Under the shadow of the god of the forge...

I've been in Birmingham for about a month and a half now, and it's been quite a change from my time in Atlanta. I live close to UAB, so I bike or walk the two miles to class (except for that time that a policeman decided to give me a ride to school). Sometimes I cut through Five Points South because the walk is nicer; other times I stop off at Lucy's Coffee and Tea, a small café on University Boulevard. I like to stop by Forest Perk, another coffee shop that is open later than Lucy's, so I can do homework there.

I can see the sun set over Birmingham from my living room window.


I run a fair amount still; I also work out/play in the parks near my apartment. I go to a small local grocery for most of my produce needs and I can buy local and regional produce pretty easily. That Man came to visit me and we played house for a weekend. We ate well; we also went barhopping, so now I know some good places to go.

For me, Birmingham is full of unexpected moments. I've gone to a park to exercise and ended up fencing with rapiers with some gentlemen from the local SCA. As mentioned above, I've gotten a lift to school from a police officer, who didn't want to make me walk to school in the rain. I've mingled with some great local (and not so local) musicians at the Nick. On one of my lowest days, I ran into a friend from the con-scene while he was going into work and I was leaving class. I don't fit here, not yet, but I feel like maybe I could. Everyone plans around football games, though, which is a totally foreign concept to me.

I went to Dragon*Con (with That Man, of course!) to help promote PlayOnCon. I was all kinds of loopy by the end of the weekend. A friend got this snap of That Man tolerating my goofiness at the promo table.



I took one of the guinea pigs to the park, where she ate grass and didn't get eaten by dogs. These were taken today:





And yours truly in my new Real Deal Brazil hat. It's made of recycled truck tarps.