Saturday: Oh, it really…

Saturday: Oh, it really is all blurring. Somewhere in here was the Carl Brandon board meeting, and lots of table staffing, and an hour-long break swimming with the convention kids. I think this was the day I taught an erotica writing class, which actually went really well -- thirteen attendees, including one guy, and I think they got a reasonable amount out of our seventy-five minutes. We managed to plow through four exercsises -- one on sexual language, one on describing a bad sex scene, one on a monologue on desire from an imagined other, someone as different from you in terms of gender and orientation as you can imagine, and a final bit of honest sexual memoir. A lot of ground, satisfying coverage, good. Will probably repeat all of those at more length in this summer's upcoming Bay Area workshop.

I also did a reading from "Esthely Blue" as part of my joint reading (that might have been Friday), and a midnight smut reading with Jennifer Stevenson, where I read several pieces from Blowing Kisses, highlighting work from Jay Lake, David Lunde, and Diane Kepler, along with the chili pepper scene from "Seven Cups". Those all went well, though the real highlights of my evening involved hallway backrubs later in the evening and dancing 'til 3 a.m. at the RatBastards party. Mmm....

Sunday: Mostly table-staffing that day, though I also did a panel on "F&SF Erotica for Sexual Eclectics", where we talked about Hamilton and Matthews and Carey and Tan and the fact that the most interesting and edgy spec fic smut these days is being published for free on the net, safe from publisher constraints regarding worrisome content (or mainstream publishers' reluctance to publish much spec fic smut). The highlight of the day was the SH tea party, of course, where I was just delighted to come and attend, watching it be a thriving success with no effort on my part at all -- Susan carried it off with style and grace, ably assisted by Jed and Karen and undoubtedly others. Yay! At the tail end of the party, Jed and I got into an intense discussion with Ben and Diana regarding what would it be like if we uploaded ourselves. The effects of losing one's endocrine system, for example, and the role of aggression, and the similarities between S/M and rugby. Great fun. Very connish. :-)

I spent the day wearing my SLF baseball jersey with jeans, and received many compliments on it and interest in purchasing versions of it -- that's an attractive shirt, that is. Dinner (more Laotian-Thai) was followed by me racing upstairs to change quick quick into the closest thing I have to a ballgown, a full-skirted silvery black affair. All spiffy for the dessert banquet (so yummy) and subsequent partying. There was a pirate theme for the formal party that evening, and it was decided that I was a princess who had been captured by pirates but who had then won the hearts of the pirate crew, deposed their immoral and inefficient captain, and become the pirate king herself. I spent a fair bit of the evening wandering around saying, "Arrrgh!" all pirate-like. Later Jed and I ended up lounging on a bed in Greg's room with the usual crowd, talking about everything and nothing. That was great. I'd like to do a lot more of that.