It was a bit of a whirlwind. I didn't get out of the homestead as early as I would have liked, arriving at 5:30 in Rockville. I avoided some of rush hour, but not all. Luckily, I know how to drive rush hour around here, know my streets and exits for a lot of this area, and I have many years of experience driving in the automotive peculiarity that is the DC area rush hour (which is much longer than a single hour). I could have bagged the stretching or the volunteering at Miss E's school. I suppose I could have bagged packing...well, maybe not.

I missed having a late lunch with klingonguy and missed his first panel, but caught up with him after my two panels later that night. The panels were both good ones for me. Thank you Colleen Cahill. One on internet presence for writers, something I've thought about a lot. And one where we talked to Connie (or made funny remarks) about the themes in her writing. Much love to kelly_yoyo for providing an overarching theme of "the universe is out to get you...and it will."

The internet panel was with Jeff VanderMeer. Of the 'big blogs' his is the one I've followed, pretty much since it began. And my friend karen_w_newton was also on the panel. Her blog is the most excellent source of information on epublishing and ereaders, etc. And also jmward14 who made an able moderator and later hosted the Broad Universe Rapid Fire Reading on Saturday. I hadn't previously met Tee Morris (aka TeeMonster on twitter), but he's something of an expert on social media. It was a lively discussion. Maybe we didn't break new ground, but panelists discussed where they draw the line...and when to shut the internet down. One point Jeff made was that if you tell ALL your stories on your blog, what will you write about? I agree with that. A lot of the things that I write about, my issues, are not things I would put on my blog. In the first place, it would bore any readers I might still have. And in the second place, it's much more fun to write about the farm, the cats, etc. With photos.

The what's up with Connie and boats panel was charming and the room was packed. And halfway through we realized that no one wanted to hear us talk. They wanted to listen to Connie, for the most part. So short of the occasional poke, we just let her talk. Nothing could have been more heart-warming than seeing her after a couple of years and getting a big hug. And then she denied knowing me. I had put excerpts of her works through Wordle to see if any of her 'themes' showed up, but they didn't. The words that were largest were the character names, which is as it should be. I got to say that I had met her first at a dinner in Scotland where she talked about renting coconuts at the castle where they filmed 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail.' And I got to play her straight man a couple of times. The other two panelists were the charming Jim Freund (Hour of the Wolf) and Doug Fratz.

So that was Friday, though I stayed up after that chatting with tomdoyle and klingonguy. No fancy dinners for me. I did meet Jon Singer and we had a lovely discussion about glazes because I'm secretly a glaze nut. I love glazes. He makes a serious hobby of them and showed me some beautiful ones on his smartphone. All by accident, but it made me very happy. A quick trip to Texas and a sticker on my badge and then off to bed.

Sat breakfast with klingonguy, his roommate Eric, and later, suricattus aka Laura Anne Gilman. We need to draw a veil over that gossip session, yes we do. My Saturday was muchly occupied by hallway conversations and attending readings, including mindyklasky, Michael Swanwick, Laura Anne, Barbara Krasnoff, Lawrence Schoen, Scott Andrews. I had unfortunately missed Tom Doyle's reading. I met Laurie Mann face to face for the first time. Laurie is the wonderful member of the Reno team who decided that there SHALL be writing workshop critique sections in Reno next summer. And maybe there will also be a Klingon gathering. I also spent time with Scott Andrews, the editor of Beneath Ceaseless Skies. I went to Taos Toolbox with him, yes I did. He's local, but we never cross paths except at something like Capclave. He said that Greg Frost's frostokovich lecture from Odyssey last summer was 'brilliant.' Well, of course it was. This first part, podcast #41, is here: http://www.sff.net/odyssey/podcasts.html.

Weatherdude came to keep me company on Saturday night and to hear me read in the Broad Universe Rapid Fire Reading. I haven't read aloud in 15 years to an audience. Alas, it sounded like it. It was fine that he was there, but I would have preferred to be brilliant. Luckily, no one else I knew was in the audience. The other four readers were just grand and for my first time reading in public, the most supportive and wonderful folks you can imagine. And then Weatherdude and I went to the author mass signing session and to a wedding reception, where we talked to many, many people.

Sunday morning was breakfast with Connie and Courtney because I had wanted to link Courtney and Weatherdude for years, both physicists in their own right. Along with politics and Your Government In Action, it was a lively discussion. No gossip, sorry. And not about genre at all. Srsly, it would have bored my readers to tears had they been there. They would have had to fix a frozen smile to their face and nodded as if they were following the discussion, all while consuming buffet breakfast food.

The rest of Sunday was more hallway conversations and a sit down with Peggy Rae where I learned much about what's up in the DC area, such as the Nebulas! I volunteered to research a tax issue for her. This was a really fun discussion because she knows everyone, whether they're backstage or onstage or inbetween, like me.

Whew. Driving home was relaxing, though I was aggravated at the Sunday drivers who were, ahem, going the speed limit on I-270. Who does that?

Frog Out