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We Have Met the Alien and He Is Us: An Eclipse LARP Report

I'm just back from Poland, where I participated in a science fiction LARP called Eclipse. This was an "international blockbuster LARP," meaning that it had a fairly large cast (150 players), a highly detailed and immersive set (a futuristic dome complex near Krakow called Alvernia Planet), costumes (most of us wore standard jumpsuits, which we had the option to rent or buy, but many people accessorized or modified the standard jumpsuits to suit their characters and some brought their own costumes, which was okay as long as your outfit clearly indicated which division you were in by its color: brown for Soft Science, gray for Hard Science, and green for Explorers), and prewritten characters. It was an incredible experience which I have described as "like living in a science fiction movie" -- specifically a cross between Arrival and Interstellar.

( Read more... )

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Team Orca and other whimsies

Monday. Sunny and warm. All windows that open have been opened.

Breakfast was eggs scrambled with the last of the potato salad. Yes, I do this a lot. Yes, I like potatoes far too much. Lunch is in the oven -- a small salmon steak, because I can't remember the last time I actually ate fish, which is not particularly good news, as the cancer docs think that fish three times a week is just about right. Admittedly, my personal best was twice a week for several months, and that was with Steve pushing for all he was worth to make it happen.

I am very much liking this new writing schedule. Sat down at 9, and got up at 11:30 1,280 words the richer, and they're good, says I, as shouldn't.

Tomorrow, unfortunately, a break in the schedule, as I have an early visit to the vampires scheduled, something that hasn't happened in way too long, ref hospital exploding, doctors landing all over the map, having to apply to be a new patient at the practice my PCP landed at, And! all like that.

I was watching a Josh Johnson clip, in which he was talking about the fact that the orcas had attacked another yacht, and the resonate phrase was, "Who expected the orcas would step up?" Which got me to wondering if there was a TEAM ORCA! sweatshirt and how I would go about getting one.

Facebook has also been serving me reels from Quincy's Tavern, which is an ... interesting work perhaps in progress. And it gives me the chance to use the word "ledgerdemain" with non-ironic precision, and with admiration.

Now that lunch is done, I'm on to the business part of the daily schedule: I seem to have a phone call and two letters to write, and! a Sooper Sekrit project to work on. So? I'd best get at it.

How's Monday going for you lot?

Oh, wait! Pictures.

Rosebush update! It's doing splendidly -- new flowers and buds promising more:

And, I had intended to take a selfie, to prove that I was feeling much more the thing, but ... Rookie had a better idea. Admittedly, he is much more glamorous.

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bundle of holding

Bundle of Holding: Weird Wizard

The SHADOW OF THE WEIRD WIZARD corebooks, supplements, and adventures.

Bundle of Holding: Weird Wizard

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clarke award

Clarke Award Finalists 201

2015: Five Britons sign for the doomed Mars One venture, the UK pays off its WWI War Loans, and the Liberal Democrats’ adroit political maneuvering yields memorable electoral returns.

Poll #33648 Clarke Award Finalists 2015

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 33

View Respondents

Which 2015 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
21 (63.6%)

Europe in Autumn by Dave Hutchinson
7 (21.2%)

Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta
6 (18.2%)

The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber
4 (12.1%)

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North
15 (45.5%)

The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey
16 (48.5%)

Bold for have read, italic for intend to read, underline for never heard of it.

Which 2015 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Europe in Autumn by Dave Hutchinson
Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta
The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North
The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey

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Last Day of Con, First Day of Adventure

Image: classic image of the Washington monument at night.

Sunday morning started out much better than the day before as Naomi and I had been invited to breakfast with Joe and Gay Haldeman. We ended up having a rather leisurely brunch talking about life, the universe, and everything. Everything that everyone says about how nice and welcoming Gay and Joe are is one hundred percent true.

I, thankfully, had no panels at all on Sunday. I’d love to say that meant no one mispronunced my name, but alas. A couple of the people on concom just never got it right, despite the fact that I spent a lot of time making sure I put names to faces and knew at least one fact about them, ie, Kathy the former postal lawyer; Zen Lizard (one of the many Sams) who, shockingly, is a fan of lizards; Kim who loves animals and volunteered at the zoo; Roger, the IT guy; and Kimbery, who is easy since he’s a man named Kimberly, but also he was Naomi’s liason and so we heard his entire lifestory on the 30 minute drive from the airport (highlight reel includes, but it not limited to, his extensive time in the foreign service, being a Mormon, and a member of MENSA.)

I think all of them called me Lid-ah.

Ah well.

Knowing that we’d be starting our adventures after the con ended, I wandered over to the metro station--which is directly across from the hotel--and purchased a three day pass for myself and Naomi. That would cover Sunday night, all day Monday, and our trip to the airport on Tuesday.

I wandered back to the con hotel in time to see Scott Edelman in his fish head rushing off to do a reading. I probably should have followed him, since I did want to hear him read, but I figured (wrongly) that the program guide would direct me to where I needed to go when I was feeling ready. But, no! Not only was Scott’s reading not in the program, I could not figure out what room he was in until I overheard someone saying that their reading was around the corner and down the hall near the Green Room. I managed to walk right in during Scott’s Q&A. I’d missed the reading! Curses!

I stayed in the room to listen to the next person (who, unlike Scott, was listed in the program,) Morgan Hazelwood. Morgan was the delightful moderator of our Romance in SF panel and it was fun to hear her read her work.

From there, I sat in the back to listen to the last half hour of “Religion in SF” which Naomi was on with our mutual friend Walter Hunt.

The funny thing about Capclave is that while it is much larger than Diversicon, on occasion, it felt much smaller. Naomi and I discussed this later and we decided that possibly this sense came from the fact that in addition to a three track (four or five if you count the two rooms devoted to author’s readings) there was a gaming room and a dealer’s room. This ended up spreading out the hundred plus members quite a bit. I counted. There were fifteen people listening to a six person panel. So, the energy of the convention was always sort of low.

I have now, of course, been struck with fear that John and I have over-programmed Gaylaxicon. I guess we’ll see how it plays out!

After the religion panel, Naomi had another panel in the same room, which was “Genre Fiction versus Lit Fic.” Despite having even fewer people in the audience, the panel was lively. I think because we all get kind of worked up about mainstream literature and who gets to cross over to it and who doesn’t. (Or we get worked up because we never want to and we have FEELINGS about lit fic.) It was a good mix of panelists, too--some from the “I don’t even like the term speculative fic because it’s too fancy” camp to the PhD and MFA student. It was a great way to end the con, as far as I was concerned.

Afterwards, Naomi did some last minute hanging out with folks and I headed upstairs to prep for adventure, by which I mean snoozling.

At some point around 3 pm, we headed to DC.

I have been desperately trying to replenish my stationary stock and so we got a hot tip from a native that we should check out Jenni Bick in Dupont Circle. The red line, which our hotel is on, goes direct to Dupont Circle and add to that Naomi had a restaurant she wanted to revisit from a previous trip to DC, City Lights of China, that was nearby. So off we went.

I am a huge fan of public transportation. I find the DC metro system to be fantastic in this regard. Plus, their day passes include buses. Rockford/our hotel is, during rush hour, about a half hour from DC. I don’t know why, but that time goes faster on trains.

Jenni Bick was, alas, a bust. Americans do not understand stationary any more. (We did? In the 1970s and even into the 80s you could find huge pads of stationary at all sorts of stores.) Nowadays, we seem to that think ten sheets and ten envelopes for $30 is a great deal. Y’all, ten sheets is two letters--or, on a good day, ONE. I want a packet of 30 super-thin sheets with weird cartoon people on it for $10 to $20, what is wrong with you all???

Sigh.

It was a delightfully pretty shop and I am proud of myself for not buying all the postcards they had in the window.

From there, we stopped at a great comic book shop called Fantom Comics. This was possibly the first comicbook shop I have ever been to where all the graphic novels were organized by subject, like “action/adventure,” “horror,” “romance,” etc., and MANGA WAS MIXED IN. There was no separate manga section! It was kind of nice, actually? It felt weirdly less stigmatizing. I didn’t buy anything, but I took a lot of pictures of titles I want to look up.

Their unisex bathroom had the best art!

Image: bathroom art at Fantom

We ended up taking a bus to where Naomi’s restaurant was--only to discover it was now only a takeout window. Alas! Luckily, it was on a strip of a ton of restaurants and we were able to find a lovely ramen place just up the street.

Then, because we wanted to see some of the monuments lit up at night, we hopped another bus for a quick jaunt and then wandered towards the Lincoln memorial. What was striking was, in fact, the number of National Guard everwhere. I knew they’d be there thanks to the news, etc., but yet somehow I forgot? Someone at the con said that the Guard tend to hang out in large clots at the subway stations and wander the Smithsonian Mall area, and that did, in fact, seem to be true. Naomi was curious and so asked some of the Guard that we ran into where they were originally from and they were all from West Virginia. (Which kind of explained HOW WHITE they all were. Like, the reason we started asking was because they were noticeably missing PoCs.)

Anyway, the walk around the monuments was a bit of a hike.

There was a sign I pointed out to Naomi which read “The Mall is big! Think about renting a bike!” Because, yes. I forgot how much walking a person ends up doing in DC. My feet were a bit sore at the end of the day. Hopefully, I’ll be up for all we have planned for tomorrow which, at the moment, includes checking out the fish market, the Black History museum (Smithsonian) and/or maybe the Postal Museum. I intentionally did not plan a lot for us because frankly, even though both Naomi and I have been to DC and the Smithsonian Mall before… there’s just no way to ever see it all I suspect, unless you live here.

Okay! Off for more adventure!

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: the office ceiling fan

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Dept. of Sunshine

Despair Sucks. Perhaps a Palate Cleanser's in Order

Even though the world is on fire and every morning brings pit-of-the-stomach dread about what the morning headlines will tell, it isn't giving up the fight to say "today I'm going to tell despair to suck it."

I realized this morning that my last couple of posts have been full of rage and frustration. Those are true emotions, but they're also corrosive in the long run - and who the hell knows how much time "the long run" comprises. So here are a couple of things I can honestly say made me smile, or things that I did that I think were fun, or good for someone.

I can't recall if I've mentioned my friend Sandy's efforts to get her and her husband, Dr. Bob, back into the house they had to leave last December because of fire. Their situation has been fraught on so many levels, and Bob and I haven't been able to help much, other than to have them over for supper and an evening away from their long-term BnB just to have time away from the whole thing. But now that they're starting the process of getting back home, we've been able to help.

They have had 1100 badly packed and mislabeled boxes of goods delivered back to their house (that's part of why their situation has been so fraught, even now) and they were overwhelmed with the prospect of unboxing everything and putting things back to rights. Bob and I have spent a few hours every day or so helping them do that; from helping them sort things into "keep," "give away," and "pitch" bags, to simple things like breaking down boxes. Boxes and boxes and boxes - and breaking down those boxes and packing garbage bag after garbage bag with the paper used to pack the boxes - becomes really important in this situation. Sometimes all Sandy needed was someone to listen as we took a coffee break, so that she wasn't simply screaming into the void.

As of today, when I walked in to help Dr. Bob and their friend Steve with more unboxing, the place is starting to look a fair bit more than simply piles of boxes. I think even Dr. Bob, who is inclined to be a glass half empty type, was feeling a little bit of hope.

They have a long way to go before the place is completely back to rights, but at least they know we won't abandon them. Their longtime friend and retired housekeeper is coming up from Birmingham to do some of the heavy emotional and unpacking lifting that's still necessary. I think they'll finally be able to call their home an actual home before the end of the year.

Earlier this week, we had the unexpected pleasure of a visit from

ljgeoff , who was on her way from one travel nursing assignment to another. It's been a few years since Lisa last visited us; we shared some pizza, chocolate chip cookies, and conversation, and then she was on her way. She has more energy in her little finger than I have in my entire body. She also is braver than I think I'll ever be. It was a joy to be in the same room with her again.

And finally, we've decided to give away the Keurig coffee/tea/whatever maker that a friend gave us. We are drinking enough coffee these days that we haven't used the Keurig in months. Mind you, given the increasing price of coffee, perhaps keeping the Keurig and getting rid of the regular coffee maker might be the smarter choice. Sigh.

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In which the writer has had more fun

What went before: OK, so this is no fun. Apparently, I'm having a reaction to the COVID booster -- the very first such reaction.

I am therefore taking the rest of the day off to curl up in a ball of misery under 45 blankets and three coon cats until my head stops hurting.

The good news is that the New Order allowed me to write 1,120ish new words, and the things I'm not getting done are business stuff that will just have to wait.

Hope everybody's having a good Saturday.

Sunday. The adventure continues.

As it turns out, I am ... weller. The headache, which was the worst, is no longer with me. Fever's gone. I am chilly, but that just might be because it's chilly today and I haven't turned on the oil heat, so we're running with what the heat pumps and the sun through the window can provide.

OTOH, now I have muscle aches, and was briefly sick enough to my stomach that breakfast was a big cup of ginger and lemon tea with honey. I just went rooting around in the pantry, and it's looking like that will be Progresso Chicken 'n Rice Soup for lunch.

I have written +/- 1,000 words, and cleaned the cat boxes. A walk is not on today's schedule. I do intend to write some more this afternoon, but there are two outstanding pieces of business mail that I have to get outta here, so that will be happening while I'm in the front of the house heating up my can of soup, and taking a break.

How I got 13 hours of sleep: I took a four hour nap, ably assisted by Nurse Rookie Cookie, who gamely declared he was up for four more, if needed. It being 6 pm by the time I arose, half-blind with the stupid headache, I served up Happy Hour a bit early, had a bowl of rice and two Tylenol -- and went back to bed, whereupon I slept for nine hours. I did wake up once or twice, and noted the presence of Tali and Firefly.

So, apparently the tropes are not a gag, and author trading cards are serious business -- this given the absence of an answer to my latest (no harm, no foul; at this point I'D be giving up on myself. Honestly, who is this out-of-touch old writer, anyway?).

The whole trope idea still makes me queasy and murderous, perhaps not quite in that order, but I believe I have engineered a Work Around. (And this is where we once again and reallyREALLY miss Steve, King of the, "Here, let me not do that for you, 'k? This works for me; you go ahead and do what you do." Insert charming smile.)

Into the trope column on the present form will go: honor, wit, true love, space opera. Those're my tropes and I'm sticking with them.

And, honestly, that's about as far as I can bend without breaking something, probably my last stick of patience, and it's more or less what it says on the label: "The Liaden Universe: Where honor, wit, and true love are potent weapons against deceit and trickery."

I will note that this morning's writing session in Steve's office was adorned by Firefly and Rook, with a brief visit from Tali, who doesn't quiet Get It, yet. I am now in my office, attended by Rook and Tali, Firefly at last look was still snugged down in Sprite's former aerie overlooking Steve's desk.

And that's the mixed bag o'news from the Cat Farm.

How's Sunday treating everybody?

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Saturday at Capclave

Perhaps I should have taken the fact that the hotel's Starbucks' espresso maker was broken Saturday morning as an omen for the rest of my day. I was able to get caffeine by running across Rockville Pike to the Chateau again, but it was a very “??” and “!!” start to the day.

Naomi and I were both on a panel at 10:00 am entitled “Benevolent AIs. The moderator, Wendy Delmater Theis (formerly of Abyss & Apex), went down the row and introduced herself before the panel, which was fine. She asked everyone who they were and seemed very confused by my general existence. I’m not sure if it was the horror of, “Oh no, a name I don’t know how to pronounce?” or (something I’ve been getting on and off here, which is) "... and you are?”

I am admittedly sensitive to the latter. Much more than when someone flubs my name. It’s not a real microaggression against me when someone isn’t sure if my name is LIE-duh or LEE-duh or ends up calling me Lynda or Lydia. I’m a white lady. You mispronouncing my name is not a reflection on how you feel about my ethnicity or my heritage. It’s annoying to me when fear of mispronouncing my names stops people from calling on me on a panel or saying, “You, the end,” rather than trying and failing to say LIE-duh. But, like, it's just something I live with.

However, the whole long stare of ‘hmmm, you have said you are an author, but clearly you are one I have not heard of. Whelp, I guess that means you’re not important” is something that feels much more like a microagression of a sort. I’ve been slowly getting used to it happening. It was always a crapshoot outside of my regional conventions if anyone had heard of me, and this has only increased as time wears on.

But, while I did get ‘the long stare’ and the ‘uh, YOU, at the end’ from our moderator, that wasn’t the real problem with this panel.

First, as expected with a panel about AI, it was somewhat unclear if we’d be talking about LLM and other so-called AI, like ChatGPT, that are operating in the real world as we know it right now or if we’d be talking about fictional versions. The panel description didn’t actually help. Neither did the moderator. Worse, she was one of those moderators that really just wanted to be the one talking. She’d pose questions, let us throw out a couple examples--scold us if we were not precisely on the format she set out (film, TV, books, series) and… I don’t really know because at some point my soul left my body after she shut down Naomi for starting to talk about the AIs in Murderbot Diaries (ART and Mickey) because those were AIs from a book series, not standalones and we were on standalones. Like, wow. We were in the book category why the distinction and is it really something to get cranky about? Whatever. I checked out.

It wasn’t bad in the “someone brought up Hilter” kind of bad (that would be my next panel-panel) but more a “WTF was that?”

Next up wasn’t exactly a panel, it was me interviewing Naomi. And this went fine--quite well, actually.

Scott Edelman, who published my first professionally published short story (in SF Age back in the 90s), chatted with me in the hall for a long time before the interview. We were waiting for Naomi to get out of the panel she was on and just sat on the hallway couch chatting about this and that. Scott did a lot for my ego by apologizing for not knowing that I was going to be at this convention as he would have had me guest on “Eating the Fantastic,” as well. (This is the podcast where he interviews writers over meals that I linked to in yesterday's post). He noted that couldn’t just slot me in because he reads everything the author has written in preparation and, I don’t know if you know this, gentle reader, but I’ve written and published sixteen novels. That would be a lot to just read in a matter of hours. And maybe he was lying, but 1) I don’t think so. He genuinely seemed to remember me. And 2) even if he was, it was a nice thing to say.

The interview was great. Naomi is easy for me to talk to, of course. We’ve been friends for decades.

At some point there was a run to get sandwiches for lunch at the local grocery store and.... then came the panel from hell.

I seem to have been cursed with moderators who really had points they wanted to make on Saturday. This panel was called “For the Love of Evil” and, ostensibly, was about villains we should hate, but secretly love (or perhaps that we love to hate.) I had a nice little list of names like Killmonger, Moriarty from Sherlock, (Milton’s Satan?), and Loki. Things started off well because Capclave is an East Coast con and East Coast cons have the culture of “list all your books and awards” and so I got a big laugh when I noted that ,when I won the Philip K Dick Special Citation for Excellence, I sent out a press release that said, “Lesbian wins Second Place Dick” (which I really did!) But, as things turned out, that might have been the high point of the panel?

Things went along for a while pretty well, but then for reasons known only to our mod, Larry Hodges, he decided that he needed to monologue about how various real life villains mapped to fictitious ones. This was already a bad idea because he was talking about Stalin and Mussolini (neither of which he could pronounce) and... of course, we could see where this was going.

Inexorably, he gets to Hitler, whom he likens to Thanos because “he thought he was doing what was right for the world.”

The author next to me, Diana Peterfreund, dropped her head to the table.

I full-body disassociated.

For me, it was a kind of decision paralysis. I was torn between grabbing the mic and just saying “no, no, no” until Larry stopped talking or faking my own death/dropping the the floor and marine crawling out the door.

Meanwhile, of course, Larry is still making his case that Hilter was just trying to right the wrongs of the world (in his own head, like how a villain thinks he’s a hero, but still, Larry, there’s no justifying this, so please just STOP.) But he didn’t stop, he kept talking, and so thank GOD for Diana who finally does manage to grab the mike and say, “SO! Change of subject, Loki sure is hot!” This allows me to finally return to my body and I grab my mike and say, “So hot!” We go back and forth like this until the bad feelings go away.

Why do people feel the need to EVER bring up Hilter? I feel like unless you're comparing the current presidential administration to the Third Reich, just don't.

Anyway, Loki is not exactly what we talked about--Diana managed to be far more articulate, but I no longer remember anything other than SOMEHOW we managed to literally wrestle the panel back to something akin to squee about villains. And when I say “we,” I mean Diana, with some support from me. The panel was saved. It even, miraculously, snaps back to true and we end with some nice questions from the audience which aren’t just “WHAT THE HELL DID I JUST WITNESS?”

I did have some great things happen on Saturday, like the chat with Scott E. and running into some other folks I know like Carolyn Ives Gilman and Walter Hunt. I was the “comealong friend” to Naomi’s Scintilation Discord group dinner, which was delightful. Then, just before retiring upstairs, I watched the WSFA award ceremony which was nice in the classic small con award way, even though Marissa Lingen didn’t win.

No further mishaps.

But, the ones I had? Doozies.

Thanks to all the trauma, I retired early last night. As noted previously, I just don't really function all that well in social situations after dark any more. Naomi was apparently out until quite late. I woke up long enough last night to have a nice chat with her about it all (and catch her up on all my trauma).

This morning we'd been invited to breakfast with Joe and Gay Haldeman at 9 am. The two of them are, of course, quite wonderful so we had a lovely time talking to them both for several hours over eggs and toast.

Today things wrap up in the early afternoon, so I've been put in charge of finding something fun for us to do this evening. Tomorrow we're still in DC for some sightseeing, and then it's home Tuesday afternoon.

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Frostflower and Thorn (Frostflower and Thorn, volume 1) by Phyllis Ann Karr

Frostflower can solve Thorn's pregnancy problem... but can the pair survive the attention of a fanatical farmer-priest?

Frostflower and Thorn (Frostflower and Thorn, volume 1) by Phyllis Ann Karr

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books received

Books Received, September 13 — September 19

Really, more of Book Received. One work new to me, science fantasy.

Books Received, September 13 — September 19

Poll #33640 Books Received, September 13 — September 19

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 37

View Respondents

Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

Yalum by Matthew Hughes (September 2025)
10 (27.0%)

Some other option (see comments)
1 (2.7%)

Cats!
35 (94.6%)

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Friday Afternoon, Capclave

When last we left our intrepid heroines, Naomi and were off to see what fun Japanese shops we could shop. The only place that was open when we set out (around 10 am) was Maruichi, a grocery store, 1.1 miles from the hotel. It was probably the most fun we had shopping. I tried Boss Coffee Black hot, not out of a vending machine (as it proper) but, even so, it was quite good. I liked this place because I could listen to customers and shop workers speaking a language I’m trying to learn.

I think I’ve talked about this already but I’m at the halfway point in the 13th Warrior language acquisition montage with Japanese. I will embed the video I’m referencing below, so you know what I mean. But, the point in the scene where Antonio can pick out about ten words out of a hundred? That’s me right now.

Watch on YouTube

In the same mall was a kielbasa shop which was filled with other fun Polish goods and goodies. We spent a decent amount of time just window shopping (and gift buying) at these two places.

The other Japanese shops, however, weren’t open for another hour or more and so Naomi and I wandered back down the Rockville Pike checking out all the other little places along the way. We found a fun little tea shop run by an Indian couple who were very charming. Since Mason never reads my blog, I can tell you that I picked up a couple of really nice gifts for him (as my son has turned into a bit of a loose tea connoisseur,) including a cute tea ball where the counterweight is a book reading cat.

Surprisingly, the Tesco (the departo) was a bit of a bust for me. Naomi’s guest liaison had hyped up this store’s stationary section and so I’d gotten my hopes up. Alas, what they called stationary was actually just a packet of lined paper. Not even with a cute bit of art at the top. Very strange. Very disappointing. Tesco, however, had an absolutely mind-boggling number of Lay’s chip flavors and Kit-Kats, etc. It was interesting, thinking back on the Reddit thread comments, that the only language besides English that I heard spoken there seemed to be Mandarin. (I can not say for sure, but it certainly wasn’t Japanese.)

Naomi then took me out for my very first ever conveyor belt sushi. What fun!

Image: the conveyor belt with sushi

I was brave and tried raw squid (not sure I’ll be doing that again!), but otherwise we ate far too much. This place also had robot servers--two different types, a little train that brought small snacks, and an actual robot that brought bigger appetizers and then complained that it had to get back to work. I found it very charming.

Image: the little train-like robot that delivered small snacks. I failed to get a picture of the larger robot.

Then we came back to the hotel room long enough to take a quick break and rest our feet.

I will admit that at this point I “snoozled.” Snoozling is what my family calls those kinds of half-naps where you’re easily wakeable for a chat, but also just as likely to drift into the zone where you might start snoring. You know, snoozling.
From there we went to registration to begin the con. Program participants all got individualized schedules printed on the back--and I was reminded that this was something I wanted to be able to do for our Gaylaxicon folks. This means, I’ll be doing them? But it’s really SO NICE. It feels like a perk to the programming participant, you know?

Naomi had a panel right away at 4 pm called “Morally Grey Characters” which I sat and listened to. Zack Be was the moderator and he did an excellent job, actually. He’s apparently a psychologist by trade and you could kind of tell from the way he talked to some of the folks who asked questions at the end--like he was able to coax out the shy ones, and firmly, but respectfully shut down the rambling ones. I will admit that I wasn’t super riveted by the topic. I am a fan of morally grey characters, but the panel ended up focusing more on how to write them than recommendations on where to find them. I wanted the latter.

Then I was on an absolutely banger of a panel on SF and Romance. The other folks on the panel were fantastic:JL Gribble, Morgan Hazelwood, Sherin Nicole and Andrija Popovic. The conversation was dynamic and informative and I had a tremendous time.

Even cooler, I was wandering towards the con suite thinking I might scrounge up dinner there when JL Gribble invited me out to dinner. I hung out with them and one of their writer friends and had one of those fun con experiences where you go out to a meal with someone you barely know and have a fantastic conversation. At the same time Naomi was off being interviewed in a very similar vein by Scott Edelman for “Eating the Fantastic,” (https://www.scottedelman.com/wordpress/tag/eating-the-fantastic/) which basically hopes to recreate that magical con experience. So, that was kind of a cool coincidence!

Naomi and I met up again at her reading, whereafter I turned into a pumpkin.

There is something that is happening to me now that I am older where I just don’t want to talk to people after 9 pm. I don’t know what that’s about. I still consider myself an extrovert, but I am starting to experience the uniquely introverted experience of being “peopled out.” I’d had my fill of strangers. Time for bed.

I was up this morning early enough to discover that the Starbucks in the hotel has a broken espresso machine. So, I ended up across the street for our lattes again. Today is my busiest day, so I'll have a lot to report tomorrow.

Current Mood: enraged
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Nmixx "Ocean"

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Dept. of Everything's Fine. Just Fine.

Who Knew There Were Such Things as Pepper Spray Balls?

Yeah, not me. But there they were, being shot on Friday morning - by a rooftop sniper, no less - at protestors outside an ICE detention center in Broadview, immediately west of Chicago. In addition to the pepper spray, the ICE thugs tossed tear gas canisters at the protestors. They slammed people to the ground, and at least one protestor, activist and political hopeful Kat Abughazaleh, said that one of these public servants told her "Your First Amendment rights are on the sidewalk" as he did some of that slamming. Stay classy, ICE.

The protestors have been at that facility every Friday, and this is, as far as I can tell, the first time the thugs have escalated this. It seems to me to be clear; they hadn't been properly escalating the situation in a way that Dear Leader needs in order to pretend that the Chicago Hellscape™ requires him to send in the military, and on Friday they got their marching orders.

I do believe I've mentioned this before; they are motherfuckers.

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2025 52 Card Project: Week 37: Gaming

I have been steeped in everything science fiction and fantasy for decades, but there is one thing I've had no experience with whatsoever:

I have never tried Dungeons and Dragons gaming.

I'm not quite sure why. Heaven knows I have dozens of long-time friends who have been gaming for years, and I've heard peripheral conversations on the topic at many a science fiction convention. Even around my own dinner table, as Fiona has long enjoyed gaming.

So when I sent out my call for ideas for Year of Adventure things to do, one friend,

lydamorehouse, hit upon the obvious: why not join her group for a gaming session?

I went over to Lyda's house to consult, and she walked me through the process of pulling together a character to play. I was pretty lucky with my rolls, and Lydra graciously set me up at Level Four. After an hour and a half of questions and answers, I had a new character, a ranger, with a respectable level of skills to test out.

And that's what I did last Saturday over Zoom: I was invited to join the troupe of motley characters by a rather glittery dragon and came upon the assembled company at a windmill, where they were regrouping after their last adventure. I had to follow Lyda's prompts and ask a lot of questions, but I had a general idea of what to do. I spent a fun three hours playing with the others. We stashed some magical pastries, examined a magical rune book in a Bag of Holding, and tangled with a vampire. I took out my bow and quiver, stuck a garlic roll onto the end of the arrow, and shot it into his chest. This gave me the satisfaction of staggering him a bit--although I didn't have much of a chance to savor my victory since he promptly turned me into a frog.

I got better eventually and exited, following a wolf. But the experience was deemed a success for all concerned (and apparently I didn't grossly offend anyone), so I was invited to return for the next session.

I think I'm going to enjoy this.

Image description: Background, bottom layer: a Dungeons and Dragons character page. Overlaid over it: Center: an old-fashioned windmill building. Left: a darkly sinister male figure dressed in black, a wolf at his side. Right: a woman pulls back the string of bow loaded with an arrow aiming at the man, a bread roll (a garlic roll) affixed to the tip. At her feet: a frog. Upper half, semi-transparent: a screenshot of several people in Zoom conference. Hovering over the vanes of the windmill: a miniature dragon.

Gaming

37 Gaming

Click on the links to see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

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And furthermore...

I'm really glad I moved the writing part of my life back to Steve's office. The business aspect of my life is a Terrible Snarl, which is going to take several hours, if not days to unsnarl. But! I will be able to Go To Work untroubled by the gnarly looking piles, and that's a Good Thing.

I am also thinking that I will be wanting to move my writing time from afternoon/evening to morning. Get up, get breakfast, hit the story. This has never worked for me before, but, since I am now apparently a Day Person, we shall Make Adjustments.

Me doing creative work in the morning means that y'all will be getting the Confusion Factory Daily Update later in the day. I hope that doesn't inconvenience anyone.

On the Trope Front, I have decided to treat the whole business as a game, because if I don't I will descend into a Slough of Despond, because 35+ years of writing my head and heart out is going to be reduced to "meet cute." I really am trying to meet the organizers of this thing halfway, but I fear I'm being just as hard on them as I feel they're being on me.

Later, we can talk about how Tropes do a disservice to writer and to reader, if we want to. I expect I'm on the wrong side of the line, as I am with trigger warnings. I am a flawed being. As are we all.

Aside all of that... I do believe that I'll pour myself an early glass of wine and go sit out on the deck.

Everybody have a good evening. Stay safe.

I'll check in tomorrow afternoon.

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Friday on the road

Friday. It's an awfully nice day. Sunny and breezy. Warmer up inland where the Confusion Factory is located, than down Bath, where it was Right Cool at that nice little park of theirs. If I could snap my fingers and move this house as it is to Bath, I'd do that.

Yeah.

So, I saw my PCP, who's looking well. I have my COVID shot, so that's taken care of. I will also be traveling up and down Central and Coastal Maine for the next little bit -- acupuncture at Rockport (not really acupuncture, but something to do with needles and reading nerve health and messaging); PT at Augusta; Audiology in this, mine own city. ... I'm not sure where the bloodwork's to be done. I'm hoping Thayer, but I need to check the portal.

We are in pursuit of a Better, Longer Term fix for the back, because it's getting worse, and the poor chiropractor has worn out at least three hammers on me, to no real avail. He no sooner pronounces me Aligned, poor man, then my back goes out again for no reason, and I collapse to the floor, screaming. I mean, something's not right when you hurt your back doing Tai Chi.

While in Bath, I went down to the park, obviously, and enjoyed a chocolate peppermint latte at Cafe Cream. It was wonderful, and now I'm sorry I didn't allow myself a scone or a muffin, but! I found that just sitting in a busy cafe, sipping my latte and not doing much else, was ... oddly restorative. I think it helped that everyone was having a reasonably good time; there were no angry voices, or people being nasty to the folks behind the counter, said folks being Genuinely Interested in you and your order ("Ooh, the Yorkie Latte? (this being the official blackboard name of my drink.) You're gonna love that." And she wasn't wrong.)

After I drank my treat, I went across to Now Your Cooking and toured the premises. I bought a couple of gadgets -- including a hook that will help me open pull-tab cans, which has become an issue -- and a what ought to be a very nice red blend bottle of wine, which I plan on opening this evening, to reward myself for having gotten credibly through the morning.

The car's GPS did this to me the last time I went to Bath, but I didn't remember it soon enough to keep it from freaking me out. When you get off the expressway, there is Only One Way to merge with the state route. The GPS Strongly Disagrees with this, and starts screaming ROUTE RECALCULATING! ROUTE RECALCULATING! like a mad thing, and it really gets your heart racing. As I did the time before, I pulled off into the handy shopping center, whereupon the GPS recovered itself and agreed that I had been on the right road. Next time, I'm going to have to Steel Myself to ignore it.

On the way home, I stopped at the Harvest Moon Deli and bought way too much food -- Tikka Marsala soup, which was good, and I ate it all; a roast beast of burden (they name their sandwiches after classic rock songs at the Harvest Moon) sandwich, which I ate a quarter of one half, the other 3/4s destined for the evening meal, and the remaining half either for tomorrow's breakfast or lunch.

I still have paperwork sorting and portal-visiting to do relative to the medical part of the day, so that's what I'll be doing for the rest of the afternoon, with an eye toward hitting the writing space tomorrow and getting something useful done.

And how was your morning?

Before departure, Whatcha Doin' Moms:

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Bad News From Alpha Centauri A…

There's a planet in the habitable zone... but not an Earthlike planet.

Bad News From Alpha Centauri A…

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Sabrena Swept Away by Karuna Riazi

Sabrena's life is full of struggles already. The last thing she needs is an other-worldly adventure. Life is, alas, not considerate of a teen's preferences.

Sabrena Swept Away by Karuna Riazi

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Pre-Con

Things don't kick off here at Capclave until after 1 pm, and I am, unfortuntely, an early riser. At least with the time zone shift waking up at Saint Paul 6:30 am is a much more reasonable (for most people) 7:30 am here.

I let Naomi sleep in and went in search of coffee. The hotel has a Starbucks so, in desperation, there's always that. But I live in hope of a good latte. I didn't exactly find one, though Chateau de Rockville Cafe wasn't bad. As I told my wife this morning, it was more bakery than coffeeshop. I might try a place called The Espresso Bar (GPS thinks it's a 7 minute walk from the hotel (on the other side of the metro line, which is directly behind the con hotel.)

For reasons known only to Rockville, the little strip malls around the hotel seem to be filled with Japanese-themed shops. There's even a place called Teso Life, which porports to be in the style of a Japanese "departo" (department store.) The internet tells me, howeve, that it is not a Japanese company. This is an American company that is importing the vibe, if you will. There is an Eibsu, which is a Japanese grocery store with a lot of Japanese products and just a ton of other places like this. I don't know if this is a Japantown little corridor in Rockville or just a quirk.Okay a quick jaunt over to Reddit tells me that where we are, the Rockville Pike, does in fact have a small community of Japanese immigrants/Japanese Americans. I am warned, however, that the Teso Life is actually owned by a Chinese company. Apparently, the Maruichi Japanese grocery store and Temari Japanese cafe on Rockville Pike, are both run by Japanese expats.Regardless, I'm excited to check it out. And we need to do something for awhile.

I'm glad I packed a pair of shorts, however. In my little jaunt for coffee, I managed to get very sweaty. It's warm here today. Shawn tells me that y'all in the Twin Cities got a lovely thunderstorm last night.

Okay, I'm off exploring more exciting news as it breaks.

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Thursday at a glance

Installment ONE: So, I got up, had breakfast, carried my tea to Steve's office, and was at work by 9:15. Surfaced at 11:55 to go down to do my duty to the cats and take a walk. Now need to figure out if I'm going to order in or just zap a Lean Cuisine.

I need to do a couple things in the business office, from which location I write to you. Those include finishing making a list for my PCP visit tomorrow, researching where the new office actually is, and downloading the Word Book from this computer to take back to the writing computer, which had redlined every other word in the manuscript because it hasn't been brought up to date.

Firefly kept me company in the writing room all morning, and Rookie popped in and out. He was clearly a little concerned about me sitting in Steve's chair -- was I actually allowed to do that? Apparently, he went off and checked the paperwork, because he has clearly accepted that, yes, I can do that.

Hope everybody's having a good day. It's lovely and sunny here, warm, but not hot.

Installment TWO: Everyone who asked after the keyboard. It is a Kinesis Advantage2 keyboard. I've been using them for at least 20 years; started when my wrists went bad and I bullheadedly refused to give up typing, because speech recognition did not work for me at all. This is what happens when what you actually do instead of pronouncing words correctly is fake people into thinking you talk good by a combination of inflection and body language, neither of which translates into computer programs.

The Kinesis Advantage2 helps because your wrists are in a neutral position and your fingers can hang down in a neutral position, rather than being Poised! To! Strike! as is the case with a standard flat keyboard.

Yes, the learning curve was vile. And, also yes, the trade off is that I now can't type on a flat keyboard, so if I'm taking my laptop on a trip, I either have to also take a keyboard almost as big as the laptop, or Accept that I'm going to be reduced to two-fingering it for as long as I'm away.

This is always a difficult choice because typing is my mode of expression of choice, right after interpretive dance.

Installment THREE: OK, fun game!

First question: Do the Liaden books have any "tropes"? Examples given "grumpy sunshine," "found family," "the chosen one"? (What on earth is "grumpy sunshine" and do people really push the "tropes" in their books?)

Second question: Can you give us a 1 sentence (30 words) quote form one of your books? ("Yes," which is my go-to, is not in this case a Valid Answer.)

In other news, the Lean Cuisine won, because I made the mistake of checking my mail. My plan is to eat, and then go back and write for another couple hours.

Installment FOUR: OK. I have written to the originators of the Survey which included the Fun Questions.

So far today, I have Scrutinized the chapter-by-chapter, identified holes in the narrative and sketched in a couple of ideas to fill them. I finished writing a scene, for a total of more-or-less 1250 new words, and did more research. At this point, I might as well open my own noodle shop (no, I haven't watched the movie yet; I'm a little leery of spillage, since I'm actively working on this situation for the book). I hoped to write more today, but that's probably not going to happen? Because mail, and also I really ought to wash the dishes so I can find the sink. And see if, one! more! time! I can find LibreOffice's Word Book.

Tomorrow is the much-complained about trip to Bath and the PCP. I suppose I might as well declare a Writer's Day Off at this point, hit the bakery and tour the kitchen store, and plan on getting back to work on Saturday.

It looks like next week, I have, with the exception of Tuesday evening needlework, nothing scheduled, so that's like a whole uninterrupted week of work. Fingers crossed that nothing comes up to force a change of plans.

So, that's it. I feel like I had a very successful test-drive of separating the mundane and the writing work spaces, and I hope this continues to prove out.

Everybody have a good evening; I'll check in as I can.

I wrote a goodbye note in lipstick on your arm

- I had a dream last night where I was in some sort of high-end, very posh mall, and spent ages looking at a mysterious cosmetics counter that had lipsticks that were exact matches for the OG Chanel Vamp and MAC Verushka. They had tubes of those discontinued lipsticks to swatch and match. I woke up as my dream self was about to spend $160 for two lipsticks. I'll admit I'd be tempted to do that in real life if the company did indeed have the OG tubes to swatch against.

- The US leg of the MCR tour ended last weeked. HOWever, as of yesterday, new ads related to MCR have been seen in New York, Detroit, Minneapolis, and San Diego. Some are just spray painted logos in parking lots outside of stadiums, but some have been bulletin boards and signs of either one or more of the band in the Black Parade uniform, or the Keposhka MCR logo. The fandom, no surprise, are losing our MINDS. Does this mean there's going to be another US leg of the tour? If there is, does it mean more weird storyline/lore that the band is potentially in some sort of stasis or time loop? (I won't give you the whole breakdown, but over the course of the tour Gerard has become more and more corpse-like; paler, wounds on his face, etc., and he's stabbed to death at the end of each Black Parade segment of the concert. There's more. There's a lot more.) Does this mean there's going to be a DVD or something? Should I start saving money for tickets and travel just in case? Who knows? Not the fandom, that's for sure.

- I've been tired ALL THE TIME lately. I'm sure some of it is the ambient stress level we're all dealing with plus the ongoing varying stress levels of work, but the rest may be my chronic health issues flaring up? My body trying to stage a coup and force me to rest? I don't like any of these answers.

- I'm finally getting back into a rhythm of witchy things. I'm pulling a tarot card most days, and I did some ritual work this week. It felt good. I need to do more, because it helps me approach things with more clarity and giving myself grace. And whooooo-boy, do I need both of those things.

So! How are you folks doing?