We're home from London!

We're asleep.

Details tomorrow.

Climbing all morning, and a major shopping spree this afternoon. We lost our minds. MP3 players (for the plane ride to London), a memory card for Tony's player 'cause he likes extra music, a memory card for my camera 'cause I like extra pictures, my favorite jeans one size too small so I have no reservations about losing those stress pounds, a new XBox controller, etc. Pretty insane.

But now we're home playing with all our shiny, shiny new toys, so life is good.

I did it -- I finally got the toenail off.

I soaked my foot for an hour first, to soften the nail, and then got serious and... well, you really don't want to know. Certainly one of the grossest things I've had to do. But it was worth it because the Toenail of Evil is now GONE, GONE, GONE and there is even a hint, sort of, of a new nail forming on the nailbed where it used to be.

(Yes, I know it's awful. But I looked up what would happen if you go to the doctor with a problem like this. They inject the top of the toe "2 to 5 times" with anesthetic (shudder) and then use a scalpel (oohhhh noooo) to remove the live nail. Sometimes they have to use one of those little heat tools, like a sautering iron. No thanks. Not for me.

We spent a few hours last night practicing Tony's big speech for the Game Developer's Convention. He's talking about how to handle game licenses (eg. Your Company Bought The Snuggles Fabric Softener Game License And Expects You To Make Something Fun Out Of It) and has to talk for a whole hour straight, to a huge roomful of people. He'll have a microphone and a water bottle and everything. He doesn't seem worried at all and our first runthrough of the speech went fine, yay.

Meanwhile, SuperAgent checked in with the publisher for me. All is going well over there, and it will easily be a few more weeks before I hear anything back about the manuscript or art. This is actually wonderful news beause it means I can prolong my vacation a little. I also intend to start work on the new proposal, and it will be nice to have a little uninterrupted time before life gets insane again.

So Tony got home from Austin, got grossed out by the toe (though he hates to admit it) and then acted like a True Guy: he got out the duct tape. Well, not duct tape, but medical tape. In his thinking, if we tape the toenail down and cover it up then it won't be a problem, especially if I pop an Advil or two.

Works for me.

NO NO NO ... hours have passed and the toenail is still flopping around, and it hurts. I have honestly no idea what to do about this.

Two of my toenails died on the walkathon this year. This is normal. My right big toenail turned black, which means that over the next several months a new nail will gradually grow underneath it, pushing it up. Eventually, it will shed off. I won't feel a thing. Sounds creepy but really no big deal.

My OTHER dead toenail, however, turned white. It started lifting immediately, not giving a new nail time to grow. And today it is FLOPPING up and down on my toe, attached only by a thin edge at the bottom, and under it is NO NEW TOENAIL YET. And, what's worse, it ACHES and HURTS and I can't leave it like that because it will catch on something and TEAR but I can't pull it off because it's still attached, barely, and so I am FREAKING OUT and Tony is in Austin so he can't even look at it with me.

Help!

Blogger is driving me crazy. The settings are identical between the desktop and the laptop, but publish NEVER works on the desktop and works about half the time on the laptop. That means when I write something in here, I have to save it, then move to the bedroom, bring up Blogger again, and cross my fingers as I hope for a publish. Anyone know anything about this? I'm ready to bite the computer.

We had a great weekend, climbing both days and going to the county fair. We also were social bunnies, visiting friends on Sunday and having a pizza party Monday night. But now the fun is on hold again -- Tony is flying to Austin to deal with a developer, and won't be back until Saturday night.

I'm still on vacation. Little things keep cropping up -- the cat was sick for a while, and the big curtain in our bedroom is broken and can't be replaced, so now we have to re-curtain the whole upstairs if we want everything to match -- but basically I'm still Loungasaurus. I don't write anything more complicated than these entries, and the only things I feel like drawing are big, scribbly frogs. Yellow, orange, blue.

We're going to London! Though we've been to lots of more exotic places together, we've never quite made it to London before -- this will mean a new pin in our map. (Yes, we keep a huge world map on a corkboard, and stick pins anywhere we've stayed at least a night or so.) We have our tickets and hotel reservations and everything.

Anyone out there know any good walking routes in the city? We want to see everything, just not through the window of a taxi or a smelly tour bus.

Everything quiet with me, but Tony is busy busy busy. Busy and dizzy -- he's been dizzy for the past hour. Probably stress. I'd love to feed him ooey gooey cookies and milk but we're trying to slim down a bit, so he may be stuck with diet ice cream.

Back from vacation! We went away for a few days to recuperate. We saw sea lions, got massages, and ate pounds & pounds of calamari. Both of us now feeling hugely swollen but otherwise rejuvenated and happy.

(Birthday was grand, thank you all.)

Sent. Delivered. Finito, at least this phase.

SuperAgent tells me that I have at least a few weeks before I can expect to hear anything back about revisions to the the manuscript or art. In the meantime, I'll be asleep. (Or playing computer games. Or cutting Tony's hair. Or cleaning my desk. Or celebrating my birthday. Or making big, goofy, scary paintings of octopuses to hide under the covers and startle Tony with as he climbs into bed.)