No panels = stress free convention, part the first
I had a wonderful time at Readercon. And a relaxing one, too! Not participating in any panels left me free to enjoy the weekend, with no responsibilities at all.
Also, I arrived a day early, and for one night didn’t even have a roommate. A nice evening of mostly solitude, where I could reset all my angst-meters to zero.
Plus: I love hotels. If you give them money, they will give you food, and clean up after you. And you can sleep as late as you want.
I was in a happy state of mind, and inspired by all the great discussions and conversations, all of them about things that interest me, and matter to me. Hundreds of people who like the same stuff I do — how could I not be inspired?
It was nice; in fact, I think I kind of needed exactly that, without knowing it.
Oh, right — that photo:
Click-big!
Left to right (foreground to back, back to front): Allysen Carver, Victoria Janssen, Judith Berman (unfortuately partially obscured), Your Intrepid Blogger, Ted Chiang, Alex Jablokow, Ann Tonsor Zeddies (aka Toni Anzetti, although not recently), and Jeff Carver.
Our side of the table
It was a great dinner, involving good food and excellent companions.  Lots of interesting conversations (on the basis of Ted’s recommendation, I instantly bought Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One’s Looking), by Christian Rudder, which has some fascinating insights about human behavior, gleaned by analysis of the massive collections of data accumulated by various social media and dating sites).
Other side
Also wonderful: Meeting fans (and non-fan pals of fans): Joshua AC Newman, Carrie Bernstein, Sam Anderson and Kate Freedman.  I had posted and tweeted that I was available for meeting and hanging out with any and all, at 2pm on Saturday — and these are the folks who turned up! I was a bit nervous, not knowing who would be there (except for Joshua, who tweeted back instantly). But it turned out to be a great time.
These are extremely intelligent and accomplished people, and they were joy to spend time with.  They all seemed to have great senses of humor, they were astonishingly well-poised while maintaining enthusiasm and charm and honesty — They’re exactly the sort of people I’m writing for. I’m so very glad I met them.
(But– ack! Look at the time… I need to finish this tomorrow! Must sleep now.)
More, as they say, later…
