Whew, well. Hmm. Tonight was interesting. Awkward, exciting, nerve-wracking. I walked in and spent the first hour or so just staring in awe at the people around me. It was like the Internet had shrunk into this one room. All these people whose lives have been a daily part of mine for years. Years. It was an awe-inspiring experience.
I shook hands with Pamie, who is just the coolest. I gave Sasha a light. I hugged Mo, who is just as cool and funny and awesome in real life as she is in her journal. I walked down the street in front of John Scalzi, who I can’t seem to speak of without using his entire name. I sat next to Bitter Hag and Bev and Jake and Terry at dinner. I sat next to other people too, but in the interest of keeping this under a million words, I only list those I previously read or knew online.
And, get this. Some of them knew who I was. They recognized my name. Some actually have read this. How cool is that? I don’t know why it surprises me, I knew for a fact that some people who read me would be there, but somehow I didn’t expect it. It’s just a weird, weird feeling to meet someone who’s been reading you forever, and they know a hell of a lot about your life, and they like you, maybe even admire you, and you’ve never seen them before. They are a stranger to you. It’s bizarre. Of course, not all of them were strangers, and I’m sure that I was that stranger to some that were there, but that one experience has to be the weirdest of the night.
Dinner was pretty decent, though it took about three hours from start to finish. We went home shortly after it was over, and I crashed almost immediately. But, I took a lot of pictures.
We ate here:
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There were a lot of us, I probably got at least 70 percent of the names right:
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And hey, we made the news!
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