For my second night of HARD WEEKEND PARTYING, for no particular reason on this here balmy Saturday night I decided to get my free annual credit report from the big three credit agencies.  WOOO!!!  Seriously though, it was painless and I highly recommend you do it if you haven't done it lately.  Doing this takes like 5 minutes, and while it doesn't give you your credit score, it does show you a list of your open and closed credit accounts according to the Big Three credit reporting agencies (TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax) so you can make sure there aren't any accounts opened in your name that you didn't authorize.  You can also see what companies have done a "soft credit check" on you so they can send you those annoying free "you've been pr-approved!" offers in the mail... these soft credit checks don't impact your credit score, but it's interesting to see who's been sniffing around.

So, to get your free annual credit reports from each of the big three go to AnnualCreditReport.com which sounds scammy, but it's the only site the government has approved).  It is totally free, painless, and a good idea.  (Some folks like to check all three agencies at once, once per year. Other folks like to pick one agency in January, another agency in May, and the final agency a few in Septemberish, just so you can keep a more constant eyeball throughout the year.  I'm not that vigilant, so doing all three at once was just ducky for me.)

Also: Fortune Magazine told me that as of September 21st, a new law went into effect that says that the big three credit reporting agencies must offer you the ability to freeze your credit for free.  Freezing your credit is a good idea, and it is painless.  A credit freeze simply means that nobody can apply for credit under your name while the freeze is in place... not even you.  So if/when you want to apply for a new credit card or get a loan or whatever, just jump back online and unfreeze your account, which takes two seconds.  So clicky on the Fortune Magazine linky at the top of this paragraph here, and it'll take you right to the Free Freeze pages for the Big Three.

Enjoy!

Hi, all!

July 4th, seeing the folks; parental update

Spent July 4th up at my folks' place. I sometimes feel guilty that they don't have any friends who invite them to hang out on holidays, so late on the 3rd Matt and I decided to head up to their place. Was happy to see them.

My dad has been battling this mystery ailment where food tastes BAD (like decidedly awful), and it's been like this for about 6-8 weeks. Because of this, he doesn't really like to eat anymore, so his energy is crap now. I'm worried about him. Not sure what the fix is, but his doctors ordered him labwork and everything came back OK, except for low sodium. (Which is funny, considering he always would eat salty snacks and put a crap-ton of salt on his food. But he doesn't eat the salty snacks anymore because of how awful everything tastes... hence his now-too-low sodium. I find it so fascinating that the body craves what it knows it needs.)

Work/money/gigs

In other news, I have no work lined up and it is scary. We also have no Hot Breakfast gigs scheduled.  We must remedy these things.

My book royalty checks have been keeping me afloat in these non-workin' times... but last month's book royalty check was $105. For the record, $105 does not pay the mortgage.  (The reason the book royalty check was so small was because my book is sold by two different companies: Pearson (my publisher) and SafariBooksOnline.com (a reseller). 99% of my book sales come from Safari, and Safari didn't get their monthly sales numbers to Pearson in time for the May royalty check (which I receive in June) because of Memorial Day.  No biggie... my July royalty check will have both May and June's royalties in there. But I can't tell my mortgage company to just wait a month.

What else can I update you on...

Lizzie

I dunno if y'all remember, but I was asked to audition for and got cast in Lizzie, which is a four-woman hard-rock musical based on Lizzie Borden. I play Emma, Lizzie's very pissed off and much-older sister.  The show was supposed to go up in April, but the theater was having trouble securing the space (they lease space from Opera Delaware) for rehearsals and the show dates. So the show got pushed back and pushed back, and got pushed back so far that we lost our Lizzie because she had plans to move to California in July, which she just did.  So anyhoo, things have solidified, and rehearsals officially start next week for a September run.  The girl we got to replace our original Lizzie is wonderful, so I'm excited about that. I am 20-ish years older than the other cast members... curious how we'll interact. Also curious what the costumers are thinking about dressing us in. I've seen some photos from some productions where the cast is in lingerie and/or BSDM gear. I've seen others where they are dressed all emo/goth. And then there are others where the girls are wearing period-appropriate clothes. So I dunno.  All I know is I desperately need a haircut and dye job, but I don't know if they'll want my nutty Jill Hair, or if they're gonna stick a wig on me.  I'll know more in 2 weeks, I guess!

Golden Anniversary 

This weekend is Matt's parents' 50th Anniversary party (their actual anniversary is tomorrow). Tonight (Friday) we're having a small family get-together, and then tomorrow (Saturday) is the big soirée at a restaurant. They planned it themselves and also said "No gifts, we mean it!" which essentially makes us look like jerks. My mom used to do that all the time... she'd book her own party and then would make everyone feel like a shitbird* for not throwing a party for her.

Allrighty-- gonna try to catch a 40-minute nap before we head to Matt's folks' for Anniversary Dinner Round 1.

Hope all is well.

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* "Shitbird." Thanks, Gas-Man!