The Norwescon 2004 report

[annathepiper]

I realized something at this year's Norwescon--and that is, as geeks go, I'm a really quiet, not very social geek. I'm intimidated by large crowds, especially when most of them are smoking and/or drinking, and most of them are wandering around in really skimpy costumes and/or are Goths. Most of the con this year involved me kind of having a headache from all the din and hiding in the room Germangeeking, or writing, with periodic emergings to pop into the huckster room or hang out in the lobby or in the Quiet Hospitality room.

I thought about going to panels--but thanks to general stress levels opted against it. I was very much in a space of needing quiet me time. So we'll see about the panel thing come Worldcon this fall (and also, I'd like to attend panels held by a con that I don't go to every year).

People spotted at the con, on LJ and off: tinlail and lyricae, the latter of whom has dyed her hair black with blue streaks that look fairly nifty. jiapa, doing the con look by adding a cloak to her attire. pauldf, wandering around in the company of Liz, who does nifty massages for both me and Paul (spazzkat, that is); we saw them a couple of times during the course of the convention. And ivolucien, more than once as well.

Wednesday: Went down to the hotel with solarbird after we got all our stuff together. On the way, we stopped at the U Village shopping center to pick up soda and a prescription for Dara; I amused myself with discovering that my PDA was able to pick up two different wireless networks from the parking lot. One of which was obviously a network inside QFC. Hee.

Once we got to the con, things were fairly quiet. Dara and I got our stuff into the room, then went to go deal with getting Issue 0 of the daily zine together. This mostly involved Dara working on the thing, while I hung around in the room that was destined to be Quiet Hospitality and lobbed occasional Zim quotes at Dara while I played with the aforementioned PDA and answered email and played Nethack.

Some content fun happened as the con chair had to improvise a little intro article for Dara, and then programming changes had to be verified, which involved playing the 'go find somebody with a radio to contact the person Dara needed to verify this information, only to come back and find out Dara had actually reached her while I was gone' game. Oh well.

Thursday: We got up to go meet a friend who periodically hangs out on the MurkMUSH but who now mostly spends time as a trucker, driving loads around the country. She'd actually come to Tacoma on a run, so we met her at the Flying J truckstop and had brunch. That was fun, since she showed us her semi; I'd never seen the inside of a semi's cab before. It was the smallest apartment I'd ever seen. Dara took pictures.

spazzkat and mamishka arrived at the hotel on Thursday afternoon, and in a sort of scattered wave, we made with getting registered and stuff. Got the obligatory pack of freebie flyers; this year, it came with a couple of paperback books. As per usual, I suspect that these will be paperbacks I'll never actually READ; I have a few of the Norwescon freebie books on my shelf, now. I haven't gotten to those handed out in prior years, either.

Dara, Paul, and I hit the hot tub on Thursday evening, and that was pleasant. Dara got to wear her cute swimsuit, which has had very little wearing to date.

I took a moment to go conspire with the hotel concierge to get flowers delivered to our room for Dara, since this past Saturday was her birthday. Said birthday doesn't usually coincide with Norwescon, but it did this year, and I wanted to make sure that some sort of thing happened on the day to duly mark it. The concierge was charmed, especially when I told her we had the same last name; she got this little 'oh!' look and asked me confidingly if we'd been in on the recent spate of queer marriages. ;) This amused me. I smiled and said politely that it was a long and complicated story, but that we'd thought about it. Which we had.

I also picked up a little birthday present in the huckster room: a Buckaroo Banzai comic. Just to make sure Dara got something to go with the flowers.

Thursday night, we had dinner in the hotel's Nice Restaurant. Which was surprisingly tasty this year.

Friday: On impulse, bought a copy of a paperback called Dhampir in the huckster room, and spent most of Friday night reading it.

On Friday, also, we hung out with tinlail and lyricae in their hotel room, and had pizza and booze and watched bits and pieces of Princess Mononoke. That was enjoyable.

Saturday: Saturday afternoon, Paul had a little impromptu Elfquest fan art thing in the Quiet Hospitality room, and Dara and I hung out there for that. Dara and Paul drew; so did a chick who turned out to be one of the people who works at the local Anime Kingdom on the Ave. I worked on the German Hobbit, and actually was able to use that as an excuse to talk to a Complete Stranger (*gasp!*), who knew more German than I did. :)

That night, I actually attended three events: the Masquerade, which was quite well done this year. Two big notable things about it: 1) it seated ON TIME, and there was hardly any line at all. 2) An incredible Ent costume that won Best of Show. WOW.

After the Masquerade, Paul, Mimi and I wandered over to the bar to do the people-watching-and-drinks thing; this took longer than it should have, due to the wait staff being absolutely swamped. Then we went to a "radio show" production put on by Phil Foglio and his crowd, for the comic book Girl Genius. Lots of fun and giggles involved with that. jiapa caught up with us there, and offered to share a small pizza she'd acquired. We helped her snarf it, but after that, once we got over to the Klingon Karaoke next door, I started feeling oogy. So I went back to the room to lie down.

Wound up staying there for the rest of the evening, which was socially lame of me, but well hey. I wrote a thousand words.

Sunday: Did the hanging-out-in-the-lobby thing, while Mimi did the art auction and she and Paul also did the movie previews, and Dara did some of her zine distribution stuff. Finally left around three-ish, with Paul giving Meems and me a ride back to the Murk.

Comments

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

that's so cute about the queer marriages and you coying saying you'd thought about it, like, not wanting the person to be wrong but not really committing to an answer or anything :)

[cafiorello.livejournal.com]

Sounds like fun!

Which Dhampir? I have an e-acquaintance who has written a book with that title....
Cathy

[avram]

I’d noticed. I ran into you and Dara at a party at the last Worldcon I went to (um, 2001, I think) and you had your nose in a book the whole time. (Not that I should talk; I spent one night at that con finishing up the then-most-recent Harry Potter book in the hotel lobby.)

[annathepiper]

Hee! Yeah, I was really charmed by the lady's reaction, but I didn't want to exactly get into the long and complicated details of my and Dara's recent life with her, so well hey. ^_^

She was a very mannerly lady. Possibly British, given her accent. Her name was Pamela. :)

[annathepiper]

Hrmm. 2001 was the last one where we could conceivably have met, but boy howdy do I not recollect running into you! *blush* Sorry! :)

But this is very likely due to my having had my nose in a book the whole time. ;) Getting caught up on my reading is one of the things I tend to DO at cons....

Unless they happen in Scotland. Then I'll actually pay attention. Because WHOA, SCOTLAND!

[annathepiper]

Barb and J.C. Hendee. They've just put out a sequel called Thief of Lives; the two main characters of both of these books are Magierre the dhampir vampire hunter, and Leesil the half-elf, her partner.