We have returned, more or less intact, from another weekend on Birdsong Hill - more or less, save for the weird sickness that hit me on the way home Monday, and which I passed to Stacy as of last night. No fun, no fun. So it goes.

Otherwise, SSX was a blast. We had a lot of first-timers this year (among them a whole passel o' babbies, including wee Nicholas, who dispensed bumpies with glee and bonded with Eli), and a couple of Events - not least of which was Tony's reunion with Patrick and Bernice after more than a decade, which was wicked cool. (After five minutes of intense geeky tech-talk between Tony and Patrick, Bernice turned to me and said, "Oh my God - it's the Thing with Two Heads again.") As for me, I smoked many pipes, and drank copious amounts of Troeg's Nut-Brown Ale, and made myself terribly popular with a bottle of 12-year-old Jameson. And had, needless to say, a grand time.

To my delight, among the new arrivals was my leetal cousin Dylan (now 23, and towering over me like a juggernaut), who spent some time in amazement that he'd never come out before - "My childhood would've been completely different!" I note that he has also inherited the quick and acerbic wit for which his father was known, though why I should be surprised by that I don't know. (Dylan managed to get me with a zinger that may just have trumped even Jeff McCrady at his best - he turned to me Saturday evening and said, "Is is true we were held up for forty-five minutes today while you were looking for your sunglasses? It's a good thing Stacy caught you before you tried to find your trenchcoat, 'cause God knows we might've had to rescue Morpheus while we were out." And he was such a sweet kid, once upon a time.)

Music was quite good this year, with some new faces onstage. I got to do a, well, ahem, appropo version of "Lucy and I" on Friday, and Tony and Patrick and I and some other assorted folks did a big jam Saturday that was excellent fun. And I had the honor of having a talented kid named Nick come up to me and say, "I'm looking for the guy who wrote 'Lord Vlad,'" and getting to grin wickedly and say, "That'd be me."

Oh, and I turned Patrick on to Exalted, which gave me that "My work is done" feeling for the weekend.

Spent much of the rest of the week laid up and feeling like crap, though I'm much better now, thankyouverymuch. Matt, on the other hand, is much improved after a long weekend on the Hill; you can read all about the fun he had last week over at his blog, where he puts it ever so much better than I could. And speaking of blogs, if you're wondering where the hell Stacy's went, we don't know either, but there's an all-new one at http://stacylk.blogspot.com.

I hold Tempest auditions in a couple of weeks. Wooch. That's both exciting and terrifying. And for those of you following the Full Fathom Five blog - I'll have a new entry soon, darlings, and announce it here when I do.

In the meantime, there's a new Last Dark Art that went up Monday, and had actually generated some discussion. Huzzah! (And it occurs to me that I never announced the last one's going up, but it did, and you can go read it too, here.)

And that's all for now, gentles. Back in a few.