i'm sooooooo shleepy

When I saw Connie Willis would be part of a panel Sunday morning at 9 AM, on why sci fi fans also enjoy the works of authors like Patrick O'Brian, Jane Austen, and Georgette Heyer, I was... tempted. But in the end I thought, no no... I've had a headache for 3 days straight... I can't handle more sleeplessness.

Then Fernando came home at 4 AM after partying, and said: "I'm leaving the house at 7 AM to see Connie! Be there or be squarish!" I hummed and hawed, and by the time I'd made up my mind to go, it was already 5 AM. I think I got about an hour of sleep. (None of this would have been an issue, except I was working that night.)

We got a nice seat in the front, and it was a very enjoyable panel, with lots of discussion about how reading an historical novel is like entering an alien world.

As you can see, Willis is one of those twinkle-in-the-eye types. I suspect Elizabeth Bennett looked just like her when she was reached 60.
Here's the full panel.

The next panel with Connie was called The Elders--it was supposed to be about what happens when suddenly you're the Ye Aulde Venerated Elder of sci fi writing. Elizabeth Vonarbug was the first to speak. She was really weird, cause I couldn't tell if she was just trying to be shocking, or she really meant all she said, or she meant it, but there was more to it. She said: I find this panel really insulting, being old SUCKS, everything about aging is insanely bad, why are we on this panel? While she was right in the middle of making a Heavy Deep and Emotional Point (that the longer you live the longer you see the same never-agains happen over and over, so of course we're all thinking about genocide or something)--just then the 5th panelist arrived. Interrupting, she asked the topic. When told: "What? You got me out of bed just to tell me I'm old!" Then she looked at the audience. "Get off my lawn!" Her interruption couldn't have been better timed. EV continued, but her moment just didn't carry the same gravitas.
Connie Willis then jumped in to say that, while everything EV said was true, Connie would be a Pollyanna til the day she died, and didn't think death was nearly as bad as we all think it is. (She has a whole book about facing death, called Passage.) Plus she felt the need to cheer us up before we all committed mass suicide (after each of EV's rants.) It was really funny.

After this I slumped back to the West Island. Fernando stayed until 10 PM. Here are some of his pics from later today, and from yesterday, but I don't know what they are. Will find out tomorrow.

(Stargate?)

(Just a funky dressed volunteer.)

(I think this was a hotel hall full of partying.)

And a mean looking Klingon!

Well maybe not so scary.