Belated Darkcovercon Report

[drcpunk]

Wednesday

We had tickets for Beowulf, purchased long in advance. As we headed uptown on Broadway in the direction of the 66th Street Theater, we sang Mal's Song. This attracted zrealm's attention as he was walking by us, heading downtown. He turned to look, figuring there just weren't that many people who sounded like us who'd be singing some weird song or other at loud volume while walking down the street.

So, the three of us snatched dinner, and zrealm told us to give him a buzz after the movie. We did, nnd we came over, convincing him to open his latest purchase, Rock Band. After an hour or so of that, mnemex and I headed home.

Thursday

mnemex and I met his folks for dinner at BBQs, then went over to zrealm's place. By now, zrealm had practiced Rock Band a lot. He's quite good on guitar, and mnemex is good singing. None of us are good on drums. I'm better on singing than guitar, but still not great.

I took a nap while they played and woke up with a cold. Sigh.

Friday

Susan picked us up for Darkovercon. She was running late, which allowed us a little extra sleep, and we got to watch the Muppet Valentine Special, which wac fun. And, I learned that dramamine works as a decongestant.

At the convention, I wore the hat that nrivkis got me a few years back, and got many compliments on it. mnemex and I danced at Maugorn’s concert, which took more energy for me, given the cold. Still, I had enough energy for the shamanic drumming jam. Arwen’s jalapeno fudge helped, but I still went to sleep (relatively) early, as I was hearing the filk through very clogged ears.

Saturday

I made the One Hour a Day panel on writing. From my notes:

BIC. Butt in Chair.
Beginning writers want to write better than they write. Actually, scratch "beginning".
Especially in the age of word processing, a lot of writers get caught up trying to fix the early stuff and never get to the later stuff. Accept the crap and move on. Revise later.
250 words = 1 page. 1 page a day = a novel in a year. 2 pages a day = a novel in 6 months. And so on.

After the panel, lordess arrived. We did a bit of shopping, then caught Esther Freisner’s Guest of Honor speech, which was even more fun than I’d expected. I realized that I needed to read more of her work – and that I’d actually read at least a couple of her novels, including New York by Knight. Pamela wanted to know where to start. Esther said, “Start with one that’s in print.”

I sat out most of the Regency Dance, as Susan warned me about spreading my germs. I used Purcell, as per her instructions, when I danced with Crystal, and mnemex and I figured he’d already gotten my germs. I think he was dancing with gloves except when he danced with me.

After Regency, we decided to eat at an Indian restaurant, rather than at Pacific Rim. This turned out to be a good idea, as, we later discovered, Pacific Rim is no more, alas.

Next was the Clam Chowder concert. We all knew that we wouldn’t raise anywhere near the $10,000 for Children’s Hospital that we raised last year. I told Susan de Guardiola that I figured we’d raise about $3,000. She said that she’d be delighted if that were the case, and that she figured we’d raise about $2,000.

We raised over $5,000.

lordess headed home after the concert. Then, mnemex and I went to the last Hallelulah Chorus that will be held by the pool, as the pool will not exist next year. I enscounced myself firmly in the middle of the altos, lest I veered off into sopranoland. This seemed to work, and we all sounded quite good. Then, we did some filking before collapsing for a few hours of sleep.

Sunday

To my surprise, I managed to make the panel the panel on role models, which was at 10 am. We hit the road around 2 pm or so and got home in reasonable time. Susan played us songs based on Catherynne Valente’s Orphan’s Tales.