The past several weeks have been fairly hectic, as you can tell if you follow me over at Twitter. I’ve been trying to nurse my burned right hand back to health, and it’s mostly there, I’m just waiting for the coloration and pigment to come back fully – but that’ll take more time than anything else. Some of my coworkers don’t particularly care for the smell of cocoa butter lotion, but I have to tell you – it’s the best thing to prevent scarring and to help the natural color come back to your skin as quickly as possible.

I’ve also been tidying up my apartment and finishing my spring cleaning bout. I know, I started my little spring cleaning initiative in April, but at least I managed to finish before the end of June. I called the fine folks at 1-800-Got-Junk to come by and remove my old stupid-heavy TV as well as a ton of other crap that I’ve collected over the moves and never made myself throw away, and I finally finished setting up my spare bedroom as a spare bedroom as well as a library. The incredibly comfortable futon from the living room that had served as a living room couch has been moved into it and set up as a bed, replaced by an actual plush and comfy couch that I snagged from my parent’s house during a weekend joyride in a U-Haul cargo van.

Although giving credit where credit is due, if it weren’t for Raevyn, I would never have managed to get that couch up the stairs to my apartment from the back of the U-Haul truck. We both promptly collapsed on it after getting it into my living room.

I’m also locked in for Otakon, pre-registered and everything. The hotel room is in my name, and although I’ll miss the company of Paul and his friend who were planning on coming, there is something to say for the room not being crowded, and again it’ll be the dream team of Raevyn, Rae, Hannah, and I. I have some figures on my wishlist this year, and maybe a few hard to find box sets if there are any, but that’s about it. Nothing huge and major – no artbooks or wallscrolls or must-have posters or bags. Even so, it’s nice being able to go to Otakon and be free to look and shop around and have a good time no matter what. I’m also thrilled because the lovely Kittyhawk, author and artist behind Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki will be back this year and she’ll even be doing a panel that I have every intention of attending.

I’ve also been working tirelessly to keep up with my writing – it’s not that it’s been too difficult, but I’ve been taking on more writing assignments lately to push myself a little harder and make sure I make the time to do more writing, and so far it’s been working out. Just last week another piece of mine was published over at Tom’s Guide, a list of must-have smartphone apps for vacationers, regardless of the smartphone you own. I’m pretty proud of it – it was a good bit of research to get all of those apps together.

Additionally, I’ve been helping my mother set up her own blog, and I’ve been helping administer it behind the scenes by approving comments and tidying up the formatting on the posts if it’s out of whack at all. I haven’t spoken about it publicly very much, but since my mother is comfortable talking about it, there’s no reason I shouldn’t be: her blog is where she’s been writing about her faith, her day-to-day, and her struggle with cancer. I love her dearly, and I’m glad that writing is proving as cathartic for her in this troublesome time as it is for me on a day to day basis. Keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

As usual, you know that music tends to be the most comforting thing for me in times of stress or just general business, and I’ve all but caught up with my backlog of episodes of Freefall Radio, hosted by one very talented David Bassin. I literally run through episodes at the office like candy – partially because the music helps me think, and partially because if I don’t have my noise-canceling headphones on, people take that as a reason to interrupt me while I’m working.

It’s those constant interruptions that are the real time-sink at the office, and when I talk about wanting to manage my time effectively so I can get my day job done and do my writing, I think that alone is the biggest challenge for me to date – people just hanging around to talk long after it’s clear the course of the conversation is over, or the constant office distractions that return again and again.

Anyway, today is the 4th of July! It’s time to grill up some burgers and dogs and have a good time. I’ll see what fireworks I can see tonight, if any – I may be content to watch the fireworks from the national mall on my plasma today in HD: no sense fighting a crowd to see things blow up when I can watch them endlessly with a burger in my face from home and do a little gaming in the interrim!