounce rule or what-have-you. It’s going to be checked. Bishpleez! But with this short term domestic flight, I don’t want to go through the nonsense of waiting for my checked bag to roll out. Nope. Carry-on only. Yes. And that brings all those insane TSA limitations. So, I’d better clip my nails tonight so there’s no need to bring a nail clipper. No Leatherman on my keychain. Perfume? I can douse some cotton balls in my perfume and put them in a plastic bag in my suitcase. It’s something. Can I do without makeup? Probably not. So there’s a Ziploc bag for me. Grrrrr.

But I’m bringing my camera. I’ll take some photos. Some will be interesting due to the nature of the event I’m attending; some will be mind-numbingly boring because, well, I don’t think anything in Houston other than restaurants will be open when I am finished with my work day each day. I’m checking that out on the internets, but I also might be too tired to do much else.

We shall see. Right now, I’m tired. So tired. And waiting for my clothes to dry so I can pack.

“It” being stuck in dead-stopped traffic because of late-night road work on the one highway that can get me from work back home — after a 14-hour workday. Yes, the last 3-4 hours of that were business dinner, but still. Work.

Business dinner is not the same as sitting at home, in pajama pants and the same t-shirt I’ve slept in for the last four nights (comfy, not filthy), listening to my “sleep” playlist on iTunes. Now that’s comfort.

And I suppose I should update my Facebook status to something new. I have no idea what’s going on in the world today as I’ve been in meetings all day, so a trip to Google Reader and the NYTimes homepage is in order.

… but when I find Anger rearin’ its head, nothing makes me feel better than a combination of two or more of the following:

1) going running
2) watching an action/violence flick (in this case, Starship Troopers)
3) eating a bit of good chocolate
4) venting to a friend

Thankfully, tonight I was in the position to do ALL of them. And I have to say that I feel a bit better-prepared to sleep tonight. Not happy, but OK for slumber. And after I finish watching Johnny Rico and the gang shoot up some Bugs, I should be golden.

If you missed the whole “Putin rears his head” thing, check it out here (you’ll just have to wait to get past the Salon.com advertising screen… I apologize for my poor choice of link).

Back to a bit of the old ultra-violence for me (and that’s one movie I don’t have on DVD. I’ll need to rectify that sooner rather than later.)

Sometimes it only takes a few hours of mundanity the mundane to pull me across the line from “OK” to “completely apathetic” and then to “really angry.”

In between folding laundry, washing windows, dusting books, preparing for a family dinner and working from home over the weekend, the mantra (as it were) I keep repeating is, “I am meant for something different. My life should be better.”

Now I just have to figure out how to make that change.

I haven’t had much time to write. It’s OK. Actually doing stuff is a nice change from writing about wanting to do stuff, yes? Anyway, there’s been a fair amount of goodness going on and, being who I am, I am already worried about the withdrawal symptoms that will “rear their heads” (to quote from my new friend Pay-Pay, my affectionate-sounding nickname for Sarah Palin) once the fun is over. But that will have to wait. Here’s the coolness:

Earlier this month (October 2), saw Fleet Foxes in Philly (with my friends LJ and Sara). Their set was just lovely… lovely, lovely, lovely. Pardon the floweriness, but their voices and harmonies are just heavenly. The opening act, whom I shall call “Hipster with Banjo” - not so much. There are several videos from that show on YouTube - here’s one of their song “Mykonos”. You have to ignore some of the audience sing-along:

Yeah - so this was at the Starlight Ballroom. Beforehand, we got some tasty dinnerness at the Silk City Diner and some gelato at Capogiro. Mmmmm, tasty.

Later that weekend, there was some small-scale bar-hopping in Brooklyn. If hopping can be applied to going to one bar, walking a block away to another bar and then heading back to bar #1. The two bars - Union Pool and Fette Sau. Fette Sau is, strictly speaking, a barbecue joint. A barbecue joint with a smoker capable of “slow-cooking 700 pounds of meat at a time”. AT A TIME. We walked in and the smell of smokey mesquite and meat was just divine. Unfortunately, they were no longer serving food. Fortunately, they were still serving alcohol, so we had some rye (Michter’s?).

‘Twas my first experience with rye (and probably only my third or fourth encounter with the bourbon/whiskey family) and it was pleasant and without embarrassing after-effects. Honestly, those labels on meds that say you shouldn’t drink while taking them aren’t joking. While on my meds, I would have one glass of wine or one mixed drink and feel a bit rosy and sleepy already, even if I nursed that one drink forever. Sans medication, a vodka tonic here and a pour of rye there… and I was clear and good and not laughing inappropriately or anything.

Also that weekend, I saw Religulous. I’ve heard various criticisms - that said, I liked it. A lot. You sort of know what to expect from Bill Maher… he’s going to be asking questions, poking fun, potentially offending people… but all in all, he’s bringing forth some interesting truths, whether or not you enjoy the way they’re elicited. Here’s a clip from The Daily Show:

Finally, I also got to see Blindness. This got a bit of a negative response from film critics. One of those reviews was co-opted as my Facebook status message for a bit:

[Blindness is] supposed to work as an allegory for urban alienation, but soon begins to feel like an exploitation horror with pretensions of being more.

Let me first say that I read the book by Jose Saramago several years ago and re-read it a good 7 or 8 months ago when I heard the movie was in production. I really enjoy the book. I gave it to a work-friend as a Christmas gift and she liked it until a certain point where she couldn’t read it anymore, saying, “Eva, there’s just too much shit.” Meaning actual shit - fecal matter that the characters are forced to walk through/avoid. I advised her to view it as metaphorical shit, but I think people’s squeamishness and willingness to deal with quantities/levels of shit varies greatly.

That said, the movie was much cleaner than the book. I didn’t for a moment see it as an exploitation horror. It wasn’t “harrowing” or “difficult to watch”, which was other criticism leveled against it. I thought it was really well-shot (dare I say, beautifully?), with a good sense of the story; it did a fantastic job of heightening my awareness of my own sight while I was watching a bleak world of fumbling blind people. I thought it was quite good. Also, not one, but both of the friends with whom I saw it liked it. So there, critics. Moderately intelligent lay-people have spoken (and I even took a few film courses back in my NYU days, so I can throw that into the mix, if needed).

That’s some catch-up from a while ago. It’s been crazy lately. I’ve been feeling close to crazy lately. There’s much going on with work and home and friends and work (again). I’m traveling for work later next week and I need to borrow a laptop from one of my siblings (it’s something I need to buy for myself but cannot currently afford). I’ll be in Houston for work next Friday through Monday. Without a computer, I will be a bit of a wreck. For serious.

While some of the fun has been missing from shopping lately (and by lately, I mean the last three years or so), I generally find something to enjoy when I pop into a Target store. Tonight, I was happy to find these gloriously cool semi-ugly socks. Houndstooth AND argyle? I might take a page from my friend Sara’s playbook and wear an argyle on one foot and a houndstooth on the other. Or perhaps mix up the purple and orange. I just don’t know - it’s so crazy, ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN.

Oooooh. My hands are raw from climbing. RAW. I didn’t climb very well tonight. I felt heavy like lead and stiff like wood. Still, I’ve been going with some regularity. And that comes with battle scars.

And allow me to gross you out with a close-up of… cracked skin!!!

(I’m sort of proud of it actually. Especially that it’s my left hand. That’s the hand attached to the gimpy wrist. This means I’ve been USING that wrist and getting somewhere with it. Truly.)

(Also, it’s hard to belay when your torn skin keeps catching on the rope. I used tape to cover the ickiest bits.)

And I’m sorry. I must share. Seriously, though, keep the volume down. It’s cute when he barks, but his owner is mildly annoying. However, the rest of it makes me smile. A lot. Especially about halfway through. Wow.