First, an announcement for those of you Michigan area. I’m going to be at Confusion Jan 18th through the 20th. I’ll be signing books, speaking on panels, and generally getting my geek on. Stop on by if that sort of thing sounds like a good time to you….
Second, an apology. Over the last year I’ve fallen into a bad habit. I post a blog announcing some appearance I’m going to make, then, when I come back, I make a post along the lines of, “Whew. I’m back. It was cool, I’ll give you the details later.”
But then, of course, I never do.
This isn’t because I don’t love y’all. It’s because this past year I’ve been really over-busy. Typically I spend all weekend at a con, come back exhausted, then spend most of the week catching up on everything I’d fallen behind on because I was out of town. Then, by the time I’m caught up, it’s usually time for me to leave town again….
As a result, there are a bunch of stories I’ve been meaning to tell, but haven’t. I’ve met cool people, discovered cool games and books, and frequently made an ass of myself in a variety of amusing ways. The last one, if you haven’t guessed yet, is a particular specialty of mine.
So expect to see some of those convention stories popping up over the next couple months. Hopefully they’ll be somewhat amusing, if not particularly timely.
Thirdly and lastly, the story.
My recent trip to Boston was, by and large, a lot of fun. The trip itself was made extra exciting by the fact that I was traveling through airport security without a form of government ID.
You see, just before the holiday season, I accidentally left my driver’s licence at K-mart when returning a defective broom (It sounds like there’s an interesting story there, but trust me, there isn’t.) Afterward, K-mart called to tell me my licence was there, but because I went home for the holidays instead of rushing to their store to pick it up, K-mart decided to be helpful and drop my ID in the mail.
Of course I didn’t find this out until three hours before my plane was supposed to leave for Boston. Making things even more lovely was the fact that they had mailed it out in the middle of the holiday post office crunch. And that they had mailed it to the wrong address.
Rather than take this opportunity to invent scathing new cusses and inflict them on the hapless K-mart employee, I took the high road with the hope that it will help me accumulate good karma. so that the next time I reincarnate I get to come back as something really cool.
For those of you who don’t know, karma is like…. Well, you know how you can collect box tops, or Camel-cash or Kool-aid points and trade them in for prizes? I’m a little fuzzy on the concept, but I’m pretty sure that’s what Karma is like. It’s like Kool-Aid points for your soul. I want to collect enough Karma Points so that I get to reincarnate as Optimus Prime, Allyson Hannigan, or a glowing orb made entirely out of fluffy puppies and orgasms.
What was I talking about again…? Oh yeah. Boston….
Anyway, I made the trip with much anxiety, but no actual trouble. Despite my fears, they did not probe me in any unseemly ways. In fact, they tossed my luggage a lot less viciously than they normally do when I’m trying to play by the rules. Maybe I’ll make a habit of leaving my
Out in Boston I met up with the publicity people from my UK publisher. They were a lovely crew and we shot a bunch of video interview footage. Among other things I told a joke about a gorilla, and attempted to speak with a Norwegian accent. The Gollancz marketing people were a blast, and I hope that had as good a time as I did….
I’m told that we might get to see some of that footage eventually on youtube, I’m told. If that happens, I’ll post it up here….
We had a remarkably good turnout at Pandemonium books despite the bitter, bitter cold. I read a little and answered questions. I really enjoy doing Q&A, talking about writing and the world I’ve created.
However, one question caught me off guard as I’d never been asked it before. It was, “How cool is it to be you?” I didn’t really have a good answer for that….
I also got to sign a book “To E-bay” which is something I’ve always wanted to do.
If you’re interested in more details, an attendee posted up a blog about the signing HERE including several pictures of me. Yes, I know that the shirt I’m wearing to the signing is the same one I’m wearing in my author photo on the webpage. It’s not a coincidence. The truth is, I only own one shirt.
I did not, as many of you speculated, get my ass handed to me at Catan. But that’s only because we didn’t actually get a chance to play. Two lovely people showed up and informed me that they actually worked on the computer version of Catan. One of them had a cool travel set of Catan with her, and I got the feeling that if we did get into it, I’d start off winning a game for fifty cents and the evening would end with me stark naked, owing each of them thousands of dollars.
The next day before I flew home, I went to the Boston aquarium. Where I formed the following opinions: penguins stink, seals are cool, fish are weird.
I also got to touch a sea anemone with my finger. And, no offence to the other cool things that happened out there, I have to say that that was, without a doubt, my favorite part of the trip….
Seriously, it was really cool.
Later all,
pat
