So I got in Thursday morning at 7am. Without question, the only good thing about flying red-eyes is that occasionally you see women running from the Wild Hunt and get caught up in amazing adventures sunrise from above the clouds. If “God’s light” is the pale gold sunlight that comes through clouds in broken chunks, then I think the thin bold stream of sheer fiery gold that can sometimes follow the rising sun must be Lucifer’s light. It was absolutely beautiful.
I went to the hotel, and conked out for a few hours before actually, almost unbelievably, meeting up with Erica for lunch. (We hadn’t really arranged anything, so the odds of actually making lunch together were pretty slim. But we managed!) We went out for Ethiopian, which I’d never had and Erica had had very little of, so we asked the woman to feed us something not too spicy, with a good variety of vegetables and chicken and not too much beef. She did just that, and it was very, *very* good, so that was pretty cool. And Erica and I caught up, which was wonderful. She looks fantastic, is having a terrific time with her massage schooling, and will be graduating soon. I must find excuses to visit for massages. O.O :) She might even have a job lined up for after graduation, so you can’t beat that. I’m very pleased for her, and it was really nice to see her. She was impressed with my weight loss, too, which was nice. :)
Back to the hotel, where I was obliged to go work out in order to not fall asleep, but I had to take a nap before dinner anyway, ’cause v. tired. But I staggered out of bed in plenty of time to head downstairs and meet Christie Golden and Mark Anthony, though I think Christie got taller since the last time I saw her, and I got thinner since the last time she saw me, so we weren’t quite sure we were each other, and I had no idea what Mark looked like, so there was some hmming and peering across the lobby at each other before we were brave enough to go see if that was us. Er. You know what I mean. :)
We headed downtown for dinner, and hung out for probably three hours, eating and chatting about everything from World of Warcraft–which Christie is desperately addicted to–to politics to, of course, writing. We got to talking about killing off characters, and Mark, in his Last Rune series, killed off a character that I just .absolutely. adored, so I went “Augh!” at him in person, which was quite satisfying. (I’d already aughed at Christie rather extensively in email over the character *she’d* killed off.) Oh, and Christie gave me a copy of her new book, IN STONE’S CLASP, which I promptly went home and read, and I brought her jam and all was well. *Really* nice evening. The thing about being a writer and working from home is there’s a fair lack of getting out and about, so when I do, man, all that socializing packed into a short time is just great.
And I *did* go back to the hotel and read the first half of IN STONE’S CLASP while luxuriating in a hot bath, then thudded into bed. Christie’s first Luna title, ON FIRE’S WINGS, was one of my two favorites last year, and I’ve really been looking forward to IN STONE’S CLASP. I enjoyed it very much as well, and it had its own share of AUGH! bits that I can’t wait to email Christie about. *grin* Knowing writers rocks. :)