Writers Weekend, Part 1

[nonionay]

Friday

Friday was wet and rainy and the stars told me there would be communication difficulties and travel problems. Well, duh, I'm going to a conference. That's why I only use astrology for character creation and personal reflection. csinman has been fortunate enough to have only waited fifteen minutes max for a greyhound. He, kaerfel and I waited for two hours and fifteen minutes for this one. Chelsea amused us by reading Black Sun Rising out loud, adding "darkly" randomly. San tossed sunflower seeds at a seagull, which deigned to eat only one of the tiny things. Clearly, it preferred the apple core and apple-core-sized chunks of bread another guy tossed, and which distended it grotesquely after gulping them whole.

A bus arrived, Seattle blazed across the top. Well, we thought it arrived. For some reason, it was stopped outside the exit of the bus station. After some awful noises, we realized it was stuck against a lamppost. The driver kept trying to move, but it was pinned. A diamond-shaped sign rubbed against a window. We heard the cracking all the way across the parking lot. When it finally made it in, the window wasn't shattered, but it was chipped all the way around the edges, and the middle was bulging out. It wasn't even our bus. There was a long, animated conversation which we could see but not hear, in which the driver poked the window, testing its soundness, and conferred with passengers. They went for it, and left us to think that maybe we should just take the train.

But finally our bus arrived, and off we went. The ride wasn't too bad, but there was this guy in the back who spoke very loudly and wouldn't shut up. We now know everything about this guy, right down to his masturbation habits. When conversation lulled, he asked, "what's your favorite sport?"

In the end, we made it to San's friends' apartment, upon whose floor and futon we gratefully slept. We went over to Broadway for food, then danced the waltz on the bronze feet.

Saturday

We walked through the Convention Center to reach the hotel. The BMM conference was going on. What's that? All we know is that it involved lots of beautifully dressed East Indians and sanskrit writing. Later someone (davidlevine? ) asked one of them, and they said, "Oh, it's a gathering of lots of people. A convention")

A Writers Weekend was mellow this year, with lots of familiar faces. I'm at the point where I already know most of the stuff they talk about at panels, so I'm just there to hang out.

Comments

[bsdotrand.livejournal.com]

We asked one of the people we met in the elevator. She said is was a conference of people from India that spoke their language (one of the 14 in use in India).

[criada.livejournal.com]

I actually found their website, and it says it's a meeting of people from the Maharashtra state in India.