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marinessThe internet here is attempting to kill me. Let's see if this works:
Days 2-5, Con:
Completely unexpected moment of awesomeness: singing folk songs with various people, including, if I am remembering correctly,tithenai, sevenravens, csecooney and Ellen Kushner and others at the Goblin Fruit party and launch of wirewalking's new chapbook, Demon Lovers and Other Difficulties. I thought we were just going to eat things. (I also ate things. One very good reason to buy wirewalking's novel, Desideria, is so that she can have the money and time to make more homemade mead.)
Alas, I overdid things Thursday, and I have to be honest here, most of Friday, outside of a highly entertaining dinner and getting to meet a couple new people, pretty much sucked; I felt horrible for most of the day, even with a nap, and unfortunately, watching other people have a marvelous time when you're feeling like crap is not as cheery as you might think, which left me, post the Meet the Pros party that night, feeling pretty low, unloved, and sick, and regretting coming.
So I almost stayed in bed the next morning, which would have been a great pity, since things improved.
More enjoyable than most of the panels: Readercon's Kaffeeklasches, where basically you sit around and chat with various writers in a nice small round group, which lets you and everyone else get into a spirited discussion with Samuel Delany about grammar and the Elizabethan poet Wyatt.
Less enjoyable than most of the panels: the diversity panel, which started out amusingly and then, well…disintegrated, but I think I'll letkate_nepveu chat about this for me. This led into an overly interesting conversation with Kate, which led to me standing too long, which led to fall one, which led to fall two, which led to fall three. Much thanks to the numerous people that helped me here, and luckily, a long nap and getting to meet new people at dinner revived me.
Most enjoyable part of the con: the impromptu Goblin Fruit and others singing thingy Saturday night (yes, MORE singing); much thanks to Ellen Kushner for bringing me and to everyone there for tolerating my voice.
The Sunday morning panels on short fiction deserve their own separate post.
Most how did I end up doing this moment: singing Lillibulero, and badly, to Gene and Margaret Wolfe. How…yeah. This was NOT at the above mentioned singing thing and naturally my voice cracked everywhere and I sounded awful. Oh well. Incidentally I was delighted to find that Gene Wolfe is another huge fan of the often underlooked and forgotten Ruth Plumly Thompson, who continued to write Oz books after Baum did. Thanks tocsecooney for helping this otherwise awesome (except the singing) conversation to happen.
Most expectedly popular item: Everybody loved my teddy bear backpack (ha, ha, to certain central Florida critics!), large enough to hold a netbook, my wallet, a brush, my iPod, and an actual book book all all once, even those who wanted to know if it came with a netbook. For the curious, I purchased the backpack at the Canada Pavillion at Epcot; I have no idea if it's available elsewhere.
Proof that memory fails us all: Editor, to me: Wait, your name is familiar. Don't I know you?
Me: Yes, you're publishing me in the fall.
Editor: (pause) Do you remember the title? I'm better with titles.
Me: (pause) Er. No.
Editor: I feel better.
Me: I'm really bad with titles.
Best part of the con: the bookstore. It just gave me a warm feeling all over.
Worst bit of the con: the bookstore. I found 23 books that I wanted and couldn't afford. (I counted.) It was awful. Some people, and I am looking directly at you, Small Beer Press, made it even worse by dazzling little books on amazing sale prices that I still couldn't afford. Clearly I need to win the lottery and buy a huge mansion with eight bedrooms, seven of which can be turned into libraries. Well. Maybe six, to accommodate the occasional guest. Who could bring more books. Works for everyone.
Related: finding the utterly perfect birthday gift for my father, an antique Mongolian sideboard for the reduced price of $19,999, plus free shipping. (Actually shipping wasn't mentioned and I may have needed to add several hundred to that price, given the weight of the thing.) That didn't actually happen at the con but it just popped into my mind.
Most irritating moments: every time I attempted to connect to the internet, or lack thereof, particularly odd since this was a) a business hotel and b) a business hotel charging the insane rate of $12.95 PER DAY for internet access. At that price I expect a zippy connection, which wasn't there.
Most disappointing part of the con: I gotta say, the tracks. Admittedly, I didn't hit many of them, but those I did were mostly meh, with the exception of the future of short fiction panels, about which, more later.
Day 5, post Con
Harrison Ford is pretty.
That is all.
*********
Much thanks to the many, many people who helped me navigate the con this weekend. I am probably going to write something fairly negative about disability issues later, but I did want to thank the many people who did NOT fall into the disability fail category, particularly the people after the bad fall on Saturday afternoon - I did not get your names and I meant to thank you publicly. If you are one of those people, please comment so you can get your deserved kudos.
Days 2-5, Con:
Completely unexpected moment of awesomeness: singing folk songs with various people, including, if I am remembering correctly,
tithenai, sevenravens, csecooney and Ellen Kushner and others at the Goblin Fruit party and launch of wirewalking's new chapbook, Demon Lovers and Other Difficulties. I thought we were just going to eat things. (I also ate things. One very good reason to buy wirewalking's novel, Desideria, is so that she can have the money and time to make more homemade mead.) Alas, I overdid things Thursday, and I have to be honest here, most of Friday, outside of a highly entertaining dinner and getting to meet a couple new people, pretty much sucked; I felt horrible for most of the day, even with a nap, and unfortunately, watching other people have a marvelous time when you're feeling like crap is not as cheery as you might think, which left me, post the Meet the Pros party that night, feeling pretty low, unloved, and sick, and regretting coming.
So I almost stayed in bed the next morning, which would have been a great pity, since things improved.
More enjoyable than most of the panels: Readercon's Kaffeeklasches, where basically you sit around and chat with various writers in a nice small round group, which lets you and everyone else get into a spirited discussion with Samuel Delany about grammar and the Elizabethan poet Wyatt.
Less enjoyable than most of the panels: the diversity panel, which started out amusingly and then, well…disintegrated, but I think I'll let
kate_nepveu chat about this for me. This led into an overly interesting conversation with Kate, which led to me standing too long, which led to fall one, which led to fall two, which led to fall three. Much thanks to the numerous people that helped me here, and luckily, a long nap and getting to meet new people at dinner revived me.Most enjoyable part of the con: the impromptu Goblin Fruit and others singing thingy Saturday night (yes, MORE singing); much thanks to Ellen Kushner for bringing me and to everyone there for tolerating my voice.
The Sunday morning panels on short fiction deserve their own separate post.
Most how did I end up doing this moment: singing Lillibulero, and badly, to Gene and Margaret Wolfe. How…yeah. This was NOT at the above mentioned singing thing and naturally my voice cracked everywhere and I sounded awful. Oh well. Incidentally I was delighted to find that Gene Wolfe is another huge fan of the often underlooked and forgotten Ruth Plumly Thompson, who continued to write Oz books after Baum did. Thanks to
csecooney for helping this otherwise awesome (except the singing) conversation to happen.Most expectedly popular item: Everybody loved my teddy bear backpack (ha, ha, to certain central Florida critics!), large enough to hold a netbook, my wallet, a brush, my iPod, and an actual book book all all once, even those who wanted to know if it came with a netbook. For the curious, I purchased the backpack at the Canada Pavillion at Epcot; I have no idea if it's available elsewhere.
Proof that memory fails us all: Editor, to me: Wait, your name is familiar. Don't I know you?
Me: Yes, you're publishing me in the fall.
Editor: (pause) Do you remember the title? I'm better with titles.
Me: (pause) Er. No.
Editor: I feel better.
Me: I'm really bad with titles.
Best part of the con: the bookstore. It just gave me a warm feeling all over.
Worst bit of the con: the bookstore. I found 23 books that I wanted and couldn't afford. (I counted.) It was awful. Some people, and I am looking directly at you, Small Beer Press, made it even worse by dazzling little books on amazing sale prices that I still couldn't afford. Clearly I need to win the lottery and buy a huge mansion with eight bedrooms, seven of which can be turned into libraries. Well. Maybe six, to accommodate the occasional guest. Who could bring more books. Works for everyone.
Related: finding the utterly perfect birthday gift for my father, an antique Mongolian sideboard for the reduced price of $19,999, plus free shipping. (Actually shipping wasn't mentioned and I may have needed to add several hundred to that price, given the weight of the thing.) That didn't actually happen at the con but it just popped into my mind.
Most irritating moments: every time I attempted to connect to the internet, or lack thereof, particularly odd since this was a) a business hotel and b) a business hotel charging the insane rate of $12.95 PER DAY for internet access. At that price I expect a zippy connection, which wasn't there.
Most disappointing part of the con: I gotta say, the tracks. Admittedly, I didn't hit many of them, but those I did were mostly meh, with the exception of the future of short fiction panels, about which, more later.
Day 5, post Con
Harrison Ford is pretty.
That is all.
*********
Much thanks to the many, many people who helped me navigate the con this weekend. I am probably going to write something fairly negative about disability issues later, but I did want to thank the many people who did NOT fall into the disability fail category, particularly the people after the bad fall on Saturday afternoon - I did not get your names and I meant to thank you publicly. If you are one of those people, please comment so you can get your deserved kudos.