Obviously, I blame Felicia Day.

Honestly, It’s not really her fault. I would have gravitated toward these “historical romances” on my own eventually. I mean, the only difference between these books and the “high fantasy” of Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay is the exclusion of Magic and possibly an errant dragon or wood elf.

And I will not apologize for liking these things because it is NO DIFFERENT than dudes playing Madden or whatever.

In other news, I keep missing out on fun Mercury things and fun Ben Coleman things because we have issues leaving our dogs alone for any period of time. Dane thinks they’ll chew their way out of the backyard and I think they’ll chew their way out the front door. And the garage seems…mean somehow.

We’re working on it.

Let’s see…Dane’s new fancy startup Simler is in Alpha testing and that is super fun. Watch out Twitter, is all I’m saying. Your days are numbered. No, seriously, one of the tags I created on Simler is “How many days until Twitter dies?” and then we number them. With numbers.

I went to Uwajiimaiajamajawaji with Archie and Melissa this week and ended up in the bookstore sitting in a tiny chair reading a story to Archie. The story was in Japanese so I made it up because I’m a writer and this is supposedly one of my talents – like in Out of Africa when Meryl Streep makes up that story by the fire for Robert Redford and his friend who is into the African chicks. My story was something about a fat fish and some mean skinny fish and a shark. It was a morality tale. Because I’m all moral and shit.

Other than planning Portland’s first Winternet Prom™ I’m not really doing much else right now and while that is very relaxing and my closet has never been so organized I’d like to start work on SOMETHING. Not because I enjoy working (I don’t) but because it makes me sound important and superior when I meet new people and can say, “Oh, I’m working on a book of bad poetry for Harper Collins” or “I’ve been re-vamping the New Yorker Shouts and Murmurs column – adding more boners, etc.” Saying sentences like this makes people want to know you better or punch you in the face. Usually both.

What I am getting at internet, is I am available for fake work. Suggestions?

We moved back. We moved back to Portland. To be more accurate, we moved back to Beaverton. To be even more accurate, we moved to Aloha.

THE SHAME OF IT.

Actually, it’s not bad at all. The drive into town is annoying but the drive to Target, Trader Joe’s, and Old Navy is EXCITING.

if you remember, we had been planning on moving back and then I started writing for the SFWeekly and we thought, “Okay, let’s not move back, let’s stay here and give it a go” so we did and then circumstances changed (as they do) and my mother and the economy (hers not ours) forced me to look at things in a different light and well, here we are.

The SFWeekly will need someone local to continue on in my stead – someone who can cover Harry Potter conventions, comic book signings, and Wordpress parties with charm, grace, and a flagrant disregard for grammar. I will soldier on with the blogging for them until a replacement is found WHICH WILL NEVER HAPPEN BECAUSE I AM IRREPLACEABLE.

So, I’ve been absent from my own blog , I know. I’ve felt a little hamstrung while I made this decision because I didn’t want to say anything to the world before I said something to my editors. I’m professional like that. And stuff.

I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I’m thinking of shopping around a column called “Exile in Suburbia” because you know, I am. Exile or Exiled? See? I need a copy editor. Too bad I only know three or four of those.

Oh! The Guild shoot. Wil Wheaton was there. In a kilt. And he loved ZZ but ZZ did not want to love him. I’m sure she will…someday.

ZZ and Bladezz developed a very special relationship (obviously they have a lot in common with the ZZ’s and everything). By the second day on the “set” (Gamestop in Anaheim- GLAMOROUS) I believe they were communicating with their minds. They may have gotten married, I’m not sure. All I know is Bladezz is pregnant with seven puppies now and ZZ won’t stop handing out cigars to everyone she meets.

Gina Trapani (of Lifehacker fame, among many, many other things) was also there to be a “special” extra and she was so nice. So smart, funny, and kind. I want to be best friends with her but she lives in La Jolla with her lady and La Jolla is far. Just very far. It makes me tired to think of how far.

I peed a lot during those two days because I drank a lot of water and Diet Coke. I napped on the floor of a Gamestop in Anaheim and it was everything I’d ever dreamed it would be. Still, I was lucky to be a part of something really special. The episode they were shooting will be the first one to air and the last one they shot so we were able to drink champagne and hug and laugh on that final day – content in the knowledge we’d all been through the shit together, like Vietnam Vets but with less PTSD, while the sun settled behind the Dollar Store, obscuring the letters “a” and “r” so it read “The Doll Store” and casting a creepy, glorious, bittersweet pall over the Anaheim Gamestop parking lot. Or so I wrote in my Hello Kitty diary.

There’s more but I’m easing my way back into this. Also, this house has ants. You guys know how I feel about that.

I’ve been busy with SFWeekly stuff- interviews, Harry Potter Conventions, ETCETERA. And we adopted a new dog. His name is Dashiell. Let me show you him. Aaaannnd we went to LA to make our debut as extras in The Guild. I just..oh…it was A LOT.

Look at these pictures and I will tell you more about the past three weeks (OMG THREE WEEKS JESUS) this weekend. I will use my words and maybe even my grammar. Not today though. NOT TODAY.

Dashiell: New

Robin (Clara from the Guild): Concerned

Like a dream…

Kind of wanted to make out with this kid – God, I hope he’s 18

I don’t have words….

This is exactly how I feel. Exactly.

I’m the new tech/social media guru blogger for the SFWeekly.

“But Kiala,” you say, “I’ve heard rumours you have trouble changing the batteries on the XBox controller.”

True dat, as the city kids say, but – and here’s the crux of the thing – I do know there ARE batteries in the controller thingy and also I tend to spell “rumours” with an extra “u”. This makes me, well, overqualified actually.

That is all. Suggestions for techie blog posts and/or an explanation in the simplest of terms on how my pedometer works* greatly appreciated in the comments section.

* it’s something to do with the dark arts isn’t it?

WHAT? Like you guys don’t take pictures of yourselves ALL THE TIME. Save the judgment for your fudge mint.

YOU GUYS. Count yourselves as the lucky few to have known me before my meteoric rise to fame. (Or mediocre rise to fame…ha! Whew! See THAT is the reason I am so goddamn awesome or whatever.)

Ahem. In a couple of weeks Dane and ZZ and I are heading down to Santa Monica to be extras for The Guild Season 3!

I KNOW. I’m very excited about it. Here’s how I think it will go down:

Dane, ZZ, and I will roll onto the set (sans panties natch’) around 11 am-ish – fashionably late for our 6am call time. After raiding the Krafts table for donuts and coffee, we’ll head to our Winnebago for a massage and some hair of the dog. And by “hair of the dog” I mean smack. We’ll emerge from our trailer some four hours later and proclaim loudly to anyone who can hear us, “ALL RIGHT PEOPLE LET’S DO THIS THING!” and slowly make our way to the set high five-ing and terrorist fist jabbing anyone and everyone we see.

At this point, Felicia will probably give us hugs and braid my hair while I scream on my iPhone to my agent about my rider and “why the fuck are there 200 count sheets in my trailer now I have a rash and my masseuse was a WOMAN for God’s sake and also OF AGE which is a NO GO and because I didn’t get my happy ending then neither should you and your ass will never work in this town again!”

Then I’ll mumble something about how Scorcese ran his shoots and Felicia will soothe my brow with a cold compress and we’ll talk about eye creams and dragons.

Right?

Let me know if I’ve forgotten anything.

In a little over a month we’ll be back in Portland. REJOICE! UPRISE! ETCETERA!!!!

There is something I need to address before we fly back to the mothership or sail back to the motherland or drive back to my mother’s house or what have you – something I’ve needed to say out loud for well over two years. Deep breath. This is not going to be pretty.

Dear previous friendships from my previous marriage,

Aside from the two or three of you (Renee, Beth, and Trent) who made attempts to see how I was doing during that long, cold, and confusing time period where I LEFT MY HUSBAND the rest of you can kindly go fuck yourselves.

I will never, ever be able to understand or forgive the late night angry text messages followed by hostile radio silence. I will never understand or forgive “friends” who abandoned me during the time when I needed them most, leaving me to fend for myself and start all over again on my own. I will never understand or forgive your decisions to turn on the person who did NOT go out and spread rumors and lies about their partner but instead stayed in, alone and confused and scared. I will never understand or forgive you for condemning me for finding friendship and eventually, love in a time when I had nothing and no one to turn to.

I’m fine now, thank you. More than fine. And Dane and I are fine. Yes, DANE. Dane, who you all underestimated, who you dismissed as “not good enough for me” or “too soon” or “not cool enough” or “not good looking enough” by whatever shallow standards you had cooked up in your mean little minds.

I realize this post is not funny and it sounds bitter and god yes, it is bitter, but I’ve been holding onto this wound for nearly three years and I can’t pretend anymore like this never happened. I can’t run into any of you and pretend like everything is fine and water off a duck’s back and roll with the punches or whatever because fuck you, you all punched me when I was down. YOU PUNCHED ME.

So go ahead. Be angry. Get angry. Get together and talk and drink and say to each other over and over again, “Is she crazy? What did we ever do to her? Why is she saying this now?” I’m not crazy. I wasn’t strong enough to say it before. You never apologized. Your actions were selfish and you all took the easy way out. You were never my friends.

I went to Portland and my wallet was stolen by evil strippers!

It’s true. It may not have been a stripper, but I was in the bathroom at Sassy’s Strip Club and a girl complimented my hair and suddenly my wallet was gone. She was obviously a criminal mastermind or a first generation grifter. There is no other explanation for the skill with which she separated me from my worldly goods. *throws wallet out the window and continues to brush hair in the mirror*

Other than the wallet stealing, followed by the booze induced, pms infused weeping, my Portland adventure was so much fun. I did not get to see Ferik Penriksen, however, which I don’t want to say contributed to my sobbing breakdown but it TOTALLY CONTRIBUTED TO MY SOBBING BREAKDOWN.

My friends were amazing and started shoving money at my face and making soothing noises and Melissa Lion took me into the bathroom and dried my tears while a stripper inspected her own asshole while simultaneously admonishing us for looking at said asshole. It was weird.

The Nines Hotel was amazing as usual and I wish I hadn’t been so drunk both nights that I slept on top of the covers with the lights still on and one arm draped across my laptop.

Dane had my passport fed ex-ed and I had a funny phone conversation with a nice police officer about my wallet and how sad I was that my MST3K laminated member id was gone forever. I made him put it in the police report. I think he understood.

The bank gave me a temporary debit card and I bought a new 3 dollar wallet at Forever 21. I can only assume it was made by crippled African children to be so inexpensive. At least, I hope it was. I don’t what I mean.

I ate breakfast room service and sang lots of karaoke I don’t remember and hugged Alison Hallett about 500 thousand times and cemented many of my internet friendships (Plumpy and Rob and Graham and Will and ROM and oh EVERYBODY) and then on Thursday we went to Club 21 for Blogtown Trivia and Steve Humphreys and I had a really, really good talk about tv and comics and stuff and I got into a fight with a guy named Abe who hates Twitter but still uses it to send out info about his “art” because “it would be stupid not to”. I had to walk away from him.

And poor Rob was standing there uncomfortably, alternately laughing and visibly wishing he was standing somewhere, ANYWHERE else but with these two people who had decided to fight about a SOCIAL NETWORKING PLATFORM. Bleh bleh bleh.

And for some reason the trivia host hated everything and I don’t know why. I have my theories and they mostly involve the words, “hip” and “ster”.

I know this will get me into trouble but I mean, what’s with the attitude? I know being a trivia host is trying. I’m not kidding. It is. Besides coming up with the questions and categories and bonus questions, the crowd can be total dicks to you about the answers. I know this. But he still hated fun and I can’t support that.

Still, I really enjoyed it and I hope Trivia guy and Abe and myself can all mend our broken friendships and do it again when Dane and I move back to Portland. I have a quick temper because I’m Irish but I let things go fairly easily. I’m also incredibly sensitive, like a unicorn’s belly, and while this is what makes me creative it also makes me a little, uh, easily hurt.

So much more happened but I can’t blog anymore because my fingers are strained from all this unaccustomed typing but I’d like to say that I love Melissa Lion and I hope she had the best birthday ever. Even though I managed to make it all about me. Again.

I’m here. I’m up. I’m typing.

I’ve been busy getting ready for my trip to Portland to see Melissa Lion (BIRTHDAY!) and the Interns™ and the PBT and play Trivia with my Mercury friends and my Fatboy Roberts friends and my Graham “Blogtown’s Best Commenter” friends and Will “I’m now an intern at the Merc because we all come from the Merc and to the Merc we will go to die” Radik friends…etc.

I’ve been busy with some career stuff (kind of) and some Felicia Day stuff (just a little) and oh, I don’t know, THINGS. But I’m back and I don’t want to give up blogging. I just needed a little me time. I’ve still been reading Chris’ blog and Crissy’s blog every day and of course, tweeting the shit out of everything but not writing. Not right now.

Matt Davis told me the anti-depressants might curb my interest in blogging and he was right. They’ve also dulled my pleasure in shopping which is just SO WRONG in so many ways. I still like to shop but its not that same high I used to get every time I’d go into Anthropology and come out with nothing because I’m not a wealthy drug czar but the IDEA of buying 200 dollar sailor pants was enough to make my head tingle and my little toes to go numb with excitement.

Oh well. On the flip side, I don’t worry about going to jail anymore and can once again watch Law and Order without spiraling into a panic attack. Baby steps.