Back home

I was away on vacation. Went to Balticon but had a bajillion things to do first. Cullen and I got our haircut; I got a stacked bob and he donated three years worth of hair to Locks of Love. A bit traumatic for both of us. His is short all over and mine is quite short in the back.

Connie Willis was Guest of Honor and a friend that I see at cons was kind enough to introduce us on Friday night. She sat with us in the con suite with a few other people talking about writing and politics until it was time to go to bed. She is amazing, very smart, classy and kind. I am thrilled we had the opportunity and our friend said she had a blast so that was extra nice.

I saw Jeri Smith-Ready read from her new book Wicked Game on Sunday (I think it was Sunday) and it sounds terrific. It's a vampire novel where the vampires become dj's to keep from being completely locked into the time they changed, unable to grow. That was also a lot of fun. I'm always super pleased to see her on panels.

We saw Dr. Holtz give two panels, one his yearly dino update and one called living in Darwin's universe that was a bit depressing. I was completely flummoxed by a throwaway comment he made about the ice being three miles thick over northern Europe 18,000 years ago so Chris and I got the name of a book he thought we might like that tells the entire history of North America.

The only real drawback is that my blood is still wonky (elevated PT/INR) and my thyroid (which has been being slowly destroyed by antibodies - this is called Hashimoto's Thyroiditis) is giving up the ghost, which is slowing down my heartbeat, which means that my heart can't pump very well, so the circulation in my legs, bad to start with because of the damage of five major blood clots, is now awful. I am barely mobile and had to spend hours every day with my feet up, but I picked places to hang out where there was a lot of traffic and ended up talking to dozens of people about the book I was reading, Brian Sanderson's The Well of Ascension, sequel to Mistborn. Golly, love it or hate it, this book stirs up strong feelings. Really, if you have to be half crippled, the hallway of a busy con is a nice place to do it in.

Overall it was a super con, one of the best I've been to. Cam came in second in the LARP and John Jude Palencar's art was incredible. Just that would have been worth the price of admission. http://www.johnjudepalencar.com/