tiddly bits

Thanks for all the feedback, guys, and all the amazing support of the book. You all make this process much easier. I'll probably put a book blog together sometime soon, too.

There are now a ludicrous number of pictures on my flickr from last week's Harry and the Potters extravaganza. This doesn't even include the performance pictures, becuase those are going to go in the Leaky Gallery, and the system is giving me trouble. They'll be up soon.

Re-entry from this trip has been a real @*@!#, most noticeable because I've been barely able to stand upright since. That's right, we rocked so hard I got sick. They rocked all the health out of me. Or it could have been the chicken in Montreal, which I shared with someone else who also got sick. But I like the rock explanation better.

Some other tidbits (if you want real details about the actual touring and music that went on, then go to my MySpace; this is just blather):

-Brad of Draco and the Malfoys, otherwise known as Nicest Guy Ever, or, How Can This Guy Be In A Band That Professes To Be Evil?, taught me a drum beat while we were in a basement in Ottawa. He taught me how to do it and let me go, then all of a sudden all the other guys had picked up instruments and started playing, and someting sounding remarkably like Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" came out. It made me feel like a total rock star. There's a recording, too; Adam (whose house we stayed at) said he'd send it to me. Woo hoo.

-So, naturally, with this newfound prowess, me and Emily (friend of HatP who came on tour to do their merchandise) have decided to start a band. Me on drums, she on guitar. We'll own the world. Pictures soon.

-At some point as we were tromping through the ice covered Quebec streets, the gang started likening our crew to Lord of the Rings' fellowship. I was up front talking with Patricia, the booker for the Quebec show, and barely heard the conversation, until two random words wisped into my ears. "Melissa...Gimli." I stopped in my tracks.

"I AM NOT GIMLI!"

Brad promptly shuffled over to tell me that no, I was in fact Eowyn. I laughed hard and told him I appreciated the attempt to kiss my ass, but that I was not Eowyn either. We finally settled on me as Bilbo - the one who traveled for part of the journey, then wrote it all down. Paul seemed to fancy himself Gandalf, to many others' disapproving looks. ("What? I'm a wizard!") Joe was, I believe, a pony of some sort (uh, ok). No one wanted to be Aragorn. That confused me.

-These guys have a really, really bad attitude toward puppies. First night there, they made me join a facebook group called "The Abolition of Puppies," apparently based on a very bad experience they had had a few nights earlier, with puppies walking all over them, peeing on all their stuff, etc. So, everything on the trip became about puppies and how to eat them. By the end of the week I was so indoctrinated that when Paul looked out the window and said, "Puppy!" I automatically said, "Kill it!" We laughed so hard I cried. They're evil, bad, bad, bad people.

-They also destroyed the Canadian National Anthem.

-That title I've been obsessing about finding for my book? The boys claim to have it. "Harry and the Potters, and some other stuff. By Melissa Anelli."

-I've returned home to the messiest house ever and, thanks to the sickness, the absolute lack of will to clean anything. Finally struggled through unpacking and had help cleaning, and just want to curl up and sleep for awhile.

-I'm calling this disease Puppy Flu.