Loscon 51 ended about 6 days ago, so I’ve had most of a week to get back to my normal routine and process.

It was a good time! I’m glad I went, and I want to go again next year.

I feel like my energy was a bit off the whole weekend, though. I probably came across as awkward and distant, and there were a few reasons for that, some of which I’ll talk about in a moment. I had a good time, but if you hung out with me this weekend, I’m sure I was a bit off.

The convention was great, but the hotel sucked. I’ll talk about that in a moment, too.

Getting to LA was a breeze this year. Bryanna traveled with us, and we took the train, which meant train from Sacramento to Bakersfield, bus from Bakersfield down to Union Station in LA, and then Uber to the Hilton near LAX. The train was great! Melissa and I didn’t have a crazy person sitting with us, trying to start a fight with me. My family sat together, and we talked, read, or played on our phones. It was sublime.

I finished Building Baby Brother by Steven Radecki while on the train. I’ll post a review for that book soon®.

The train and the bus were fine, but that Uber trip was insane. I told people that we made it from Union Station to the LAX Hilton in 20 minutes, and people kept saying, “But that’s a 30 minute trip.” It may be a 30 minute trip for mere mortals, but our Uber driver does not drive by the same rules you or I may honor. They made their own lane when they had to. They blatantly, flagrantly, ran a red light. They got us to the hotel safe, which is all that should matter I suppose, but if I didn’t have gray hair before, the time in that man’s car would have done it.

Now let’s talk about the hotel. The Uber driver tried to scare me (and succeeded multiple times) but the hotel tried to kill me.

It begins with some basic inconveniences. Bryanna is nearly 30 years old, so I knew she should have her own room. That meant when I set up the reservation, I reserved 2 rooms. The convention ended on the 30th, though, and we were flying out on the 1st, so the hotel wouldn’t let me reserve for the entire time we were staying there. I had to set up 4 reservations, 2 for each room, and they took an eye-watering $300 deposit on each reservation.

Fortunately, they didn’t make us change rooms between the 30th and the 1st. They win a very small point there.

The first night, Melissa and I tried to sleep while the mini-fridge growled and churned all night. I described it to someone at the con and they said we didn’t have an appliance, we had a mimic. I would have unplugged it and been done with it, but Melissa is taking her newly diagnosed diabetes seriously, so we had things in the fridge that needed to stay cool.

Bleary eyed and choking down Tylenol to deal with my burgeoning headache, I went to the front desk and told them about the monster in our room. They sent someone to replace the fridge, and sure enough, it was silent as a grave. It also didn’t work, and all of the things Melissa needed to remain refrigerated were ruined by the next morning. Yuck.

Replacing the growling refrigerator for a dead one didn’t help our sleep situation, by the way. We removed the excessive sounds from within our room, but that didn’t stop the incessant banging coming from the walls. I think there was something going on with the water pipes, and anytime someone flushed a toilet or turned on their sink, we’d hear knocking.

Why do I think it was the plumbing? Because by the last night, water (we hope it was water) gushed up in the sink. It pushed out the stopper and flooded the counter. Black, ashen flecks soiled the bowl of the sink. The extra towels were soaked. A roll of toilet paper bloated on the shelf with waste water. The sink flood filled Melissa’s bathroom tote and ruined some of her stuff. Not ideal.

We flew back relatively early on Monday and I took the day to recover. It mostly worked, but I felt sluggish all week. I’m still behind on a lot of things, and I wonder if I’ll catch up before the year is out.

Those were a lot of words spent complaining about the accommodations, but I haven’t really talked much about the convention itself.

The first day, I helped set up the Water Dragon and Small Publishing in a Big Universe tables. I spent the whole time in the dealer’s room that day, and I helped drum up sales, making our first day this year much more profitable than our first day last year. If we kept up that kind of pace, it would have been a very good event for the publisher.

The next two days, I was booked for panels and interviews. It started with an autograph session, which was just some time for me to sit aside and relax. I think I sold and signed one book during that session. I met a couple of cool folks. It wasn’t a bad time at all.

After that, I participated on a couple of panels, and I interviewed people for the SPBU podcast’s “Live From Loscon 51” episode. Lots of fun, but it kept me away from the table the entire day. By the end of the weekend, the table did just a little bit more than break even. There just weren’t as many customers this year as there were last year.

One of the panels I attended on Saturday was not tightly moderated, so the panel went off the rails a bit. The panelists had a good time, and the people attending did as well, but we definitely veered off topic within the first 30 minutes and never returned.

The next day went much the same. I had interviews to start the day, then panels. I moderated the first, which was pretty heady. I’m not sure if this was the name or the description: “How Science Fiction themes of AI, near-future dystopias, and the intersection of technology and humanity affect plot lines.” Woof. But I came in prepared, and I think everyone had a good time with it. We wound up ending about 15 minutes early, and I didn’t drag it out unnecessarily.

The next panel I participated on was as fascinating as a train wreck. It was on post-scarcity, and we stayed on topic most of the time, but it was another one where the moderator let things get away from him, and by the end, the audience was talking more than the panelists. Brandon Case was on that panel with me, and we both kind of laughed our way through it.

I got to meet up with and hang out with some really cool people during the convention. Again, I felt a bit off. I was tired, often fighting a headache, and I had a hard time opening up.

Bryanna had a great time. It was a full vacation for her, and her first real con-going experience. I tried to spoil her as much as I could. I think she’ll be interested in attending more conventions in the future.

Melissa had a good time, but like me, came out of the experience tired. She’s got her blood sugar well under control, and she did great all weekend. I did my best to keep her from spending all her time at the table, because she shouldn’t stand for that long, and we really need to get her healthy.

There is one other thing that bothered me the whole weekend, which I don’t really want to talk about specifically. It’s dumb, and personal, and it didn’t need to be a thing.

I’ll put it this way. I, a frog, befriended a scorpion a long time ago. It was only a matter of time before he would sting me, and I should have remained vigilant in order to keep from getting hurt. But after enough time, I somehow became convinced that he was a different person than he is. When the sting finally came, I wasn’t ready for it.

It hurt in a way that it has affected my sleep. The noise in the hotel room wasn’t the only thing keeping me awake.

I’m not going to make it a big, public beef, even though he has earned it. I’ll just say the same thing I said in the last message I sent to him: I loved him unconditionally and was loyal to a fault. If he keeps throwing away people that truly love him, he will end up alone, and it will be well deserved.

With that said, we’re already a fifth of the way through December, and I have a lot of writing to do if I’m going to get The Psychic Out of Time finished for next year.

Wish me luck!