Once again, let’s begin at the beginning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We’re on vacation, as it were, so I didn’t set an alarm. Sleeping in hotels can be hit and miss, so I wasn’t sure how rested we would be. It turns out plenty rested, but we slept in until nearly 9AM. I was interested in hearing the reading at 9AM, which featured Andrea Stewart and William Ledbetter, but we didn’t make it in time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Breakfast was a breakfast bar we brought from home, and coffee provided by the almost-Starbucks in the hotel dining area. The coffee is only worth mentioning in that it existed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After that, I spent the entire day at the table. I talked to some interesting people and made a few sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I should probably talk about a couple of the encounters, because they were significant to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of them is a writer that I used to consider a friend, that told me in no uncertain terms that we were not friends when my book released at Baycon 2023. I haven’t seen much of them in a while, and we had a pleasant, friendly chat at the table. I don’t think it was awkward for them. It wasn’t really awkward for me, except for the memory replaying in my head from 2023. Eventually they needed to go, and that was fine. It’s a small world, especially the writing world, so it’s important we remain friendly to each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The description for the other encounter starts off similar to the last: someone I once considered a friend. I think they would like to still be my friend, but there are some irreconcilable differences, specifically of a moral nature. We spoke at the table, and we were friendly enough. It costs nothing to be kind. We caught up on stuff, including talking about podcasts and some of their successes. They bought One for the Road<\/em> and The Psychic on the Jury<\/em>, as those were not out the last time we’d talked to each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two encounters that could have been awkward for me, but I treated them both like I would treat anyone else, and I think there was an appreciation for that approach. I’m not saying this as a boast or a brag. I’m saying that the world could use a bit more of that flavor of civility. It cost nothing, and I didn’t have to compromise my beliefs or morality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Apparently, I didn’t take a break from the table the entire day. I stayed in the moment, tried to be friendly and outgoing, and managed to connect some people with the right book on our table. It wasn’t always one of my books, and that’s just fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We had a short break after the dealer’s room closed, so we went to the hotel restaurant again. Neither Melissa nor I were that hungry, so we split a charcuterie board. We also ordered one (1) old fashioned and one (1) strawberry daquiri mocktail. Our price for this evening of light eating: $81.50. Ugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After dinner, it was straight over to the large room next to the dealer’s room, where we set up for the mass autograph signing. Mark, Steven, Vanessa, Melissa, and I sat together along the back wall, in case any of us needed to run a sale for one of the others. That wound up not necessary. We had a couple of friends come by and say hi, but no signing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another evening and I might have been sad about that, but not tonight. For one thing, I went into the event expecting it to go that way. For another, I had about an hour and a half where I could just sit back and people watch. That can be fun, from time to time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s nearly 11PM now. Melissa and I are in bed, she with her book, me with my laptop so I can finish this post and get it out on time. Something fascinating to me is that we’re 14 floors up, and there are cars going by outside that sound like they’re right outside the window. Stereos blaring, occasional tire squeals… I thought 14 floors up would be far enough that we’d have more quiet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a few minutes, I’m sure I’ll pass out, and the outside sounds won’t matter. I hope I rest as well as I seemed to last night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Once again, let’s begin at the beginning. We’re on vacation, as it were, so I didn’t set an alarm. Sleeping in hotels can be hit and miss, so I wasn’t sure how rested we would be. It turns out plenty rested, but we slept in until nearly 9AM. I was interested in hearing the reading […]<\/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":[],"class_list":["post-78081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78081","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=78081"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78082,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78081\/revisions\/78082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}