eeriecon report

Mark and me at Eeriecon.

I'm writing this on my laptop in the Buffalo bus station, in a coffee shop run by a cheerful fellow named Andy. There's a man in the corner staring at me and a woman in another corner talking to herself. I have a couple of hours to kill before my bus arrives, so I'm typing up this Blathering before doing some work on my novel.

By the time I post this, I'll be back from Eeriecon in Niagara Falls, NY. Wonderfully relaxing weekend. I hung with out Rand on Friday afternoon and then spent the evening with Erin while Rand was at a work dinner thingy. It was great to be able to get some one-on-one time with each of them since we hadn't had much opportunity at FilKONtario, and especially great to be able to get know Erin a bit better.

Greg, John, Ellen, Mark and J.J. performing the "Black Watch" skit. Though you can't see her, Ellen is behind John.

I can see why Rand likes her so much. :-) I already had huge admiration for her for coming to FKO even though she knew she wouldn't know very many people, plus she had had pretty much zero experience with fandom or filk.

Anyway, when Rand came back from his work dinner thingy, we drove out to the hotel and hung out in the con suite for a while. Here's a nice pic of the three of us that John Hall took. Speaking of the con suite, here's my favourite con suite photo, of Mark Osier and two young ladies who asked to sit in his lap (another John Hall photo).

Oh good, the staring man just left.

This photo of Rand performing turned out blurry, but for some weird reason I kinda like it anyway.

Eeriecon was a wonderfully laid-back convention for me. I didn't bring any music or instruments except my penny whistle, which I practised a bit up in the hotel room. Eeriecon doesn't have a filk track or any late night music except for the Saturday night concerts. I ended up attending very little of the programming...not because I wasn't interested, but just because on this particular weekend, I just felt like hanging out with people and relaxing instead.

I spend time with Mark Osier, whom I hadn't seen for a couple of years, and also very much enjoyed getting to the know some of the Dorsai Irregulars better: Greg Hagglund ("Zilch"), James Walton ("J.J."), Ellen McMicking ("Blade") and John Hall ("Bear"). Had fun chatting with the con suite folk as well!

For those unfamiliar with the D.I.: The Dorsai Irregulars is an organization of science fiction fans that provides volunteer services to the science fiction, fantasy and media fan communities. These services include operations support, room and crowd control, art show operations and auctioneering. You can find out more about them at their Web site.

Erin and Rand.

My con experience this past weekend reminded me a great deal of the one I had at GAfilk. Very laid-back with lots of downtime since the people I knew (the D.I.) were on duty much of the time; I spent most of Saturday afternoon reading, napping, writing. From time to time I'd roam around the convention to see what was happening and if anyone was available for chatting. I had meals with the D.I.

I roomed with John Hall at the convention. I was delighted to find that we share similar habits re: hotel rooms at conventions in that we both rely on them as a place of quiet refuge. We spent chunks of time comfortably ignoring each other during the weekend, each of us reading books, napping, me working on my laptop, neither of us feeling compelled to be talking all the time. Like an old married couple, really. I said this to John, and thankfully he took it as the compliment it was meant to be.

:-)

At the post office with Ellen.

Enjoyed driving around Niagara Falls a bit with Ellen for a trip to the post office. It ended up being a somewhat longer than we originally expected because I kept (inadvertently, of course) distracting Ellen instead of helping her navigate properly; she was very patient with me.

The U.S. postal employees are way friendly, or at least they were in the outlet we visited. I even played an air guitar duet with one of them. :-D Anyway, I was happy to be able to pick up some U.S. postage for SASEs in my snailmail queries; most of my queries are by e-mail, but there are still some markets that prefer snailmail.

Mark in his Dorsai gear.

Got a lot of writing done! I had brought my laptop and had plenty of opportunity to work during the weekend. Being completely offline is definitely a use productivity-booster for me in my fiction writing, as I've mentioned before, which is why I've started integrating a regular offline writing session every day when I'm home...this means going OUT of the apartment and working in a library or coffee shop.

Did my writing in the hotel room but also took my laptop out into the consuite from time to time on Saturday, sat in the corner. The consuite folk are a great deal of fun, by the way. :-D When it became clear I was addicted to their cheese puffs and was trying to get away from them, Scott (I think that was his name) would whisper "CHEEEESE PUFFFS!" whenever we passed each other. He also sent someone out with a plate of cheese puffs to put beside me, the fiend. Then another nice con suite type (don't know his name, but he had big tattoos on both his arms) got me hooked on Swedish Fish; does anyone out there know why they're called Swedish Fish, by the way?!? I also had a pleasant chat with two women who did a Japanese drumming demonstration during the convention.

Rand and Adam (Ookla the Mok) in concert.

On Saturday night, I had dinner with the D.I. at an Indian restaurant across the road from the hotel. Later in the evening, I enjoyed concerts by The Fibs as well as Ookla The Mok. The lighting was terrible for photos, so I didn't take many. Discovered I was missing a Fibs CD so bought it. Afterward, I went up to the room to do some drinking with the D.I.

Okay, so maybe that was an exaggeration. I had a few tablespoons each of Tullamore Dew and 12-year-old McCallan's, then I dozed off. I woke up when John Hall took a flash photo of me. How embarrassing. I've never been much of a late-night party person. :-) Before I fell asleep, however, I learned a great deal about how brandy is made, home-made wine, whiskey and Scotch, as well a bit of the history of the D.I..




On Sunday, the plan was for Mark to drive me to Williamsville, where we'd have lunch with Rand and Erin. Unfortunately Mark's ignition chose that morning to die completely. Rand and Erin ended up driving to the hotel; the four of us had lunch, and then I went back with them to Rand's place while Mark stayed an extra night at the hotel so he could take the car to a repair station the next morning (they were all closed Sunday). From phone and text message reports I got from Mark later, he hung out with the art show people Sunday night, got home fine the next day.

I spent my Sunday with Rand and Erin; see Erin's blog for details. We watched Nightmare Before Christmas that evening, which Erin had never seen. I had seen it once and liked it, but enjoyed it even more the second time around.



The next morning, Rand and I had breakfast at a nearby pancake house before he dropped me off at the bus station on the way to his work.

And here I am! The woman mumbling to herself is gone. She started talking to me from across the coffee shop and I did chat with her a while, but I eventually disengaged myself when it became evident she would have happily kept it up for the entire two and a half hours I spent in the coffee shop. The people around here seem to know her, so she must be a regular in the bus station.

Going to do some novel writing now, and will post this tomorrow after I have a chance to upload my pics.

32 days until we get possession of our new house!

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