lagilman | Lunacon report

And lo, it was Spring Equinox. Which means it's time for Lunacon.

Friday, my main concern was making it on time to Minerva Grant’s funeral. It was only a few towns over, but I wasn’t sure of the exact location. Fortunately Lisa (who was transporting me to Lunacon) was patient, and we got there in time for me to pay my respects to Kath and her brother-in-law.

And then on the road and up to Rye Brook in almost exactly an hour, the fastest we’ve ever made the trip. Checked in, and was going to the room to drop my stuff off and repair to the bar when I was waylaid by a distraught Kat, wailing something about chaos, confusion, and Dennis being called away to the office unexpectedly and could I help with the Green Room?

The nature of help was somewhat unclear, but after we got Kat to sit down, breathe, and have something protein-shaped to eat, we figured out what was equired, and volunteers were pitched into the hole-of-need.

Eventually to the bar, where we as usual met up with everyone we needed to meet up with. I had a 7 pm ‘coffee’ (without any coffee that I could find) about ‘marketing your book.” Had quite the turnout, and a good roundtable discussion was had.

And then off to dinner with vaious people at Penfields, the 'fancy' restaurant at the hotel. Food, yummy. Wine, excellent. Conversation – well, they didn’t kick us out. But they did send us to what I think of as the Table of Misbehaving Doom. Thankfully, nobody set their after dinner drinks aflame this time.

And straight from dinner to the art show reception, where thank gods I saw nothing I wanted to by that didn’t have a stonkin’ big NFS on it, and then on to the… well, the bar, of course. Silly wabbits.

Saturday I hit the gym, gently, and then had a breakfast meeting with a client who had shown up at my coffee the afternoon before, unexpectedly. Over to the ‘finance for freelancers’ panel as an audience member, and my two gigs – “SF/Mystery crossovers” as ably moderated by Peter Heck and quite interesting, and then “Gender in SF?F” which was wide-ranging and relatively non-didactic and nobody threw any chairs, thanks to moderator Susan Shwartz’ equally able moderating and audience herding.

It was SO nice not to be moderating anything. I can do it, and do it reasonably well, but I think I’m a better free-range panelist. It’s the opinionated thing, I suspect (you may all die of shock, now).

Then I hit the dealer’s room, and was mugged at Larry Smith’s table by one of the last remaining copies of the new Laurie King. And I figured, as long as I was buying, I might as well give it some company… Larry soaked me for a decent sum, and I now have a pile of shiny new books to read.

Then to my room to try and do some work. Ended up napping, instead. Oh, the shame. A signing at 6 pm. Only one person came by to get things signed by yours truly, but many people stopped by to look at the shiny new cover, and take a hit off my flask (Balvine 12 yr old double barrel, if I remember correctly). And thence off to Marinucci’s, our traditional Lunacon dinning spot, for the last time until (if) Lunacon returns to the Rye Town Hilton. I had a slab of cow. We had the remains of the slab of cow for dinner tonight. Uff dah. Also shared a lovely ricotta cheesecake with others, thereby making myself feel totally decadent.

And back to the hotel in time, not only for the mid-Masquerade movie trailer show, but to see a friend become totally beet red as she had a mini-surprise birthday party sprung on her.

After that, back to (everyone say it with me) the bar until around 1:30 or so, when I decided that the conversation had really gone downhill from the high point discussion of genitalia-grabbing saints, and went to bed.

Sunday -- woke up, caffinated, went to my reading (thanks to the three folk who showed up, was much appreciated and I hope you enjoyed it) and then on to the art show auction from whence (in between enabling friends to spend money they really had no use for otherwise) I came away with a small ceramic butterfly-winged dragon that had decided it really belonged to me.

And home. Where Pandora promptly scolded me for leaving her All Alone! And Unloved! And then draped herself over my thigh and went to sleep, purring contentedly for several hours until I had to move or lose all circulation in that leg forevermore.

Life’s back to normal.