Saturday,
February 22, 2003
Improv belly dancing, and getting busted by the Man
While I had a room at the hotel last night, I went home because I wanted to finish putting sleeves on my new dance choli. Which turned out to be a very good thing, as you will see later.
I tossed clothes and various fencing stuff into bags and made it down to the hotel around 10:30 AM, just in time to catch the end of Jeff's panel on screenwriting v. novel writing. My admirer of the night before was also on the panel, telling funny stories of his time in Hollywood, and apparently he really likes Jeff. Go figure. After the panel, a group of FutureClassics grabbed Jeff and some of his friends for lunch at El Norte, where we discussed various topics such as pornography v. erotica and gave the other diners minor strokes. Ah, the fun of dining with other people of like mind.
Back
at the hotel, I discovered that some local belly dancers of my acquaintence
were going to be doing a performance, and would I like to join them for a freeform
show afterwards? I think my reaction was "Hell yes," and called Lyndon to have
him pack my new costume and bring it before 4:00 PM. Since they hadn't been
able to get a room, I took them upstairs and let them use mine to change into
their Vampirella-esque routine costumes. While they were busy, I went back downstairs
and shot the shit with the other writers in our autograph slot (memo to self:
make a new chapbook of your already printed stuff before the next con, because
it's nice to have SOMETHING to peddle and sign).
Lyndon zoomed in just in time, and we retired to the room for the donning of the jingly bits. He pronounced me delicious (it really is a nice costume -- a streaked purple, black and royal blue choli with purple satin sleeves, and skirt in the same material) and escorted me to the dance demo. The troupe did some nice stuff, including a beautiful fan dance, then invited the crowd to come up and dance with a belly dancer. So we shimmied and danced for about 20 minutes, even getting Selina Rosen to try a couple of hip pops (I must bug Brad Sinor to get pictures of this). I may be dancing wth them more in the future, which could be very cool.
After
changing back into mufti, we hung out at various panels, browsed the art show
(there was this beautiful little print of a black panther that I wanted to get)
and crowded into Live Oak to enjoy Jeff's
story reading, particularly his announcement of section breaks so that we wouldn't
be hopelessly confused. Thanks, Jeff. The FC crowd then segued over to Cafe
Brazil for dinner before returning for the Liar's Panel at 8:00 PM. For some
reason, Derek
was told that I'd suggested him for the panel (which I hadn't), and closed the
panel with a brilliant zinger (which, considering he was up against Jayme Blaske
and P.N. Elrod, was a real achievement).
The FC members are going to have to punish him for referring to us as monkeys, however. I like Robert's plan for this -- it includes a con, much alcohol and the hiring of a manwhore called Juan.
Afterwards was the official Porn v Erotica panel, which kinda devolved into a "How to write and submit it" panel, much to the surprise of the moderator (well, none of us were willing to argue that porn was bad, just different from erotica. By the way, my definition is that porn is about yourself, while erotica is about other people). Jeff tossed out (heh) markets, I added other tips and hints, and we learned that Jeff is well and truly squicked by slash. Always useful to know. And then, it was time for me to run upstairs and set up our first room party. Well, it was necessary -- we'd bought a huge amount of booze for our NYE party and nobody drank it. Since we're not big drinkers ourselves, we decided to share it with the fen.
And share we did -- by the end of the evening we'd polished off the tequila via margaritas, Drambuie, most of the Jack Daniels and Glenfiddich, and assorted other boozes. Highlights of the party:
- Friday night's gentleman showing up and turning on the charm while I was sitting on the bed with Lyndon. I introduced Lyndon, and charm wattage became measurably muted. Of course, he then sits down next to me, and Lyndon GETS OFF THE BED AND GOES INTO THE HALLWAY. I asked him later why he did this, and he looked gobsmacked -- "That was him? Why didn't you tell me?" I thought I'd pointed him out earlier, but apparently it wasn't in an effective manner. Oh, well -- when he found out it was a nonsmoking floor he beat a retreat to the hallway and Selina took his place.
- Selina then began telling stories at the top of her lungs, before leaning over and motorboating my cleavage. What is it about my boobs that makes people want to lean down and go "BBBBBBBBBBBB" in them?
- Due to the loudness, hotel security paid us a little visit. I promised I'd keep the noise level down, and Selina observed that every party she ever went to seemed to get busted by the Man at some point. Gee, I wonder why.
- Lots and lots and lots and lots of excellent conversation. This is why I attend cons -- the panels and egoboo is nice, but I'd rather just hang out with people and talk.
People eventually
drifted away (although I did have to take a shower to convince some diehards
that the Hostess would really like to go to sleep, now) and we offered Robert
the other bed so that he didn't have to drive home. He has the cutest snore.
And so ended Saturday night. Uffda.