Nobody, darnit

Oh yeah, did I mention that I'm housesitting. Dude! I have access to a car! And a huge tv with surround sound! Also, dog. This means that I get to bring kehrli out to North Seattle and we watch ridiculous Nick Cage movies while playing with the dog. (First, Face/Off, last night, Con Air. Up next, The Rock)

What the heck happened to Day 3? I know I spent the first part in a daze, but a nap and bottle of caffeine perked me up enough to party till 3am.

Today was the Hugo ceremony, and despite my dreams of dressing up in my glamorous dress, I didn't get a chance to. But that's fine, because it means I won't have a problem figuring out what to wear to the next one I go to.

In the realm of happy coincidences, my old friend tideling was here, with a friend of hers who just happened to be someone I knew from the Cascade Writers Retreat. In another happy coincidence, we ended up sitting next to them for the Hugos.

I ducked out relatively early from partying (1:15am). I'm going to pack up and get plenty of sleep for the drive home tomorrow.

I had been planning on going to the Vanguard Party last night, but kehrli contacted me, talking about going to The Night Kitchen* to use the internet (which, in his current, recently moved state, he lacks). I've wanted to check this place out for a while now, so I figured I'd go, but it would probably be loud and crowded (it being a Saturday night) and so after an hour or two, I'd leave and go to the party. However, the place had just opened for the evening, wasn't crowded at all, and had the perfect atmosphere for going over my critiques from the recent retreat.
So we stuck around till 10:30, munching on sweet potato fries, black bean hummus and garlic naan. I failed in my goal to make new friends**, but I did establish a new hangout, got some work done, and had some quality friend time with kehrli, which I really can't get enough of.


*The Night Kitchen is a local restaurant that's open from 6pm to 9am.

**Wait, that's not true! When I arrived, two people I know happened to be there already, and they introduced me to their friend, who they were eating with. I also take the presence of friends to be a good omen for my future with The Night Kitchen, since I'm looking for a Black Drop replacement, and that requires an establishment that always has someone I know in it.

One of the reasons I looked forward to moving to the Seattle area was the chance to see friends more often. Last night was my first chance to put that into practice. kehrli decided to celebrate his winning 3rd Place in Writers of the Future (Yay!) by having a group dinner at Mexico in Pacific Place. The group was a great mix of really close friends, and people I sort of know and look forward to getting to know more.
But the main reason I'm making this post is to talk about the chimichanga, which, well, I've never actually had one. I didn't realize they were actually huge amounts of cheese and sour cream blended with a few shreds of chicken. I was sort of expecting the ratios to be switched. I suspect my body will be demanding nothing but rice cakes for the next week to compensate.

I have successfully arrived in San Francisco. While in the airport, twitter alerted me that Mark Teppo (whom I've met a couple times, but only sorta know) was also stuck there waiting to go to SF. Not having anything to do for the hour my plane was delayed, I set off to find him. I thought I saw him sitting at the gate beside mine (which was, btw, clogged with Texans waiting for their own delayed flight) but I was too shy to go up to him. Turns out this was for the best, because it wasn't him. He was on the flight they let me get on (earlier for me, two hour delay for him!) I didn't notice this until we were in the air and I saw a guy several rows in front of me who kind of looked like him from behind. If not for Twitter, I suppose I would have been waiting at the curb for my ride and turned and gone , "Hey, I know that guy!"
Anyway, he's in town for this promoting his new project, The Mongoliad, which is a collaborative story via iPhone app by him and Neal Stephenson and Greg Bear and a bunch of others which sounds totally awesome.

I was a little sad calendula_witch and I weren't able to make it (I'm a big fan of Mark, and she of Neal) but we made up for it by consuming lots of wine and rich Italian food.

And now I'm probably going to bed early, because we're getting up early, and if it's not raining, going for a walk. (I haven't spent much time in San Francisco, certainly not the non-downtown part. I love the huge towering hills! I love having tall green things around me.) And then, on to the Uhaul!

Norwescon was a blast. The only down spots were
A) Forgetting to buy Mark Henry's Battle of the Network Zombies. *
B) Missing folks who couldn't make it. and
C) The Tor Party, at which I kind of freaked out. I was exhausted, and the party was of course, loud, crowded and full of strangers. However, everyone I knew was also there, (yes, there was one notable exception, but I was too exhausted to deal with the emotional weight of being with that friend. See below.) meaning I couldn't go somewhere else to chill and still be social. Next year, I'm going to make sure I have a hotel room, even if I have to beg, bribe and cajole folks to share with me. I really, really needed a nap and possibly private introvert space.

* Totally remedied on the drive home. My mom needed to use the bathroom, so we stopped at the Northgate Barnes and Noble.


Other downside: I was so exhausted when I got home that I passed right out. I was a little surprised, since while I didn't sleep much, it wasn't like I was running on two hours a night or anything. And the two-hour nap did nothing for me. I soon myself overcome with abdominal cramps, and quivering with a cold sweat. I wanted to barf so bad, but I eventually had to accept that it was just gas and curling up in bed was all I could do. It actually made for good mental processing time, since I couldn't do anything else until the pain abated. (When it got to a manageable level, I totally started Mark's book, because if anything is readable through potential food poisoning, it's a trashy zombie novel. I'm better now, and it probably wasn't food poisoning, but if John Pitts ends up with the same thing, it was totally the bread pudding, in the bar, with the unspeakable rich sauce.

Among the superawesome things:

Meeting up with an old, old friend who has a tendency to drop out of my life for years on end, and then pop up without warning. I saw him briefly last year, but the cliquish nature of Norwescon being what it is, I never saw him after that glimpse. This year, however, we got in dinner and a lot of conversation time, and I got to turn him on to a friend's upcoming book. We talked about the past and being young and stupid and if only, if only, if only.

Hanging with an awesome group who included Kat Richardson (and her glorious custom-made corset) and Cherie Priest. Every now and then, I feel like I've already learned everything there is to know about how the publishing business works, and then I learn otherwise. I feel like I earned a merit badge. (Basket accounting. If I understand it right, it's when the publisher requires a series of books to earn out their advance(s) as a unit before earning royalties.)

Early morning writing sessions in the Rotunda overlooking that really big pond behind the hotel. I actually got writing done at a con!

My kickass little hat (known as a folly, I was informed.) Made by zeldyn. (Check out her Etsy shop!) Turns out another of my friends at Norwescon also had one of her hats!

Being led by Camille Alexa through the party wing in a big long chain of half-drunk ducklings in search of alcohol.

I'm feeling very, very grateful. Grateful to friends who hooked us up with beds, grateful to pros for stuffing me with knowledge, grateful for folks like Nayad of Clarkesworld who encourage me to keep submitting despite rejection. Grateful to everyone for being so welcoming. I had a revelation about myself, about why it is that being with my friends doesn't drain me. I view the world and connect with it through my relationships. I tend towards collective identities. (Even though I know that all that is illusory, and that ultimately, I'm only me. I do manage to function as a completely self-sufficient unit, socially and emotionally.) I think that my ego actually absorbs the friends I'm with, basically bringing them under the umbrella of my identity, and keeping them from being energy drains. I bet it sounds like that could be a freaky concept. My ex used to bug me about needing to define people. And it's not like I'm saying, "you are now me, and I have as much control over you as I do myself." It's just that wither certain people, I have an awareness of closeness and our commonalities. We're united by our passions, or events, or common knowledge. Different combinations form different groups within the group. (And of course, certain bonds form barriers that are almost impenetrable. One word: Clarionites. I respect the barriers, especially since goodness knows I have them among my own circles, but having a relationship of a different sort with someone in the impenetrable group allows for temporary permeability. Me and another girl totally bonded at World Fantasy over being Roommates of Clarionites, who drifted along like superfluous, but attached, appendages on the Clarion Amoeba.)

This makes me think that my social energy loss actually comes from two sources. The first is the standard problem of people (particularly extroverted-seeming types) focusing on me, forcing my own shields up. The second is me attempting to batter down the shields I perceive between myself and others.

Okay, enough philosophy. I need to get back to bitchy zombies in love.

Friday we went to the alst Clarion West party. Got to see Eileen Gunn's cool stuff. And by cool stuff, I mean wacked out, hand assembled art from found junk. She works underneath the gaze of a battery of broken doll heads and a particularly maniacal species of jack o'lantern. If ever you're at her house, ask to see Flirty Eyes. You won't sleep.

I also got to talk to the other half of our hosting couple, John Berry, about typography and metal type. You know, I used to obsessively google everyone I knew I was going to meet in the sf field. I've gotten lax. If I'd known John was an actual typographer, not just a casual fan like myself, I would have probably made a point to talk to him earlier, and not in the final minutes of the party. I told him about Carly, our magnificent local letterpresser at Bison Bookbinding, and we bemoaned the shabby treatment of old metal type. (We've got a lot at my work, in dusty drawers, but reportedly there was a lot more that got casually tossed by some clean and unappreciative pressman. I totally need to scan some of the stuff we've got. The logos are fun.

Then it was on to crash at Miki's, where we spent Saturday helping clean her house for her year-late housewarming party. A bunch of us played croquet in Miki's overgrown backyard. I totally would have won if somebody (read, everybody) hadn't forgotten there was an extra wicket I'd missed. There should be pictures surfacing on the internet of the many misadventure's of Miki's Belated Housewarming BBQ. Stay tuned for video showing what I'm willing to do among a very small group of people I'm comfortable with. No alcohol needed!

This weekend was interesting socially for many reasons. Not so much in the way I usually feel going to cons, which is, "wow, I'm on a career path and I really think I can do it. I'm going to be a writer and these are/will be my industry peers.* This feeling's more of a basic, friendship level. I realized these are the people I'm going to know for the rest of my life. Social circles come and go like clouds in the sky, but the sf scene has been around for decades, and isn't going anywhere. Even if the mini-circles evaporate, the participants will probably go into other mini-circles. If a friend from college died, I'd probably never know. But someday, sooner or later, everyone at last night's BBQ is going to die, and assuming I don't go first, I'll probably know about it, either through publications or through word of mouth.

It takes me a while to process social encounters. Livejournal certainly helps with that, thank you everyone, internet. I'm going to the store to buy caffeine and nail polish remover, and hopefully by the time I get back I'll be processed and ready to write, because dangit, I want my novel finished.

*(Although, on the career front, I did get to watch someone I know basically be told, "okay, now get in this here rickety catapult. I'm going to close my eyes and swing madly at the rope. Don't worry, I've done this before.")

To all my friends who see Twilight: When you see a curly-haired, female EMT wheeling some guy away on a gurney, think, "that's Michelle, an awesome EMT and firefighter in real life."

She's a former co-worker of mine, as well as my current co-worker's wife. She joined a movie extra company as sort of a hobby. She also a children's librarian and trains for marathons in her spare time.

She's also how I learned about Twilight. Imagine the following scene:

Cast: Ryan--my co-worker.
Me-- me.

Ryan (just putting down his lunchbox: Yeah, Michelle got this audiobook that's apparently really popular. I listened to part of it on the way in to work. It's about this girl and vampires. She moves to Forks.

Me: Forks, Washington??? (Remembers barren, treeless hills far from either sea or mountain. Colorless town. Good pancakes. Tries to imagine angsty teen vampires in Land O' Loggers. Can't.)

I type "forks vampires" into Google, and discover the book. I snicker a lot and laugh at Ryan for having to listen to it.

Some time later, I next heard of the book when Ryan told me they were making a movie out of "that Forks book," and Michelle was going to be an extra.

Keffy's back after six weeks gone, and I'd forgotten the joy of communicating with through bizarre, non-word sounds.