* The drive from Boston to West Springfield went nicely, with
* Hugs, hugs, hugs. Once upon a time I had to remind myself that I like being touchy-feely, and so I was happy to hug my way into the hotel. (Sighted in the lobby within the first few minutes of my arriving were
* I wasn’t organized enough to make it to any of the first panels at 5 p.m. Friday (I wish I’d seen Dystopian Fiction; I love stories about The End of the World As We Know It, plus my friend
* …so I can get to more panels. I had my first experience of the heartbreak of not-attending-something-cool-itis, because of scheduling conflicts or because of needing a break. Many of you are used to that. I’m learning it.
* Drive-by snark c/o Keith R.A. DeCandido (
(He explained that he felt the stories in McSweeny’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Stories were for the most part not as ground-breaking as its editor seemed to think, and that science fiction had already been doing what the collection’s “ground-breaking” stories had done. He did say he liked Harlan Ellison’s story “Goodbye to All That,” though.)
* The hotel was one story in the front, two stories in the middle and four stories back where most of us stayed. The four-story part for some reason was called “the tower,” which ain’t much of a tower but which allowed
* Glorious sight early Saturday: erotica author Genevieve Iseult Eldredge (a.k.a. new LiveJournaler
* My first note-quite-there attempt to describe the fun art of
* Social Me: I don’t always get to “hang out” with people. So I did more of that at Pi-Con than normal: in the lobby, in the dealers’ room, in one of the hotel rooms Saturday night (and that was a hilarious time that I’m not going to talk about, because I’m allowed some “what happens at con stays at con” moments), and at the Panera Bread in the shopping center across the road Saturday. (A shopping center, by the way, with apparently NO WAY TO GET OVER TO IT except by car. No crosswalks, even at the traffic light. The hell? I went on a walk Saturday night hoping for dinner over at that shopping center, and was thwarted by West Springfield apparently not believing in pedestrians. I’d been warned that West Springfield was a real “you can’t get there from here” town, but I didn’t really realize that until then. /Rant…) Not only did I hang out, but I felt willing and able and allowed to say stuff, make suggestions, spout off, all that. I don’t have the social anxiety of some people I know, but in my experience I’m usually the quiet one (or I feel like I’m the quiet one, as other Pi-Con attendees knew I wasn’t quiet there).
Later, I felt myself about to retreat into my shell, and gave myself a talking-to: Chris, it’s okay to be social! If you can’t be social here, something’s wrong, man. C’mon, you used to be a reporter, interacting with an even wider spectrum of humanity; you can interact with fellow geeks. Don’t miss out on meeting people. Sexy, sexy geek people. (No lie. Attractiveness-wise, this was EXACTLY my crowd.) I got past that bump in the road.
* I already liked
* I ate enough, I slept enough, I showered enough. These are important considerations at a con. I think I paced myself well enough.
* Mayhap my most useful moment: retrieving a Pepsi for the caffeine-needing
* I heard readings: young adult fiction by Debra Killeen, a chapter from
* On Sunday morning, the video game room broke out one of its big guns, Rock Band, the all singing
* Hey, are any of the songs on Rock Band songs that “Weird Al” Yankovic has parodied? ’Cause then people could sing his lyrics! I suggested that, but with no knowledge of the full catalog of songs you can play on Rock Band.
And that’s not nearly all about my trip to Pi-Con, but I want to post this so I can have those moments later where I think Oh crap! I should’ve added that! So you might hear more about my con adventures later.