I am home, exhausted but happy, after three wonderful days with most of the usual Horbling suspects, gingerpig, ruric, lonelybrit, vampirefever, eatenbyweasels, princess_s, esmerelda_t, vic_amy_z, sometimeredhead, and one new face, Claire - the second Brit that gingerpig has picked up and adopted in LA. She finds us the bestest toys! ;)

The journey there was an adventure. Over 9hrs of travelling, on two buses, three trains (including a missed connection) and a taxi ride which was diverted by the police due to something involving a lot of red flashing lights and a 500yd section of blocked-off road. After a detour down dark, narrow lanes that even the cab driver wasn't sure about, I finally arrived and immediately changed into my PJs and poured a drink. I'd earned it!

Between gloriously inappropriate and TMI conversations, there was much fandom discussion and pimping and squeeing. There was also, of course, a fair amount of TV viewing. There was F1 for vampirefever, Merlin for lonelybrit, princess_s & co, and X factor for... just about everybody but me and ruric, I think. And then there was the 'media screening room', where Glee was cooed and awwwed over, and Father Ted was sniggered at and quoted.

We also watched two movies I've been seen mentioned on my flist every now and again for absolutely ages, but which have never actually caught my interest sufficient to get me hunting them down.

spikedluv, about your tiny 'Shelter' obsession? I get it now, I really do. We might have watched that first petting and kissing scene over again, once or twice. And I'm sure that at least one ovary in the room exploded during the 'pretty men in love and wrestling on the beach while accompanied by a child and OMG!SURPRISE!PUPPY!' scene.

The second one was 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch', a very odd movie indeed, and very enjoyable. I may have to hunt down the soundtrack at some point, because some of the music was worth adding to a playlist or two. (Yes, it's a musical. No, it's not the beginning of a disturbing trend.... *is disturbed*)

Sunday, as is now our tradition, we all wandered down to the local pub for lunch, where they stash us away in an annexe right by the kitchen and far enough away from the local clientele that we don't traumatise them too much. There, as is apparently also becoming tradition, we were waited on by a very pretty young thing - blond, big smile, and almost certainly jailbait. I think they view us as a trial by fire - breaking in the new kids before the Xmyth rush. If they can survive us, they can survive anything!

He controlled his terror quite well, I thought, and even said 'dick' six times. (I believe lonelybrit was the one who kept count, but I could be wrong.) And before you all start getting the wrong idea, it was the dessert menu that got him dicking around - Spotted dick, to be precise. Yet another 'Horbling goes to the Pub' tradition, as a matter of fact. Six times is something of a record though, and, I'm halfway convinced the kitchen staff put him up to it, maybe even had a bet how many times he could say it without gingerpig exploding in a giggly mess all over the table (again). ;)

I got a surprising amount of writing done this weekend. On the journey north, I spent a couple of hours typing onehanded... because I had to have the laptop off to one side due to the smallness of the seat-back trays and the largeness of my laptop. There may also have been associated belly issues. :P

Once settled at Horbling, there was more laptop use, and also various scribblings in various notebooks. More than one, yes, for I am not to be found without pad and pens. For the first time ever, I was, I believe, the writiest person there. *iz all accomplished*

More Glee was produced, as were some additions to a couple of Slade/Dick pieces I have in progress, and almost all of a spontaneous short Batman/Flash for my (still valid, to me at least) BatFlash prompt table.

There was also world-building going on. Thanks to ruric and lonelybrit, I now have even more of the Glee Prison AU in my head. I have added more characters, given Kurt a backstory and a childhood trauma that helped make him the adorable little psycho he is today, and made Burt only a bit of a bastard. For now. Finn is also there, as clueless as ever and just as culpable. :D

And I do believe that is all I can remember of Horbling right now. Well, that and the outstanding company in general, the amazing food, the woman-eating toilet (the seat kept trying to throw me in!), the free-flowing booze... Oh! And the cake! The CostCo Cake of Awesome, provided by the newest Horblite, Claire. There was at least as much icing as there was sponge cake. I like that in a cake. :D

(I hope I've got the name right, btw. I just picked a spelling and didn't think to verify. *g*)

Aaaaaaaaaand that's all the fun stuff, but there will be another post about less-fun-but-still-fandom stuff going up in an hour or so. Ho hum.

What have you all been doing while I've been off having fun? Link me to the good stuff in comments! And PM or YIM me links to the bad stuff, plzkthx. ;)

*hugs you all*

♥