In retrospect, I wish that I had mentioned that all these WorldCon posts were about LoneStarCon3. \u00a0Someday, perhaps a year from now, I’ll do another series of posts about WorldCon, only it will be whatever the name of it is in London. \u00a0Or the year after that, whatever it’s called in Spokane. \u00a0It’s all WorldCon, but being more specific would be better, if I’m thinking of the future.<\/p>\n
Let’s talk a little bit about my last day at WorldCon, while I’m sitting in the airport, waiting for my flight.<\/p>\n
I woke up a little bit later than I had intended. \u00a0Though it was 7AM back in Sacramento, at the convention, it was 9AM when I rolled groggily out of bed. \u00a0I took my time getting myself together, and I headed down to the other hotel’s lobby to sit at a table and write yesterday’s post.<\/p>\n
While sitting there, I saw lots of people that I had met with throughout the weekend. \u00a0For most, we only exchanged a few words. \u00a0One author, Marie Bilodeua, stopped and sat with me for a couple of hours. \u00a0It was absolutely fantastic. \u00a0We talked about writing, and our families. \u00a0We dabbled in religion and philosophy. \u00a0We had a fantastic conversation. \u00a0The time flew, and my blog post was mostly forgotten for hours.<\/p>\n
Eventually, Marie needed to go do her shopping before she went for her signing, and I needed lunch. \u00a0I went to the food court once again, picked up enough burgers for myself, Michael, Greg, and Bill, then headed to the dealer’s room to share my lunch. \u00a0Greg wasn’t hungry, but Ian, Bill’s son, was there, so I didn’t wind up with too much food.<\/p>\n
After lunch, I went off for a panel. \u00a0I’d met an author the previous day named Ransom who had just been picked up by 47North, and I thought I’d catch the “47North Presents” panel. Unfortunately, there were no panelists. \u00a0That gave me some time to head back to another wifi spot and finish my blog post.<\/p>\n
I was in a different hotel lobby, but again, I kept seeing people I’d made friends or acquaintance with. \u00a0Nancy Kress’s daughter-in-law, Jaime(sp?) sat and talked with me for a little while. \u00a0We talked about writing and the challenges we’ve overcome. \u00a0She was then off to another Kaffeeklatsch, and I finally finished yesterday’s post.<\/p>\n
With my blog post finished, I got up to try another panel and ran into Effe, Arley, and Rosey. \u00a0They were headed to the same panel I was, or at the very least, the same area, so we walked together and chatted amiably. \u00a0Rosey told us about one of her stories that had been picked up recently, after she’d taken a break from writing for 10 years. \u00a0Rosey went on to another panel, and Effe, Arley and I went to “As You Know, Jim” which was a panel about exposition.<\/p>\n
The panel was okay. \u00a0There wasn’t a ton of good information from it, but I found it entertaining. \u00a0I took copious notes, as usual.<\/p>\n
With the panel finished, I went off to make sure that Marie had at least one person in her autograph line. \u00a0She had a few people, and she seemed really happy. \u00a0I was going to buy the first book in her series from her and have her sign it, but Candace had picked up the last copy.<\/p>\n
I checked in with Michael and Greg again before heading back to my room to take a nap. \u00a0We made a plan to go out to dinner together and get a steak dinner. \u00a0My phone told me that there was a place that was close, had received high marks, and I was able to check out the menu. \u00a0It seemed like we had a plan.<\/p>\n
As we gathered together to make our journey for dinner, Meredith found us and tagged along. \u00a0We followed the map, headed down Alamo street, found the place easily enough… and then discovered that it was closed for the holiday weekend. \u00a0Fortunately, Michael had spotted an Irish pub along the way, so we went there and had a lovely dinner.<\/p>\n
Then it was time to head to the Hugo awards. \u00a0There’s not a lot I can say about them, really. \u00a0There weren’t a ton of surprises. \u00a0Paul Cornell was hilarious. \u00a0Chris Garcia hugged all of the winners as they walked up to get their prize. \u00a0We didn’t have to remain standing the entire time like we did in Chicago. \u00a0It was a really great show, and I was glad to see it.<\/p>\n
After the Hugos, I went with Michael to his room. \u00a0He shared some Scotch with me that was very special to him, both in its quality and its sentimental value. \u00a0It was a 26 year old whose name I don’t remember, but that he’d received at his graduation. \u00a0There wasn’t much left of it, and while I’m not much of a judge, I think it was pretty good. \u00a0Scotch has a lot going on.<\/p>\n
It was nearly midnight, and it was once again party time. \u00a0We wound up battling the elevator and the stairs to get to the party floor. \u00a0One of the first places we went was the party for JordanCon. \u00a0Michael quickly moved on to the Helsinki room, and shortly after he left, Howard Tayler, Brandon Sanderson, and Mary Robinette Kowal came in to the room, carrying their freshly acquired Hugos. \u00a0I was standing not too far from the door, and I was the first one Mary offered her Hugo to. \u00a0I held it in my hands, and I studied the base. \u00a0It was a surreal moment, and my eyes weren’t really focusing correctly. \u00a0It was heavy and beautiful, and I was a bit overwhelmed. \u00a0I know I said some things, and I think my words were somewhat intelligible, but I don’t remember exactly what I said. \u00a0As I handed it back, I remember saying, “If it was me, I’m not sure I’d be able to hand it off so easily.” Mary said, “You just did.”<\/p>\n
After that, I was pretty much done. \u00a0The introvert in me said that it was time to go to bed, and unlike the previous evenings, I no longer had the strength to argue. \u00a0I wanted to say a few things to Brandon Sanderson, and I would have loved to visit with Howard a little bit more, as I had visited with him earlier in the week. \u00a0I was done, though. \u00a0I slipped out quietly, went and found Michael to let him know I was quitting early, and went off to my room to sleep.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the evening, just before we went off to dinner, Michael had said to me, “Every time I see you, you’re talking to a different woman.” It is true, and looking back over this post, it might look like I was up to no good. \u00a0Honestly, though, I wasn’t seeing gender. \u00a0I was just enjoying conversations, and I spoke to as many men as I spoke to women. \u00a0As I was going to sleep, though, I was thinking about Michael’s words, and I wondered about it. \u00a0What finally settled me was this thought: A bad husband makes his wife jealous of other women, but a good husband makes other women jealous of his wife. \u00a0By that metric, I’m not sure how good a husband I was, but I wasn’t a bad one. \u00a0And that’s all I have to say about that.<\/p>\n
When I get settled and have some time, I’m going to transpose all of my WorldCon panel notes… Reno, Chicago, and San Antonio… into their own area on my blog. \u00a0Maybe other people will find them useful. \u00a0I’m sure I’ll be reminded of some good advice just going through the exercise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In retrospect, I wish that I had mentioned that all these WorldCon posts were about LoneStarCon3. \u00a0Someday, perhaps a year from now, I’ll do another series of posts about WorldCon, only it will be whatever the name of it is in London. \u00a0Or the year after that, whatever it’s called in Spokane. \u00a0It’s all WorldCon, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[13,7],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-lonestarcon3","tag-worldcon"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions\/78"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}