Nekkid, Clueless and Feelin' Good: August 31, 2001

Friday,
August 31, 2001
MILLENNIUM PHILCON - DAY TWO

Whoosh ZING

For me, the day was spent dressing up in my SFWA Musketeer uniform and participating in the hour-long fencing demo at noon with such luminaries as Elizabeth Moon, Kristine Smith, Laura Underwood, Jody Lynn Nye and Madeline Robins, then dashing back to the hotel and showering off the quarter-inch of sweat all over my body, grabbing a fast lunch and a couple of panels, then dressing up in my beautiful new gown (with the Order of the Cheeble holding up my shawl) and heading off to the HarperCollins/Eos publishing party at the Academy of Natural Sciences with Kristine (our hostess), Julia, Derek, Derek's friend Philip, Rachel and James Hartman.

I love publishing parties. Our haul was a slew of free hardcovers (including the newest Bujold, McHugh, Silverberg and Cherryh), free drinks and nibbles, and lots of chances to talk with people in the industry, including an absolute lamb named John Adams who's the new slush reader at F&SF (and yes, we asked him to change the F&SF toner cartridge). Later, Derek accused me of shamelessly flirting with John in order to gain name recognition. Is it my fault I looked particularly fetching that evening?

Derek, Philip and I wound up walking back to the hotel (oh, my aching tootsies) and I did some more door dragon duty at the SFWA Suite with Julia, then we fled down to the lobby for a restorative Bailey's and talk with various folks. At some point Derek and Philip wound up joining us, and we decided that we needed something to eat before we went to bed.

So, at 1:00 am, we headed off into downtown Philly in search of an all-night diner, after hiding our con badges on the basis that it wasn't all that smart to advertise the fact that we were from out of town. And by gosh, we found an open diner just a few blocks from the hotel -- fairly decent gyros, and Derek reported that the Western omelette wasn't bad. I think we made it back to the hotel around 2:00 am, and were in bed by 2:30 am.

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