Lakeshore

My only programming today was the Liars' Panel at 10 am. It went off quite well, considering the hour. After that is was a long day of conversations and hallway meetings, plus Howard Waldrop's valedictory reading, then dinner with my aunt and cousins (attended also by mme_publisher), and finally the dead dog.

Flying home in the morning. Ah, Oregon, where it shouldn't be 100 degrees.

Arrived at the hotel in time to go to lunch with a small crowd. Mmm, Mangia Pizza. Got back, did a chapter of Escapement, then loitered in the bar with a bunch of very intelligent reprobates (conversation ranged from railroad pulps to the way people read), did meet-the-pros, went to Maureen McHugh's reading, then had my own. I read "Witness to the Fall", which I wrote recently and virtually no one has seen.

Breakfast tomorrow with davidlevine and kateyule (yes, we live in the same town), the autographing and the Howard Waldrop interview. I like it here, but there's a slightly odd overlay of seeing old friends with new eyes. The world changes, and so do I.

I'm in Austin, as previously mentioned. About to head for a pre-A'con luncheon. My ambitious blogging plans for this morning were sidetracked by visiting with my old friends here (I've known JE for 17 years), so I guess I'm already on Con time...

Irregular posting this weekend, obviously.

tillyjane's middle sister's youngest daughter's oldest daughter (got that?) has been visiting Portland from Austin. Ie, my cousin's kid. She was recently a supporting actress in a independent horror film called Pathogen [ imdb ]. She brought a rough cut of the movie.

It was made by a 6th/7th grade classmate of hers, and stars kids and parents from her jr. high, and is mostly set around the school. Part of it was filmed in her house, and her mom, my cousin, is an extra with a few speaking lines. We watched it at lillypond's house, with my cousin's kid providing commentary.

The movie didn't go over well with the_child, so we wound up watching Sponge Bob Square Pants in the basement with the Niece. (That was the true horror as far as I'm concerned.) Things got a little stressy afterwards over what the movie meant, with discussions about the boundary between imagination and reality.

A lot more work than I expected, this evening turned out to be.

Courtesy of gigica( ... )

I am now trying to remember what all we did at the Three Tor-eadors party. I know bram452, Jeff VanderMeer and I had declined to wear spangled tights or mouse-eared berets, so it never reached the possible heights of camp.

I think people sang the Almond Joy song, sang the Light Beer song, serenaded me (John O'Neill, are you reading?), juggled pumpkins while singing show tunes, played live-action "Before I Kill You, Mr. Bond" with Chris Nakashima-Brown in the title role, did the chicken dance, and danced the time warp with Mad Jack "Hal Duncan" Springheels calling the tune. If you were there, am I leaving anything out?

Come to think of it, gigica, M.T. Reiten and I were asked to be quiet at the Tor party Friday night because other people couldn't hear their conversations. (Being too loud at the Tor party?)

The weekend is starting to come back to me, and I am wincing.

(Oh, and don't forget to ask M.T. Reiten about boweldiesel the next time you run into him.)

ETA: rajankhanna points out there was the shirtless, hirsute Conan competition. And kenscholes deserves props for being the perpetrator in chief of the serendae.

Ok, one more thing right now. John Klima took ( this photo of me at WFC. )

Kind of says it all, I think.

Home now, sans luggage and courtesy of a bumpy landing (though it didn't make my top 5 bad landings of my flying lifetime). Sat with mme_publisher on the way back, in the cheap seats, debriefing WFC at exhaustive length much to the annoyance of all our neighbors.

My best line of the flight, "There's not a lot of men's adventure shorts."

Which reminds of my (maybe) best line of the weekend, "I used to write a lot of crap, now I write a better grade of crap."

Maybe that could be my next button:

Jay Lake: A Better Grade of Crap

Of course, someone said to me on Sunday, "Didn't I see you wielding a pumpkin last night?" That has a certain ring to it as well.

Lots to say, about politics, writing (especially a riff on colonialist guilt and writing the other), travel and more, but not til later.

Meanwhile, as my aunt and I wandered around Lockhart obsessively photographing doorknobs, finials, pediments and other architectural details (about which more later, and, yes, cars), ( here is something from the Dr. Eugene Clark Library to delight us all: )

darinbradley has photographic evidence I was there.

Which is good, because I'm pretty fuzzy today. Slept 11-1/2 hours last night. Now at the Austin airport awaiting my (delayed) flight home. I swear mme_publisher was on this flight, but I haven't seen here yet. Maybe she can remind me what else I did. I'll attempt something of a Con report tonight or tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure I had a good time.

And bravado111 is the first winner of the Bounty on the Mutiny contest.

Awake. Throat hurts. No voice.

On the plus side, I got a whole lot of people to do the Chicken Dance last night, and Hal Duncan does an awesome Time Warp.

Pack now.

WFAs were fun. Sadly for us, Polyphony 5 did not take the Best Anthology category. Three Tor-e-adors party was fun, kind of wild. We gave away stuff and drank lots. Hosting is exhausting. So is staying up past 3 am. More later.

Off to the banquet shortly, and the three Tor-eadors party after. Night Shade sold out of their con stock of Trial of Flowers this morning, apparently the most books they've ever sold of a single title at a convention.

Friday at WFC was excellent. Had face time with casacorona and arcaedia, Trial of Flowers is selling well in the dealers' room, and the party circuit didn't kill me. What more could I want? Far more shout-outs than I can remember this morning, and LiveJournal has been behaving very oddly since last night, when I did something I don't normally do (ban a user), and I've been trying to figure out if I somehow wibbed my settings by doing that, or if it's just sucking wind.

Hanging out today, a number of casual meetings, then the WFA banquet where I'll lose my third WFA, then the Three Toreadors party. Off to the races.

Nice day here at the Con. Messed around a bit this morning, made it over to the main hotel with bravado111 around 10. Long day of bouncing into and off of folks, old friends and new. Too many shoutouts to do justice here, including several dozen LJ'ers, but it was nice to see so many. My reading at 5 pm was attended by about 30 people, perhaps half of whom I did not know. (I read "Promises", the City Imperishable story which will be in Moonlit Domes.) Dinner was a largish affair which broke my own rule by including a number of Northwest folks, but was quite fun regardless, followed by a number of hours in the bar and at the Tor partylet, including a long chat with gigica to wind up the evening.

More tomorrow...I'm very happy to be here.

Long day yesterday. Arrived in Austin, as previously mentioned, enjoyed Mangia (and yes, JeffV, stuffed is the ONLY way to go), and was off to the races. Borrowed a car from Slugtriber SH, picked up bravado111 and matociquala at the airport, then did some sightseeing.

We visited tillyjane's old home on Guererro Street in Del Valle, TX (now a vacant lot), then cruised a lot of my old Austin haunts, plus a Mt. Bonnell trip and run around the 360 loop.

After that we hooked back up with SH for a haul to the Salt Lick with various Slugtribe types, including zanybrain and stinabat, plus stillsostrange and Mr. stillsostrange.

Post Salt Lick, bravado111, matociquala, the stillsostranges, Slugtriber stinabat and I all went to a Goth club. (Yes, I was in aloha drag.) Being uncool middle aged white men, bravado111 and I bailed before midnight -- that and having been up some 20+ hours at that point were real incentives for me to go sleep.

WFC today. Expect continued light blogging.

2,600 words, plus a 90 minute nap, in transit from Omaha to Austin. Yay! Currently eating lunch at Mangia Pizza, an old favorite that used to rank among the best pizza I'd ever eaten. We'll see. Salt Lick tonight with the Slug Tribe, bravado111 and matociquala. See a lot of you tomorrow!

:: stretchs ::

:: yawns ::

:: runs into door ::

:: leaves for airport ::