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Saturday, Just what I always wanted for my birthday -- bruises!
Allow me to be totally egotistic and start out this entry with a paen to myself. Ahem: Happy
birthday to me Considering how my mother was astounded that I made it past age 6 (split my scalp open twice, swallowed a bottle of aspirin, poked a hole in the back of my throat, ruptured my eardrum, the list goes on and on), reaching 35 is indeed something of a milestone. But enough about me and more about Conestoga. The morning dawned overcast but relatively clear as Julia and Judy staggered from their beds and I crawled up from my air mattress (my choice -- I usually loathe hotel beds because they're so hard) in time to head down to breakfast and discuss what we were going to do that day. Since I was there on a scholarship, so to speak, the Art Show and dealer's room were pretty much off limits, although I did duck into the latter to talk to Selina and giggle at the latest bumper stickers -- I especially liked, "He's YOUR God, they're YOUR Rules -- YOU can go to hell." I also discovered that I had not one, but two panels to attend -- the first was The Art of the Anthology at 3:00 pm, followed by my expected Foreign Publishing panel at 5:00 pm.
I swear, the room reeked of hair spray for hours. The murder mystery went quite well -- Lee, who was playing a Bible-thumping preacher's wife, almost swallowed her teeth when she saw us, and Selina was torn between being totally appalled and laughing her ass off. Which, in retrospect, was probably the reaction we were shooting for, so points to us. Afterwards, we decided to skip hairspray-dissolving showers in favor of a general wipedown and toning of the makeup, at which point the inevitable happened -- we came across Selina and she had her fencing gear in tow. "Go get your stuff and head out to the pool -- we're gonna fence!" she yodeled happily. Julia was able to bow out, claiming hunger and a dinner date with Judy, Lee and George, but since I'd had lunch and a denied Selina is a pitiful sight I headed out to the Hoosiermobile and grabbed Scrivener and my gear. Have I mentioned before that Selina's fought heavy weapons with the SCA for at least eleven years before taking up fencing last year? Have I added that she has the stamina of a long-distance runner and is immune to heat and humidity? We were out by the pool for about a half hour, running through epeé and saber bouts, and I was gasping and awash in sweat by the end of it. The only thing I really remember is that I really, really like fencing saber -- there's something about fighting with the edge of the weapon instead of the tip that appeals to my Russian soul. By that point, however, I was absolutely starving, so after a quick stop in my room to let Selina get cleaned up and stick my own head under the shower, I headed up to Lee and George's room to see if they had any any pizza left. They didn't, and were on their way to the Masquerade to see the costumes and learn the winners of the Bulwer-Lytton Contest (George was a contestant this year), so Judy, Julia and I headed down to the bar in order to grab some dinner and shoot a couple of games of pool. Note to self -- don't try to play serious pool after two rum and cokes and a margarita. Your spatial relation sense goes all to hell when exposed to alcohol.
Of course, the truly cool part was running into Ann Burnham, an old buddy from my days at Illinois Wesleyan. We spent some time swapping stories and catching up on the last ten years -- the last time we'd seen each other was at Chicon V back in 1991. She's heading back to Bloomington next week for a visit, so if you're reading this, Patrick, be prepared. Around 1:30 am or so, Julia and I said goodnight to everyone and staggered off to our room, where Judy was already getting ready for bed. I remember much giggling about various events of the day, before the night finally claimed my roommates. As I drifted off to sleep, muscles still twinging from Selina's swordwork, a bittersweet smile drifted across my lips -- we had to get up the next morning in time for the "Sex in SF" panel. At 9:00 am. God help us all.
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The
anthology panel went okay -- the picture at right, by the way, is
a panelist's POV of Tom and Harold grinning from the audience. I
really didn't have much to contribute apart from the fact that all
of my sales to date have been to anthologies, although when I mentioned
that I was interested in pitching a Texas-based anthology (proposed
title: "'J.R. Ewing Sired My Two-Headed Love Child!': Tales
of Weirdness from the Lone Star State") one of the other panellists
immediately started in on how badly they sell, how it takes more
experience than editing MSS for your friends to edit an anthology,
yadda yadda yadda. Yeah, whatever -- maybe I won't be able to do
this for a few years until I get more credits under my belt, but
I'm not going to do the publishers' job for them and take myself
out of the running before even giving it a shot. As with a story
submission, the worst they can say is no. 
The
foreign publishing panel was a bit more congenial -- I got to meet
the ineffable Aldris Budrys and talk about my experience trying
to sell stuff while living in Europe, and we touched on the intense
love Eastern Europe has for science fiction. Between panels, however,
Julia and I went out shopping for some necessary costume items --
see, 
As
it turned out, all Julia really needed was garish yet mismatching
lipstick and nail polish ("I can put the rest of the costume
together with the stuff in my luggage, which is kinda frightening
if you think about it," she mused as she mixed a thick gold
chain with a rope of pearls for that "My beaus shop at Wal-Mart"
look). I, however, needed something that screamed "white trash
nouveau riche in search of approval." I think the housecoat,
Big Hair(TM) that was achieved by hanging upside down and soaking
my hair with Krazy-Glue-strength hairspray, and Tammy Faye-esque
lipstick achieved that whole look nicely, along with the ever-present
roll of toilet paper to mop at my tears. 
After
that, of course, there was nothing to do but hit all the room parties.
Well, the ones that were still open -- unfortunately, the hotel
wound up putting non-congoers on the "party" floors, and
said folks complained to the hotel management about the noise, which
meant that there were only a couple of room parties up and running
that night. The best was probably the Dawn Patrol party, where the
entire room sang "Happy Birthday" to me and the finals
of the First Hotel Golf open were played (the final hole being the
windowed wall, and there's nothing simple about hitting a golf ball
through a room choked with people, believe me). 
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