And now for something completely… ugh!

A ton of ginger. It’s been my friend. Image by the USDA, public domain; via Wikimedia Commons.

I was going to write a very interesting and witty and delightful bit on Illogicon II, but then I got the norovirus. I spent the better part of Monday wishing for death and whimpering on the floor of my bathroom. Now that things have turned around, I find that I’m pretty much incapable of stringing words together. Nothing like forced caffeine withdrawal. Still haven’t managed coffee yet (which explains the incoherence). (It’s not all bad, though. There is cause to celebrate! My husband is employed as of next week. So the long, horrid month of December fades into the distance and we can breathe again.)

If you’re looking for some good rundowns of what happened at Illogicon II, you can find them at J.L. Hilton’s blog and at Traci Loudin’s blog. In short, from me, I’ll say this: for a small con, the panels were surprisingly good. And I’m not saying this just because I moderated three of them (okay, I’m sure that skewed my perception a little!) — but I felt like every panel that I was on and attended had something new to add to the conversation. My biggest gripe about conventions, even being as infrequent guest as I am (children… travel… hahahaha…) is that the convention topics, especially in writing, tend to go around the same subjects over and over. And we hear the same advice and opinions and agreeing and shoulder clapping rather than any advancement. But this time I felt like there was a ton of chemistry between participants, and a wide variety of opinions and perspectives blending together in a lovely way. I learned something!

Additionally, I got to meet Tim Powers, who most excellent, except that I didn’t get to geek out with him about Byron, Shelley, and Keats as I’d have liked to. Another day.

I will say the “Women in Geek Culture” panel I was on was perhaps one of the liveliest, most enjoyable panels I’ve ever had the pleasure of being a part of. It’s a happy place I’ll go to in my mind when things suck. I also read a bit from Watcher of the Skies which was a bit daunting (I half expected no one to show up, so didn’t prepare as well as I should have; turned out that there were eight people there) but overall quite enjoyable.

Unfortunately I have nothing to add to that. I have a few pieces I’ve considered putting together on the subject of women and femininity in genre literature in particular, but I haven’t the brain power to put it together at the moment. It’s been nothing but crackers and broth and potatoes until this morning, and I’m still ready to crawl back into bed and sleep for a week.

And now to get my head back together, answer emails, and try to focus on the coming weeks. Wish me luck!