Champagne and Socks

Wow, con hours must be like two or three regular hours because wow, Saturday feels sooooooo looooong ago now! It’s taken me like 10 minutes to remember back that far!

I took a slow move towards getting up on Saturday but was meeting Cherry Weiner for 11 am so I wandered out a little bit earlier, got lost, met up with a woman who was also lost and from a different convention and we found our way to the Sunshine Deli to get a bagel and coffee. They serve Starbucks coffee there but, and you know I can drink the Starbucks – it’s palatable in the US compared to other options – this stuff they were serving was a crime. Undrinkable. I sat and caught up with Jonathan for a bit who was passing by and then eventually met up with Cherry. We had a good catch up. Her daughter is getting married this coming weekend.  And it’s snowing on the east coast. I can not imagine coming to World Fantasy the week before that! But you know, she is pretty awesome and seemed only partially stressed out! It’s pretty cool to check in with her once a year – we talked over what I’m doing at TPP over the next year and then I’ll check back in with her in a year’s time. It’s pretty confronting to be all “ok here’s where I am now, here’s where I want to be going.” But confronting in a good way.

I think I wandered around and fell in with the Aussies for a bit after that. I think that’s when Sean got us to try the fried pickles at the sports bar. I regretted those later. I dunno really what I thought of them at the time. We had a quick lunch, sorta – Sean, James, the other Sean, Garth and Alison. They taunting me with what life is like if you can fly premium or first class. Want. Will never have. Still. Cathay was not so bad, even if my air is not flitered twice.

We wandered over to Garth’s reading. I feel I shoulda been warned there was a sad ending. The ending was sad! Poor Garth has been ill all weekend but he read well. I then wandered off to see the second half of Jonathan’s panel – the Year in Fantasy – which had Ellen Datlow, Paula Guran, David Hartwell and Jo Fletcher on it as well. I nerded it up by taking notes on the recommendations. As if I’m gonna catch up and track all those books down and read them! I mean, we’re onto 2012 surely by next week. And I was very chuffed that Jonathan mentioned Love and Romanpunk by Tansy Rayner Roberts as a collection of the year. A couple of other Aussies were mentioned – Lucy’s best of and Margo’s Yellowcake.

Jonathan and I then headed to the dealers room I think? Who remembers?! I think we hung out and stuff til he headed off for his penguin dinner and I headed back to my room, I was soooo tired I thought I’d have an early night. I already blogged the jalopeno incident. During which, I tried to distract myself with TV and I watched the pilot episode of Grimm and a horrible the unknown evil twin did it Law and Order. I think I fell asleep briefly in Grimm but I quite enjoyed it and will check out some more episodes of the series when it makes it to Oz.

Sunday was the last day of the convention! Felt like it came so soon! Most of the weekend I really felt like the con hadn’t quite reached the intensity of Columbus. Everything was so sprawled out, there was no real communal meeting point where you could definitely find everyone. You’d try to catch up with someone you spoke to on the Friday but then never see them again the whole con. But I think Sunday was the highlight for me in terms of talking over new project possibilities and kinda feeling like I actually got energised a bit by being there, which was in truth the main reason I came to WFC – to plug back into the communal energy and recharge my creative battery.

A few of us met up for breakfast and had what was basically our last Aussie meal, though it wasn’t. I had water. And toast. Yay! Jonathan and I took the last tour of the Dealer’s room. I admitted to myself that I really wanted a particular necklace from Laurie – I’d had my eye on it last WFC and kept wandering past it all weekend long. Last year I bought the malachite ring as a present to myself for the WSFA award and I had promised myself something for the WFA nomination. And this necklace was it. I’ll take a photo when I get home as it is packed now. It is actually tiger’s eye but you wouldn’t think it if you saw it. To me it looks like a piece of the Dead Sea Scrolls. And when she sized it, it was a perfect fit. And funnily enough, other women came up to ooh and ahh it later on when I wore it to the banquet and admitted they had wanted it but it didn’t suit them. I think Laurie made it just for me!

I didn’t buy more books but I collected the Twelve Planets that Prime Books weren’t definitely going to sell. And then Jonathan and I headed to Trellises for a quiet drink before we went to suit up for the banquet. I have to secretly admit that I was very chuffed that I got compliments for my dress. I shall have to pop into the shop and pass those onto the assistant who basically dressed me and wrote me instructions. Sadly I am not fashionable enough to have done that myself. But to have passed muster with fashionistas was definitely a highlight.

I dunno what I think of the banquet itself. The food was ok. The vegetarian meal I think was the best choice (though for me – wail – the uber rich chocolate cake dessert had macadamia nuts all the way through it so I had to skip it). We had an Aussie table of Jonathan, Garth, Sean, Liza, Liz Argall, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Deb B and James.  But there was a second Aussie table just next to us and other Aussies spread out in the room.

I was terrified for the awards because Jonathan said my category was up first and I didn’t know what would happen if I had to go up. But Connie Willis was such an outstanding Toastmaster. She’s so lovely and funny and likeable! Even when she’s being mean! And clearly I now have to watch Prime Evil. Anyway, my category was not up first and I could watch others though I still mess up cause I didn’t put the big head down after they handed it to me (did you see everyone else place it on the podium?)

When my name was announced I couldn’t really believe it and I wanted to cry but had to wander up to the podium and oh my goodness there were a lot of people in the room! And there was cheering! For me! I managed to get back to my seat and I was shaking. And I kept looking at my name on the plate and thinking that any minute it will disappear and this was all just a crazy dream! So many people came to congratulate me and it blows me away that so many people are behind Twelfth Planet Press and support us. (I want to thank everyone for that. On low days, your support and encouragement is what gets me through and on great days, it means so much more to be able to share our successes!).

I’m almost off now so I will post this now and fill the next post, whenever that happens, with photos, the Youtube vid and the final What I Did on My Holidays update. Now I am spending the rest of my last day in San Diego with my family.

xx

So sad. I’ve said my goodbyes, had one last breakfast with Jonathan, Charles and Ellen Klages and I’ve checked out of the hotel. I kinda like that you give your Visa on the way in and then they just charge your bill to it and if you never look, then you will never know the price. (I did just sneak a peak, and I don’t think I did too badly. Though maybe some discretion might be called for for the next couple of weeks! Instant noodles and all that.)

I feel guilty for falling off the blogging bandwagon because/and I’ve been really unwell the last half of the con. I still have a lot (and nothing) to blog about and I kinda wanna do it chronologically but my fears on the Crohn’s flare up came to fruition and there have been some periods of general badness. Basically it was my own fault. I was exceedingly careful on many things, like not touching a drop of alcohol, and then I had a pizza for dinner on Saturday night. A pizza with jalopenos. And I NEVER learn the jalopeno lesson! As in, this is not the first time! And it wasn’t until I was halfway through the midst of thinking I was going to die, that Jonathan would have to accept my award should I win and regretting my totally not getting covered on my insurance for Crohn’s, that I connected the dots. I always start to panic when I have an acute attack and it takes me a while (coupla hours) to remember yo, I have a chronic illness and these are the symptoms. I had wanted to go to the bar when the others got back from dinner but instead I was curled up in a half seated ball of pain in bed. At least I had brought a lot of meds and eventually they kicked in. And eventually the jalopenos burned their route through my body.

The experience had two outcomes.

1) I had to be even more careful about what I ate. I gave up coffee for about a day (had some this morning. Shouldn’t have. Lalala). I gave up desserts. Which was horrible and I’ll explain why later. And could barely really eat anything. Crohn’s has this thing where you feel unbelievably nauseated and in pain and then switch to ravenous hunger. Then you eat to deal with the hunger only to feel nauseated and in pain. Fun, eh?

I’m hoping to make it through the plane flights home. I was in a lot of pain by the end of the journey here so am not sure how I will deal. You can’t not eat for 36 hours but that food is also the worst thing to eat. Sigh.

2) This was an excellent reminder of how bad I was sick when I first had this illness. This reminded me why I had been so strict for that whole year back then. I gave up dairy, gluten, caffeine, alcohol and meat. And lived that way for a full year. I’ve often wondered how I managed to do that when I haven’t successfully been able to give up gluten any time I’ve tried since. This reminded me that if I felt like I did Saturday night all the time,  I’d find the strength. And in fact, any of those things make me feel worse almost immediately so there is no “oh well, I’ll pay for that later” cause it’s too debilitating.

So I dunno. Tread softly. Be gentle to myself. These seem to be things I am saying to myself this weekend.