Con Babble 2

31 August 2002

Whew. Well. Yesterday went pretty well -- I enjoyed it despite a few glitches. Timprov...I would say "felt better," but I'm not sure how much better he felt. He summoned the force of will to get vertical, showered, and more-or-less put together, though, and we all headed down to San Jose. Mark dropped T and me off and went up to Palo Alto for his meeting at work. We had intended to go to the Pitching A Novel panel, but evidently 2/3rds of the con had the same intentions, because it was jammed to the gills. So we went to the Worldbuilding panel instead and then skipped out for James Van Pelt's reading. Ran into Zak and Sharon just after leaving a note for Zak and Sharon (and sundry others), so we went to the Hilton restaurant and I had a snack and they all had real food. (Yes! A meal for Timprov that stuck with him! First one since Tuesday!) So that was good.

T and I met up with Thomas and Corie, left a note for Mark detailing where we would be for the rest of our natural lives (we had Plans), and headed out for coffee. Mark met up with us there. Then T and I went to the Historical Fantasy panel (Pat Murphy, Delia Sherman, Kage Baker, Diana Paxson, and poor David Coe, who was alone in having no historical lingerie stories), and he actually had a question, which I have not had so far. (I have pet peeve con questions now, though. The people who stand up to tell the panelists what to read. Don't like that. Also when they mix up who has said what and their own personal interests into a totally incoherent whole and ask someone a question that purports to be about something she said but was not. In sentences as confusing as that last one. Hate that.) We met up with Mark again, after his Bujold reading, and said hi and bye to Wendy and Daniel for about the tenth time (I'm going to get to actually talk to at least one of them before this con is over!) and headed to the SFF.net suite to hear Lawrence Schoen read.

Mark needed food -- I'd eaten enough, but I was happy to go with him -- so we planned to meet up with Timprov at the Eggplant Productions chocolate party. Mark got a burger at Johnny Rockett's, and that was it. They had totally underestimated the influx of fen, or the appetites of fen, or something, because they were out of fries and onion rings and bacon. Which seem like bad things for a burger place to be out of. Anyway, back we went to the Fairmont, where we got totally lost looking for the Analog/Asimov's party. So we went to the chocolate party and found out we'd been on the wrong floor entirely. Sigh. But the chocolate party was muchly cool, and I determined that I do not like Kahlua shots, even when they are served in happy little chocolate sipping cups. Good thing to know (how can it be so sad in shot form when it is so happy mixed with ice cream and chocolate syrup?). I wandered over to the Minnesotan party and chatted a bit about "Butterhead" with the Minnesotans, and then, having found the correct location for the Analog/Asimov's party, went in search of Stan Schmidt, who had said I should look for him there or after a panel. But he had fled, and after awhile, we fled, too, because it was insane in there, really loud and hot and very, very crowded. Back up for a refreshing bit of chocolate, and then we came home.

Whew.

I got to meet Blunt, who introduced himself as Bluejack, so I don't know if he calls his journal that because it's his nickname or if he was just referencing that because it's how I know him. Also met Tempest three or four times before I got to chat with her for even a split second. She was in secret agent mode wearing a false name on her badge, but I knew it was her anyway. Partly because very few other strangers were likely to hug me upon recognizing me, and possibly fewer were likely to get away with it. Oh, and I met David Barr Kirtley for a second or two -- he's one of the other past Asimov Award winners -- and had a hard time chatting with him, because he looked so different from what I expected. Don't know why he had dark hair in my brain...anyway. Met lots of Clarionites, some people whose books I'd read, generally cool stuff, had a good day.

Came home exhausted, and off we go this morning again, just Mark and me this time. Do you know what I like about Raechel Henderson Moon? Well, she bought my story, that was a good start, but besides that. She understands about not really being an extrovert, just playing one on the internet, and at cons etc. She totally understands about being able to chat and be animated and perhaps even a bit hyper but have it exhaust you. I saw her behaving pretty much exactly as I would have behaved, at the chocolate party, had I been running it. That was nice, comforting: I'm not the only one.

All right, I've got to pick out music for in the car and see whether I can find shoes that will not hurt my feet any further. Thursday I wore my brown sandals and got blisters on the bottoms of my feet. Yesterday I wore my black sandals, and my feet became immediately very tired. I think I'm going to have to stick with the black ones. Ack. Anyway. We're off. More con babble tomorrow, I assure you.

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