Norwescon, day 2.

Norwescon's second day was much like the first. We got up late, swung by the donut shop and then headed over to the convention. I'd like to say we had a good time, but both Omaha and I are feeling burned out following the latest legal twists and turns in our private battle to keep Yamaraashi-chan safe.

Balloon Beasties
Hosted on Flickr!. Click to enlarge.

Still, I did get to take Kouryou-chan to a great session on making balloon animals while Omaha went off to a panel entitled "Cutting Edge Sci-Fi". The light blue one is Kouryou-chan's unicorn before we fitted it with mane and horn. Mine only got a horn; the mane popped. After that, we went to Denny's for lunch, where we ran into Josh and FallenPegasus, where the wait for a seat was forever, and where the service was great after we got seated. We conversed with the table opposite us about beer, guns, and the movie Tremors.

Kouryou-chan and I hung out while Omaha went to something called "Norma Editorial," which turned out to be more about graphic novels than anything else. Omaha found that disappointing, so we let Kouryou-chan go to the swimming pool instead, where the met two other girls and had a great time. We also had one heck of a giggle listening to Kouryou-chan read aloud The Adventures of Darth Mad, a painfully cute web comic about an evil Jedi. No, really, that's what webcomics are for. The artist was laughing so hard she gave Kouryou-chan a free print of the dead tree cover of the comic.

Omaha watched over Kouryou-chan while I went to "Getting the Novel Finished," which was much more about wordcount than it was about plot and denouement and since I don't have a problem with wordcount it wasn't really my thing. Still, we did talk a bit and I ended up describing Sterlings this way: "It started as a riff on bad seventies new-wave SF themes but it's ending up more like Tales of the City... in Space!" To which one of the panelists said, "Okay, you've lost me already. I have no idea what you're talking about."

Then Omaha and I switched kid duties again so she could go to the Talebones reading and Kouryou-chan and I went to Lazer Tag. They started late and in the free-for-all Kouryou-chan just kept getting killed so finally she gave up. We went back over to the reading hall where she read a comic book while we waited for Omaha to be done with her event.

We let Kouryou-chan dance after that for a little while, but the adults' energy was low so we finally just all packed into the car and went home. It's less than ten minutes from the hotel to the house (y'know, I still can't believe there's not a single bus that goes up 188th street) but Kouryou-chan was asleep by the time we got home.

I ran into so many lovely and wonderful people. animegothgirl did a terrible, tragic thing to her hair. A woman I've known for years said to me, "I have a badass sword, a tail, and a big butt. I'm the perfect woman." I was inclined to agree. intrepid_reason flirted shamelessly, and I told her to warn me before she shifted to flirting with intent, as I can never tell and tend to err on the side of caution. Dara and I talked a lot about dealing with AJ Adams' transformation: she's apparently going all fangirl on him, and trying to do it in a good way. I advised her to learn to enjoy the thought of her vices. Saw shemayazi in the dealer's room. She looked better-rested and hale. So many friends with hugs and condolences. I should have enjoyed it more. It would have been a much nicer convention if I hadn't felt so emotionally drained by the toil of the previous week.

Norwescon Sunday

Well, Norwescon day three has come and gone already. I never did get to see what Alexander James Adams looks like. That's okay. I performed the Ritual of Coffee, and then we all went over to the hotel for the buffet. Omaha took Kouryou-chan to the egg hunt while I went to the panel "Characters are People Too," where we went over all the ways that you can accessorize your character to make them seem more human. Things like tics, habits, different personalities in different roles, different drives, what a character pays attention to, so forth. That was a really good panel.

I found Omaha down in the Amateur Medievalist Group room. She was relaxing with a book while Kouryou-chan and another child shot padded arrows at hobbits. I took a few practice shots myself: I shot Sam in the head, Merry took one right in the crotch and Frodo took a leg wound so he won't be gettin' far, muahahahahah.

Omaha then took Kouryou-chan to some kid-friendly thing while I went to "Maintaining a Long Running Series," which wasn't as useful as it sounds: it was really a "buy our books, please" panel by Mike Sheperd and someone whose name I can't now remember.

We left after that, drained, disconnected. It's been a crappy weekend. We need some better luck.