The trouble with the first several days of Worldcon was that I was having so much fun I kept lying awake at night grinning like an idiot and keeping myself awake with happiness, which meant that although I technically went to bed about 3:15 on Saturday morning, it was tragically closer to 4 before sleep actually arrived.
I considered showing up to the panel like this but then I remembered I was a Very Serious Author. :)
And I had a 10am panel.
Frankly, my friends, I did not expect it to go well. None of us did, in fact. We were all privately agreeing that this was probably going to be a disaster, because we were just wrecked and nobody could think clearly and our voices were shot and yeah.
Surprisingly, it went REALLY WELL. Or at least we panelists thought so. :) We were talking about women writing comics and it turned out we had reasonably intelligent things to say, and we focused on our experiences with writing comics but broadened it into women artists as well, and it did seem to go well. We were very pleased. :)
Post-panel I had lunch with my friend Mika, and that was really nice. Then I caught up with Ursula and Kevin, and did an interview for Kevin’s organizational podcast, which was fun. I’ll link to it when it’s available. And it just occurs to me I didn’t actually get any pictures WITH them, which is a thing I keep failing to do. Well, next time. :)
SPEAKING OF NEXT TIME
Dublin has won the bid to host the 2019 Worldcon! I will of course be billing it as the “Come hang out with Catie!” con for the next two years, but to my delight, Diane Duane will be the guest of honor (I had a bet going with myself that she would be, and am smug to have won!) and Ian McDonald will be joining us, and it’s going to be a hell of a good party, so COME ON OVER!
I have real hopes that the core war room writers will all be able to make it, and if enough of us do, we’ll probably see about doing a panel about supporting other writers or something, which would be really neat. I’m so excited! I mean, odds were PRETTY GOOD that we were going to win (we were the only ones bidding), but I’m still unexpectedly chuffed for it to be official and to be able to say it’s time to start making real plans for getting here for it! YAY!
Anyway, during the afternoon I ran into my con-friend Margaret again, and she invited me to a little get-together off-site, which I decided would be nice to drop in to, as I wanted to get away from the con for a little while anyway. So I toddled into Helsinki and dropped by for just a little while, then went out to explore and look for dinner.
Oncoming storm in HelsinkiOne minute laterThree minutes later!>
Instead I found a thunderstorm. I stopped to take a picture of it rolling in and posted on Twitter to say “thunderhead coming in over Helsinki, aka ‘soon i will be very wet'” and less than a minute later it hit. And when I say hit I mean hit. A huge wind came out of nowhere and snatched up all the grit from the roads and sidewalks and pelted into the air (and my clothes, and skin, and hair…) and some raindrops smashed down and within 90 seconds I was thoroughly damp.
And then the rain *really* started. Huge, smashing, dramatic raindrops that filled the streets in literally seconds and lightning was crashing everywhere and thunder was rolling and I still had to GET TO THE TRAM to get back to the hotel, so I went from ‘thoroughly damp’ to ‘soaked completely through’ and it was frankly exhilarating. If the amount of lightning hadn’t seemed so dangerous I might well have stayed out in it longer, but I dripped my way back to the hotel and took a shower and changed clothes completely, because literally soaked through.
By then I was brainless with hunger and it was still thundering and lighteninging, so I just ate at the hotel restaurant, but one of my friends happened upon me and joined me and we had a lovely couple hours of chatting before deciding to try to brave the celebratory Dublin 2019 partly. Although I went in with the intention of saying “Hello! Good night!” to everyone, and actually kept it. The funniest bit of that was crouching at at a table full of friends and Ian McDonald (who may have the drink taken) leaning over and roaring, “COME TO IRELAND!” at me cheerfully.
“She’s IN Ireland!” said everyone at the table.
Ian, still leaning, took this information under long and careful consideration. Long. And careful. Consideration. And then leaned slightly farther in at me and roared, “COME TO IRELAND!” again, which made us all laugh and I promised I would. (The next day I saw him and he gave me a slightly sheepish nod–I’m pretty sure he hadn’t remembered me, which is fine as it’d been quite some time since we’d last spoken, and I’ve cut my hair since then–and I thought it was all pretty funny. :))
(i’m sorry i’m typing this on the plane and a very cologne-laden young man is in the seat beside me and he took a nap and i looked over at him and i’m about 90% sure he’s half of jedward, altho his phone pictures, which he’s scrolling thru, only seem to have one blonde boy in them, but then i guess they would seem that way unless they were together in a photo and i just have to say that.)
SO ANYWAY
Worldcon roomies at the Hugos!!
I actually did take myself off to the room after that, but then in the great tradition of sleepovers everywhere Carol and I stayed up much too late talking (it’s the only night we did, and I’m really awfully glad we did, because great tradition of sleepovers everywhere!). We had a long and very funny discussion about Irish accents that featured Colin Farrell’s absolutely false Irish accent he uses while in America and which eventually landed on something that clarified a Thing About Irish English to me!
So Irish people are forEEEEVER saying they’ll be there in two minutes. Two. Always two. And they’re never ever ever there in two minutes. Ever. So! It turns out there’s an Irish word, cúpla, that means “a few”, and that because it sounds like “couple” there’s a kind of slide from Irish to English on that word which means that if you ask an Irish person if they want a couple cookies and they say yes, they then think you’re really kind of stingy if they only get TWO cookies.
But! I am now convinced that when Irish people say they’ll be there in two minutes, they’re moving *back* on that transliterative (is that the right word? it’ll do) slide, and what they really mean is cúpla, and that they’ll be there in a few minutes.
THIS MAKES SO MUCH SENSE!
(oh shit yeah no there’s pictures of both of them, it is half of jedward!!!)
Anyway, we went to bed after that except then I was still giddy and I was remembering that Kari and Camille and I had discussed cosplaying Josie & the Pussycats for Dublin 2019 and I had to post on Twitter to ask if other people kept themselves awake at night thinking that obviously it would be totally reasonable to actually learn to play the guitar and do a tribute concert at the con and then because it was clearly terribly important RIGHT THEN, trying to remember the words to Ballroom Blitz…
…or if it was just me that thought that way. :)
(Kari said it wasn’t just me but I did understand that I was Josie, right? And I was like yes, I did, although I wasn’t sure I was vocally up for that because Camille’s amazing and Kari’s Welsh, so, y’know, obvs. :))
THIS WAS A VERY BUSY DAY AND IT’S NOT EVEN MY BUSY DAY
I managed to go to TWO panels today, which is two more than I usually manage in my entire convention weekend, so I’m very proud of myself. :)
I went to the guest of honor interview with Nalo Hopkinson, which was tremendously entertaining, and then later went to a panel on writing aout climate change, upon which an Internet Friend was presenting. After that I got to talk to her for a bit, which was lovely, and between those two panel things I had lunch with my friend Lithera, who I don’t see nearly often enough.
After those things I managed to grab dinner with another friend who is VERY BUSY this weekend and I might not get to see him again, so I was v. happy to have even just a little time to hang out with him.
Then, thanks to Lithera’s Awareness of Things I Didn’t Know, we went to a concert performed by Clipping, a group headed by Broadway & Hamilton star Daveed Diggs (who played Jefferson and Lafayette in the debut year/album of Hamilton), and we had a ridiculously good time. Although I was unintentionally rude to a friend on the way in and although the air has been cleared over it I still feel badly. (I did not realize I’d been rude at the time but when they said “we need to talk about this moment” I was like “oh shit I was really rude wasn’t I,” so, yeah. Mea culpa. Anyway!)
Diggs is known for (among other things) doing the fastest rap ever done on Broadway in his role as Lafayette, and…he’s really fast, guys. I mean. That man has exquisite control of his tongue, my god. It was great fun and probably deserves a writeup of its own, but that’s not realistically going to happen so I’ll just mention the funniest bits:
“Who here is from Helsinki?” he asks, and like six people give a feeble cheer. He burst out laughing and was like “Um, no, guys, see, where I come from when somebody asks that you yell as loud as you fucking can, so let’s try again,” and he did and the crowd roared and then he was satisfied. *laughs*
And then the encore he came back out and was all “oh, gosh, guys, this is such a surprise, i’m totally unprepared for this,” with all innocence and sparkling eyes, which was just pretty damn funny. :) And then he said, “Okay, I’m going to do another song I can’t really remember the words to,” which he did. He screwed up a couple times, too, and laughed at himself. Oh, and there was a very funny bit where they mixed the Doctor Who theme into the music, which obviously got a great cheer. It was great fun!
I’m basically gonna do a post-con picture post because it’s easier than trying to do one every day on the clogged hotel wifi, but MY DUDES. MY DUDES, I COULD TOUCH HIM. I WAS RIGHT UNDER HIM, MY DUDES.
They were at the convention because they’re up for a Hugo for their album, wich is a science fiction story, and apparently they’re kind of nerds and were REALLY EXCITED to be nominated (seriously, I genuinely think they were, he sounded chuffed!) and I hope they win. But even if they don’t, I got to post “Daveed Diggs just walked by” on twitter this afternoon and that was freaking awesome. :)
Then I wandered around for quite a while trying to find the Dublin 2019 party, which I eventually did find and hung out at and chatted with people and had a lovely time until I decided I’d better go collapse into bed.
And now I shall, because it’s way late. I mean, except it’s not because I’m really still on Irish time, but yeah. Bed now. :)
(the glasses, man. he came out after the show and the glasses, man. the glasses are just NOT FAIR. IDK why, they’re like total nerd frames, but GOOD LORD, MAN.)
I am in Helsinki for Worldcon! If I was a more organized person I’d have posted about this earlier, but, well, I’m not, so. I’m in Helsinki for Worldcon!
I will be publically available for chatting at the following times:
1. The Dublin 2019 parties on Thursday & Saturday nights
2. From 2-3:30ish on Friday afternoon–informal kaffeesklatch type thing, the Dublin 2019 table will know where I am if you don’t see me in the seating area around there
3. The Hugos on Friday night
4. Any other time you waylay me unless I have stuff specifically scheduled
4a. I have a panel about women writing comics on Saturday morning at 10am so I’ll definitely be there. :)
Anyway, Helsinki! I flew through Copenhagen, which turned out to be exciting because I thought I had an hour layover but it turned out my plane arrived, I got through passport control, and as I was heading for my gate (ON THE OTHER END OF THE AIRPORT) they announced final boarding for my flight to Helsinki. I scurried and said “my connecting flight just got in!” and they gave the board a skeptical look, but the sign didn’t say “closed” yet, so they let me on and closed the door behind me. Whew!
I hate (haaaate) taking public transport in places I know not at all, so I was nervous about the train from the airport to the hotel, but it turned out that it was very well annotated and I made it with no problem. Then my roommate collected me at the train station (THANK YOU) so all I had to do was follow her and get there safely. And now I’m oriented, so it’s all good.
I immediately saw half a dozen people, upon arriving, whom I might have hoped to see at some point over the weekend, so that was rather lovely. We got dinner and our tiny group of three expanded to about 11, some of whom expressed great surprise over my very different hair (and went on to theorize I might be a spy; I told them not to blow my cover :)). Then I wandered around the convention hall a bit trying to get oriented inside, and managed that fairly well, but didn’t go to the panel tat semeed fun because it was already packed full when we got there!
Instead I said to people that Helsinki is on the same latitude as my hometown, so I was going to go outside and be emotional about the light :)
Then I went outside and was like, oh shit no, I really *am* going to be emotional about the light, and it left me feeling a bit verklempt.
But then I found another friend and got introduced briefly to Ellen Datlow who knew my name (*faints*) and I had a bit more to eat and it was a lovely ending to the evening, which is now going to end properly so I can get up early and have more time with the light. ♥ :)