Readercon, Day the First

It’s taken me a week to fully process my Readercon experience, partly because I think part of me would rather just sit back for the rest of my vacation and just live inside my memories. But as the saying goes, “After the ecstacy, the laundry.” Time to move this stuff out of my head, so I can move on with the rest of my life. So, here’s a rough synopsis of my first day:

1
A week ago today, I was flying from my little patch of upstate New York, thru LaGuardia, then to Boston’s Logan International Airport. It was the first time I’d flown in fifteen years. Not a bad experience. My horrible visions of being cavity searched, despite how careful I tried to be meeting all the TSA requirements, didn’t come true.

I spent most of the trip stressing over my MBTA route. The process was fairly painless, except for being long. Excluding layover time, I spent more time riding on public transit than I did in the air.

2
Once I got to the hotel itself, I checked in, and the first person I saw when I stepped out of the 6th floor elevator was legendary editor Kathryn Cramer. She was talking while walking with someone, providing me with a convenient excuse not to say hi.

I’d tried to check in with emails and tweets during my trip. But there was no free WiFi at LaGuardia where I had my longest layovers. So, I had no choice that first night except to pay for the hotel’s WiFi at the ridiculous price of twelve ninety-fucking-five a day.

3
I managed to blow one-third of my food budget on dinner at the hotel bar. This did not make me feel good, considering the money I’d just paid on WiFi.

4
I finally meet one of many folks on my Twitter friends list I intended to stalk find. Rather, it’s more accurate to say that Nancy Brauer, along with MCM, found me. Of course, we lost track of each other temporarily, going in our own directions, but we would have time to connect later.

4
The first panel I went to that night was “I Read This Book, So I Started a Band,” with F. Brett Cox, Leah Bobet, David G. Shaw, Paul Di Filippo, & Glenn Grant.

I had my notebook open and didn’t take a lot of notes. I was too busy looking at all the folks, on stage and around the room, who I recognized from their work and/or their blogs. 

5
Afterward, I went to the “Speculative Poetry Workshop” with Mike Allen. Recall that I went to a Sci-Fi Poetry panel at Astronomicon 11, which was mostly readings and a discussion, and a workshop on (non-genre) poetry a few months later. This workshop was right in between, which I enjoyed even if I didn’t read anything aloud. The piece I generated, much like the rest of my Vogon poetry, is safely stored away in a Pandorica-like box where it won’t hurt anybody.

6
After that, I was still hungry and pondering my next move. Luckily, I was found by another one of my tweeps, Jaym Gates who, along with Eric Rosenfield, had just arrived and wanted to go on a food run. After navigating our way from Burlington to Cambridge (Well, they were navigating. I was pretty much useless.), we find an IHOP, where we established what would be an ongoing pattern of abject silliness and innuendo.

I ended the day around 1:45 AM, jazzed and clueless that the best parts were still to come.

Next time*: Cool panels, meeting one of my bestest Tweeps, meeting the Pros(e), and more.

*I’m off on a camping trip this weekend, so I’m not exactly sure if “next time” will be a timed post set for tomrrow, or if it’ll be on Sunday when I get back.