Elf Sternberg

Sunday, I made it to Jay Lake's reading, which was fun. He looked like he was doing okay, given his recent medical adventures. Other than that, it was more meeting in the hall face-time with friends and fans. I hit the dealer's room and came home with a stack of books, an entire half-shelf full to read between now and Foolscap.

We left Kouryou-chan at home. Her sister was over at her mother's for the Easter day celebration. When she woke up, Lisakit gave her a ride to the hotel and I caught up with her at the front door. Kids with cellphones for the win.

There wasn't much left, though. Kouryou-chan did some of the Easter stuff, I did one last panel, and that was it. We registered for next year, said goodbye to all the friends we could again, and headed out.

The rest of Norwescon Saturday went the way it usually did. The steampunk and Victoriana themes made it a very happy place, full of heaving bosoms and faces so pretty the instinct to elevator eyes was almost fully overridden. I saw shemayazi looking so lovely; I simply must stop panting when I run into her. I spent most of my time with Kouryou-chan; we did the Shakespeare For Kids panel.

Later, Josh and I walked to his car to drive us, Omaha and Kouryou-chan out for pizza and for Omaha to pick up a costume. We were both in our kilts. He had parked about two blocks from the hotel, and as we walked someone drove by and shouted "Faggots!" I'm like, this is a bad thing?

When we got back, Omaha went off and Kouryou-chan and I went to ivolucien's birthday party, where I was introduced to a host of beautiful people, one of whom gleefully smiled, teased, flirted, and then loudly and viciously pointed out to me that she was jailbait. I'd already figured that out. Spent time out in front of the lounge with latheos, and when the dance opened Kouryou-chan and I ended up there, running into the exquisite tygereclipse.

While we were there, two men and two women dressed in costumes right out of a Jane Austen novel, narrow hoops and ruffled collars and sleeves and dark velvet jackets, took up one corner of the dance floor, the men bowed to the women, and began to dance a carefully choreographed Regency dance, trading and bowing in as fine a ritualized dance as ever seen in a movie about Mozart, all while the speakers blared Belinda Carlyle's "Heaven is a Place On Earth." It was so lovely and remarkable that the dance floor paused and cheered as the men took their ladies by the hand and led them off the dance floor in that curious, knee-bowed way that men did back in the day.

A little later they came back. More people had joined the dance floor, and many of us pointed out the returning Regency dancers to our peers. Once again the four took up positions in the corner of the dance floor, the men bowed to their ladies, and then they began to get down in the modern way. A loud laugh went up from those of us who had seem them first, and several people shouted, "Well played! Well played indeed!"

Omaha had gone to be in the "amateur" burlesque show; I don't think they knew what they were getting when they asked for the (well, okay, half, but the dancing half) Omaha the Cat Dancer to get on stage. Afterward, she relieved me and took Kouryou-chan out to the dance.

I ran into one of Yamaraashi-chan's older sisters while I was idling along the corridors, taking photographs of the Masquerade costumes. She said, "Y'know, I went to the burlesque show." She was quiet for a moment, awkwardly so, and then she said, "I couldn't help but thinking: Omaha's really, really good up there, but she's Yamaraashi-chan's stepmom and that's just... a little ick. But she's really good!"

I found a quiet corner in which to sit and write, and while I was there two young women came up to me. One, a heavyset but very cute blond, said, "We're having a party over at La Quinta [the hotel across the street, and the one where the heavy drinking was happening]. Do you want to go over there with us? We're inviting as many people as we can!" I politely declined. Later, when I got up I discovered the young woman had dropped her cell phone. I ran into Omaha and as we were leaving I found the woman and returned her phone to me. "Oh, you're so wonderful!" She gave me a huge, somewhat unsteady hug and I realized that she was already quite drunk. I leaned over to her friend, who was not so drunk, and said, "Don't let her cross the street alone, okay?" She assured me she wouldn't. We all went home.