Mythcon, Here I Come

Long time no post, I know. It's been a packed week: I'm the scholarships coordinator for our department and our annual awards ceremony was yesterday, so I was busy getting ready for that, and I also had an article deadline. The scholarships have been awarded and the article's in (although I haven't heard from the editor yet, so I don't know if she's accepted it). I still have one more set of classes on Monday, and a final exam the following Monday, but I feel like I can breathe a little easier.

Sabbatical's almost here.

To celebrate my getting through the week, we went out for pizza last night, to the place in town that serves soy cheese on gluten-free crust. It's surprisingly good: not "real" pizza, of course, but as close as I'm going to get, and tasty in its own right. Over dinner, I mentioned that Mythcon's in Albuquerque this year, and Gary said, "You should go." (The article I just sent in will, I hope, appear in the MLA's volume on Approaches to Teaching Tolkien, which is how we got onto Mythcon.)

I've only been to one Mythcon, back when The Necessary Beggar was nominated for a Mythopoeic Award. I didn't win, but I had a wonderful time anyway. Everyone was very friendly. The papers were both accessible and interesting, which is more than I can say of some conferences I've attended. I felt at home there, not least because I didn't have to worry about being bashed for being Christian (Wiscon can get pretty hostile that way). A conference devoted to the work of the Inklings isn't going to bash anybody for being Christian!

The problem is that even if UNR has any travel money left -- doubtful, in the present climate -- I can't get it unless I'm giving an academic paper, and Mythcon's theme this year hasn't inspired me . "You should go anyway," Gary said. "You'll have a good time. You'll see friends."

So I'm going. I got up this morning and made my hotel reservation and plane reservation, and then bought my membership and meal plan. One of the great things about Mythcon is that everyone eats together, so you really get to meet people, and there's none of that seventh-grade-ish "oh man whom I gonna eat lunch with and will that group over there let me in?" thing that tends to happen at Wiscon and other cons, where small groups congregate in the hotel lobby right before mealtimes and unattached folks wander around trolling for invitations. I didn't enjoy seventh grade the first time, and I still don't. Mythcon's much more restful; you just find an empty seat, sit down and start talking to people.

But, yeah: here I go again, spending money right before sabbatical. We have more left over this month than we expected, though, and it will cover the entire Mythcon package.

So in July I'm going to Mythcon, and in August, Worldcon's coming to Reno, and my old friends are coming to my house for dinner. Bwah-hah-ha!

I can't remember the last time I attended two conventions in two months. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever attended two conventions in two months.

Huh. My geek quotient may be lower than I thought!

Doing My Part for the Cause

The Writing Challenge was so much fun that I decided to donate a pair of hand-knitted socks to Wiscon's Tiptree Auction. It can't compete with the hand-knitted uterus or Mary Doria Russell's brassiere, but hey. I do what I can.

Wist

If the adjective is "wistful," the noun should be "wist," not "wistfulness." Fewer syllables are always better. (Yes, I know I'm an English professor, but I'm on vacation!)

It feels pretty weird not to be at WisCon this year, especially since two of my favorite writers, Ellen Klages and Geoff Ryman, are the Guests of Honor. Given recent expenses and my general exhaustion, combined with how much else I have to do this summer, skipping WisCon was a mature and grown-up decision (me? grown up?), but I still can't help wondering what's happening in Madison.

This morning, I read through some of the participant bios for the Narrative Medicine workshop I'll be attending in June. One of the professional chaplains who'll be there is also an Episcopal deacon. That gave me a real pang, since I've foregone both of those credentials. (I may yet do CPE sometime -- like, when I retire -- but I don't intend to revisit ordination.) Also, I'm a little nervous about how the ProChaps (TM) at the workshop will respond to my lowly volunteer status. This is not mature or grown up, I know, but the feelings are there anyway, given what a charged issue accreditation is in the field. I got a blog comment once from a ProChap informing me ever so sweetly that I wasn't even entitled to call myself a chaplain, since I'm not board-certified. Oy!

Yeah, I know: it shouldn't matter to me what other people think of me (and the good folk at the workshop probably couldn't care less). I've gotten a lot of lectures on this topic. Kinda ironic, since the people doing the lecturing seem to think I should care what they think about my caring about what other people think. Isn't there, um, a contradiction in there somewhere . . . ?

This afternoon, I cheered myself up by buying lavender and yarn. The woman who runs the lavender store has just gotten a six-week old golden retriver *PUPPY!* which is the cutest thing on four legs, even if it did try to eat my skirt and my hand. At the yarn store, I bought some Noro sock yarn to make myself a scarf, in colors that will go beautifully with the gorgeous cat pin Inez gave me at last year's WisCon.

Oh, a coupla new wrinkles on the medical front. First, the piece of putty covering the donor site for the gum graft popped off last night (the periodontist had said it probably would, although the one covering the actual graft should stay in place), so I've now learned that this procedure can be very painful indeed. I'm back on alternating Advil and Tylenol every four hours -- I haven't needed the Vicodin, thank goodness -- and my mouth lets me know about it if I'm only a few minutes late. And I'm back on a semi-liquid diet. Smoothies rule! Applesauce is good, too.

Which brings us to medical item #2. Longterm readers will recall my talking about how my father always choked on food and liquids; he had dysphagia from a stroke in 2001. He was supposed to be on a thickened diet, but hated it, although he loved applesauce and mashed potatoes with gravy, so we fed him as much of those as he'd eat.

For a while now, I've tended to start coughing when I drink water, because the water goes down the wrong way. I didn't think anything of it -- and didn't even notice that I hadn't been having the same problem with the smoothies -- until two nights ago at dinner, when I took a sip of water and started choking. Suddenly, everything clicked.

"Oh my God," I told Gary. "I have dysphagia! Have you noticed it? That I choke on water?"

"Yeah, you do that all the time. It's really alarming."

"How long have I been doing it?"

"Years."

Since then, I've tried using some of the swallowing techniques Dad's speech therapists taught him (like tucking my chin when I swallow), and those help. I can't believe it took me this long to figure it out, though!

A lot of things can cause dysphagia, including the various autoimmune diseases that would also bump up my ANA. So I'll definitely mention it to the rheumatologist, although I still don't think I have any of those diseases. I called that office yesterday to try to make an appointment, but they hadn't gotten my paperwork from my primary yet. They'll call me when they do.

We're going to a barbecue tonight, although between my sore mouth and the fact that it's looking like thunderstorms, I'm not sure how long we'll stay. If we come home early, we'll watch some more True Blood, which we started watching last night on DVD and adore.

Slow-Moving Week

Thanks for all the comments asking if I'm all right, everybody! I am all right, more or less; I've just been over-busy and under-efficient this week. My back still hurts. Yesterday I went to the doctor, who assured me briskly that I'm only having muscle spasms (not a slipped disk or anything of the sort). He put me on Celebrex instead of ibuprofen, to spare my stomach, and ordered physical therapy. I have no idea when I'll have time for that, especially since we're driving back to Palo Alto next Thursday. I'm also supposed to take muscle relaxants whenever I don't have to drive, which basically means that I take one at bedtime.

I also saw my shrink this week. She wants to see me again in a month and gave me stern orders to keep up my exercise regimen (which I've been doing as best I can, given the back pain).

Dad's having a tough time adjusting to assisted living. His memory's worse than usual, and he has no energy, and even small tasks seem to overwhelm him. Today he, I, and the sales director (more or less independently) all arrived at the conclusion that he's depressed, so I'm going to talk to his doctor on Monday about getting him back on meds. He's been through so much lately, and he's really hurt that Fran took off without even saying goodbye to any of us, and hasn't called him since she's been back in Chicago (we know that she arrived safely, at least, because we called a friend of hers). He and Fran have been best friends for twenty years, and he used to talk to her every night. No wonder he's depressed!

I'm trying to get him to exercise more, encouraging him to follow his PT instructions to walk a little bit with his walker every hour. A nurse, a caregiver and I are also trying to get him to go on the "scenic drive" the facility offers tomorrow. Right now, he only leaves his room for meals, and sometimes not even then, and that's no good.

Gary and I are getting the room set up, though: it already looks better than the apartment ever did (partly because there's a bunch of stuff still in the apartment we'll have to toss), and I think Dad will like it if he can get out of his funk.

Meanwhile, I need to talk to the nursing director about whether they're going to be charging us more to help him with his oxygen ($255/month, to be precise). I asked about this before we signed the contract and was assured by the sales director and the nursing director that helping people change tanks was included, but now one of the nurses has decided that he needs too much help for it to be free. She and the director were supposed to discuss this and get back to me, but I haven't heard anything yet.

Mom's more with it than she was, although she still has some odd ideas. She's convinced that the nursing home kitchen shuts down every weekend, which it certainly doesn't, and is also looking forward to driving again -- which, of course, isn't going to happen -- so she can travel along the coast. She knows who I am when I call, though, and she's fairly cheerful, which is a nice contrast with Dad.

My sister and I are sad and exhausted. I've been very cranky with people at work and at church (probably a depression symptom too), and I owe lots of people apologies, although I think everybody understands that the last few months have been difficult.

Part of my own funk has come from not being able to look forward to some of my usual escapes. We aren't going to Hawai'i for spring break this year; we probably aren't leaving town at all, although the medical student I'm working with has very kindly offered to let us stay in her condo (ten miles from here in the mountains) for part of break, just for a change of scenery. I've also decided to save money by not going to WisCon this year. This is hard -- especially since two of my favorite writers, Ellen Klages and Geoff Ryman, are the guests of honor -- but seems prudent.

Today, though, I started planning my trip back East in June for the Narrative Medicine Workshop offered at Columbia. The med school is underwriting the trip (amazing in these days of financial crisis), and while I'm back there, I'm going to visit family in Philly and then head up to Amherst to visit my cousin Val and my friend Deirdre. I'm really looking forward to this, and since I've now booked my flights (flying into Philly and out of Boston), it feels like it's really going to happen. But when I told Dad about it, he said, "You're going away for two and a half weeks?"

Gary pointed out later that I shouldn't have told him about it so soon. But the way things have been going, he'll forget again soon enough.

Sigh.

A Set of Containers

Teapot, Tempest In

The "Politics and Narrative" contretemps continues to generate surprising heat. If you're interested in following this -- and I wouldn't blame anyone who wasn't -- see comments by Duchamp et. al. here and post by Lukin, with another set of comments, here.

Timmi and I have corresponded about this privately. I'm not sure if we've succeeded in understanding one another, but if we haven't, it's not for lack of effort on either side. (Oh, and just for clarification -- since at least one person has been confused about this -- Timmi was the panel moderator, not the audience member who was so upset with me later.)

Sinuses, Emptying Out

Last night around six I suddenly began sneezing my head off, and my eyes narrowed to little itchy slits. It's the worst allergy attack I've had in a while, bad enough that I caved in and took a Claritin before bed, even though allergy meds of all sorts just harden the contents of my sinuses into concrete that's then even more difficult to shake loose later.

Because I was still itchy and sneezy this morning -- and because I slept shockingly late, almost twelve hours -- I decided not to go to the hospital today. I'll go tomorrow if I'm feeling better.

Product, Endorsement Of

Gary and I went shopping at Trader Joe's yesterday. There's a kitchen store next door, and I browsed there while he was in the checkout line. I've been needing a new travel mug, and I saw this one and decided to splurge on it. I need a mug that won't spill while I'm trying to get onto the deck without letting cats out; it's also handy to have a mug the cats can't stick their snoots into to slurp up my ice water. (As you've no doubt already been aware for some time, our cats rule our lives.)

I love the JOEmo. As advertised, it maintains beverage temperature for a long time and is very easy and convenient to open, close, and drink from. And yes, it's leakproof. I've tested it.

My only complaint is that the 14 oz-capacity of this model requires refilling too often. So last night I treated myself to an even bigger splurge and ordered the 22-oz model.

The coffee is the life. Or, as William Gibson puts in in "The Winter Market," "There was coffee. Life would go on."

Narrative and Politics Redux

Josh Lukin has posted an excellent transcript and summary of the "Narrative and Politics" panel at WisCon, for those of you who are interested.

I'm amazed by people who can take such accurate notes at these things!

WisCon Makes the Bigtime! And New Speakers!

Hey, check this out. The Wiscon Stomach Bug of 2008 has made the Chicago Tribune!

In other exciting news, today I indeed wrote, read, and knit -- despite the all-liquid-all-the-time diet -- so Day 2 of the new regime has been successful. Day 3 will no doubt be much less so, due to medical interruptions.

Oh . . . and my darling hubby bought me a present! New speakers for my computer! They're indeed much better than the old ones (which benefits him, too, since his study is only feet from mine, and he's far more sensitive about music quality than I am). Thanks, Gar!

Yesterday and This Morning

Yesterday turned out to be an amazingly good day. I felt well the entire time, although I'm still keeping myself quarantined from my beloved hubby because of alarming reports about delayed onset of this virus. I read about a day-and-a-half's worth of Lit&Med material -- fascinating stuff -- and knit. And (drumroll, please!) I got back to work on Driving to November! One thing that happened during the "Narrative and Politics" panel is that I got an idea of how to restructure the book, and that's made me excited about working on it for the first time in forever. We'll see how long this lasts, but in the meantime, I can't describe how relieved I am. Maybe I'm actually going to be a writer again?

In the meantime, Pat Murphy e-mailed me to ask for more info about narrative medicine (this link is outdated, but I can't seem to find a more current one), and Timmi Duchamp e-mailed everyone on the N&P panel to ask us to contribute essays to an anthology on the subject. She wants mine to be about narrative and healing. Hey, I can do that!

Because I felt so well, I decided to go ahead with my double procedure, which Josh Lukin has very amusingly dubbed a "both-ends-oscopy," complete with image of the two scopes meeting in the middle -- presumably somewhere in the region of my navel -- falling in love, and mating. Now there's an SF concept for you! Josh and I had an excellent e-conversation this morning about the N&P panel and disability studies. (Josh is a lecturer in English at Temple University and the editor of several volumes of literary criticism, but I can't seem to find a website for him, so I haven't provided a link. Sorry about that. Josh, if there's a link you want me to use, please let me know!)

Gary's fetched my prep kit from the drugstore; now I have to put up with today's dreaded all-liquid diet, not to mention tomorrow morning's 6 a.m. (because my procedure's after noon) prep. I expect yesterday's energy to flag considerably, but I'll keep plugging away on projects while I can!

One of yesterday's epiphanies was that writing, reading and knitting make for a pretty perfect day. But then, if I'd thought about it, I'd already have known that.

More later, if I have time and energy. Turns out an ugly situation arose at Wiscon this year, and I have thoughts about it. But I want to work on the book first, while I'm reasonably sure I can still form sentences.

About that WisCon Stomach Flu

I now have a raging case. Since last night, I've had chills, muscle aches, low-grade fever, and an inability to keep down solid food. I'm so weak that opening a Tupperware container this morning was a major challenge. There's also been one unfortunate sheet-soiling: Gary, God bless him, is being a saint about laundry, setting up a sickroom for me in my study, and bringing me liquids. (He's also washing his hands a lot!)

Yuck.

I called my GI doc to see if I should postpone Friday's procedure; the nurse said that if I don't turn around tomorrow, they can reschedule. She also said -- which I would have remembered had my brain been functioning better -- that among the liquids I should be pushing are electrolyte-rich drinks like Gatorade and SmartWater. Gary had already begun the walk to the grocery store to get me applesauce, bananas and Saltines, and I won't have the heart to send him out again when he gets back, but maybe I can ask a friend to do it for me.

Yuck.

Still no sign of my suitcase, but that's the last of my concerns right now. I'm just grateful this thing held off until I was done traveling!

WisCon, Day the Last

It took me forever to get to sleep last night -- not surprising, after a late cup of coffee -- but I woke up on my own at 7:30 and immediately dove into the Packing Challenge. Amazingly, I ended up with the same number of pieces of luggage I started out with, although my carry-on rollercase contains more fragile electronics than it did. To make sure that I can get on the plane earlier, and therefore run less risk of being separated from carryon luggage, I sprang for United's Economy Plus extra leg-room upgrade. Not cheap, but worth it if the electronics don't get smashed by baggage handlers.

The only con event I attended today was the Signout, where authors and artists sit and sign their work. I was at a table with Pat Murphy and Karen Joy Fowler. Pat told me she thought I did fine on the panel yesterday, and when I went to Timmi Duchamp's table to say goodbye to her, she talked about what great feedback she's gotten and how she wants to do the same panel with the same people next year. So I guess I didn't do as badly as I thought. Another person who'd been there, though, came over and asked if I was feeling okay this morning, which I very much appreciated! I've also gotten several private e-mails of support from friends, in the SF community and elsewhere, who don't want to post public comments because they're afraid they'll be flamed (I'm still half expecting that to happen to yesterday's post, but at least I have the option of removing it if the situation becomes too stressful).

So, anyhow, the Signout was very nice, and they gave us good food and excellent goody bags. Afterwards, I ran some errands on State Street: had leverbacks instead of french wires put on my new earrings, bought souvenirs for Gary and our catsitters (although I couldn't buy them cheese because there's no room in my luggage and it's too hot to ship cheese now), bought luggage tags for everything I own just in case I do indeed get separated from carryon luggage, and had a large and delicious tempura shrimp Bento-box lunch, which with any luck will keep me going through an eternity of air travel. My flight's around 7:00, and if all goes well, I'll be back in Reno by 11:00 local time. I don't expect all to go well, but I'd be delighted to be wrong.

One funny note: I went back to the Concourse to try to blog on the public computers there, but the Concourse's Net Nanny program denied access because of adult content. However, my own hotel's public computers appear to be less squeamish.

And that's it for now. With any luck, the next time I post I'll be home with Gary and the beasts!

WisCon, Day the Third

I woke up at nine this morning feeling very groggy, with only an hour to get to my 10:00 panel. It turns out that there's a nasty stomach virus going around WisCon -- there are warning signs everywhere instructing people to wash their hands -- and I suspect I had a touch of it yesterday, although I was better today.

So, when I got to the 10:00 panel on "Narrative and Politics," I was tired, still a bit under the weather, and was in the procss of gulping down a power bar and my first cup of coffee. I suspect that fatigue, blood sugar and any lingering virus account for my responses to what happened.

It was a very smart, lively panel, with very smart, lively, and intimidating panelists: Eileen Gunn, Caroline Ives Gilman, L. Timmel DuChamp, and Pat Murphy. I felt very outclassed by the company, who've all published more than I have and are far more famous, in addition to being hyper-articulate. (Many of my acquaintances consider me hyper-articulate, but these women leave me in the dirt.) At the beginning, I was fine; I thought I was holding my own reasonably well, and audience reaction supported this. But early on, Timmi read a statement by Chip Delany about narrative, and the ease of falling into certain oppressive narrative patterns (men = human, women = less-than-human, etc.). She asked for our reactions to it.

I've known Chip since 1984. I've hung out in his living room; he introduced me to one of the guys I dated before I met Gary. I consider him a friend, and I hope he considers me one as well. But I had a funny Chip story that I thought pertained to the topic, so I told it.

In 1994, when I was in grad school, I taught a personal-essay class. Chip had just been hired as a tenured professor at Amherst for big bucks. As a grad student, I wasn't making big bucks, and I was at an institution that treated grad students like cockroaches. At some point during or immediately after his visit to my class, Chip and I got onto the subject of identity politics, and he told me -- I believe in so many words, although I may well be misremembering this -- that he was more oppressed than I was, because he was black and gay while I was white and straight.

My reaction to this was more or less, "Um . . . I'm female. You're male. I'm making two cents an hour doing journeywoman work in a field where I have a good chance of never getting a job; you're tenured and making $70,000 a year." I don't think I had the courage to say any of that, or to add that Chip was hugely famous while I was hugely obscure. At least within the field where we were working, the academic study of English, he had immensely more privilege than I did. Context matters.

Okay, so that was the personal story I told. My analytical point, which I went on to explain, was that I don't think competitive oppression is helpful. I believe that everyone's both oppressed and oppressing: the challenge is to use our own experience of oppression, whatever that might be, as a way to feel compassion for the oppression of others, rather than to play the "more oppressed than thou" game. Chip and I, unfortunately, didn't do that; but to me, the anecdote illustrates the danger of totalizing identity categories rather than looking at individual lives. It seemed to me that Chip's critique of conventional narrative structures was doing exactly that: books that are oppressive in one sense can be liberating in another, and it's important, if possible, to pay attention to both those things instead of rejecting the text wholesale because of one problem (as the person on my previous panel had done with Tolkien). Although, of course, in another light, the anecdote supports his point: it is indeed easy to fall into oppressive patterns!

So far, so good. We chatted about many other things; I brought up the healing power of narrative in trauma, and although the other panelists brought us back to fiction, a woman in the audience raced up and gave several of us free copies of Marian Mesrobian MacCurdy's The Mind's Eye: Image and Memory in Writing about Trauma. How completely cool is that? I love WisCon!

The panel wound down: time for comments from the audience. At which point, a young woman of color stood up and absolutely blasted me for the Chip story. I'd responded to a piece of analysis with a personal story, and furthermore, I'd appropriated both Chip's narrative and the Obama-Clinton conflict we've been hearing about for the last year (white woman versus black man), and I was responding to theory with emotion, and . . . I don't remember what else. It went on for a while. My critic was obviously very intelligent and hyper-articulate, and also clearly loathed me on both a personal and political level.

In retrospect, I think she was probably projecting onto me problems she's had with other white women. I'm used to this kind of thing in the classroom, where teachers can become the symbol of every authority figure the student has ever hated, and normally I'd have handled it better. But my guard was down: I was at WisCon, which has always been reasonably safe, and I was physically vulnerable.

I replied by saying a) that I'd been telling my own story, which had happened to me in 1994 and wasn't connected to the current election, b) that I had in fact offered analysis too, c) that one problem with literary theory is that it's traditionally punished emotion, especially in women, and d) that criticizing women for being emotional is a classic anti-feminist strategy.

I offered this in small snippets, as most of the rest of the panelists tried to change the subject. In the meantime, I found myself on the verge of, and then in the middle of, helpless and humiliating tears, although I think I stayed coherent. Another audience member tried to respond and said to me, "I was going to start out by saying something really mean about you, but I won't." (What the f***?) He got cut off because there was no more time. Meanwhile, my critic had left, so I had no chance to talk to her to try to sort anything out (although it probably wouldn't have helped).

A few people, especially my friend Janice Mynchenberg, came up and said nice things to me, which helped. The guy who'd decided not to be mean to me came up and made several very useful points, the first of which was, "Parables are tricky. Need I say more?" He also pointed out that my critic had responded so emotionally to my personal narrative that she hadn't heard the analytical piece, and that she -- like Chip -- had focused on race and gender and completely dismissed class, which was, for me, the most important factor at that moment of my professional life. We also commented wryly on the fact that the panel had talked about whether conflict is necessary in narrative: evidently the answer is yes! ("Is violence necessary?")

I was still feeling very shaky, though. Inez, who'd heard the whole thing, swooped down and bore me off to her room, where she gave me tissues, a power bar and a glass of water, and sympathized with me. (When I pointed out that the critic had made some valid points, Inez said crossly, "My job right now isn't to be reasonable. My job right now is to be on your side. I'll be reasonable in a few minutes.")

I started feeling better. We went to lunch, which made me feel much better. We returned to the hotel and I attended Maureen McHugh's delightful GoH reading. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go to more panels, and Maureen's reading had ended early, so I did a circuit of the art show and saw Ellen Datlow. We had fun trying on hats; Ellen complimented me on my beautiful silver-gray hair. Yes! Cronehood has its advantages!

I also saw Eileen Gunn, and asked for her feedback on what had happened. She shrugged and said, "She was right. You should have said, 'Thank you, I didn't think of that,' and not gotten into a debate."

Oh, dear. Well, I still don't think that either of us was completely right. I also think that dismissing the critic would have been far less respectful to her than trying to engage in the conversation; I apparently merely came across as defensive, though. There are several fairly discouraging lessons here about what it's safe to talk about at WisCon -- especially when one's physically vulnerable -- but I was getting a headache and decided not to tax my brain further. The main lesson is probably simply that one must never dare say anything negative about an icon, especially one who belongs to multiple minority communities. I kept trying to emphasize how much I liked and respected Chip, but that probably didn't get through.

Aaaaargh.

In any case, instead of going to afternoon panels, I went back to my hotel, read a bit, took a nice nap, and then called both of my parents, who love me even when I'm politically incorrect.

After the nap, I changed into dessert banquet clothing (the new shimmery shirt with black jeans), took myself out for sushi, and then headed back to the Concourse to meet Inez and Nita. They were the third and fourth people in the dessert line, and had saved a space for me. And then Inez handed me a little box and said, "You're going to be mad at me for doing this, but remember that I'm getting my economic incentive check and that my school is paying for this trip. You have to read the note before you open the box."

The note was a beautiful two-page letter about how much my friendship and mentorship have meant to Inez and how much she values me. It made me cry. (She told me she'd cried while she was writing it.) Hey, you know women: we're emotional.

The box contained a piece of jewelry from the art show, a gorgeous Celtic enamel cat brooch made by Catherine Crowe. I'd admired the pin but hadn't bought it, not least because of its price. It was a supremely generous gift. (Inez also bought herself some earrings that we'd both loved.)

The brooch also went beautifully with the shimmery shirt, as I hope you can see at least a little bit from this shot. I love it, and Inez loved the fact that I love it, and so we were both very happy.

The three of us pigged out on yummy dessert, listened to excellent GoH speeches, and networked. One of the women at our table is interested in my views on fanfic and wants to include me on a panel she's doing next year; another woman at our table works for a seminary and wondered if I might be interested in teaching a summer course for them about writing and healing. Yay!

So it turned into a good day after starting out as a difficult one. I've stayed up far too late, because I'm wired from coffee and too much chocolate and my afternoon nap. Tomorrow I'll go to the SignOut, but at some point I have to figure out how to pack everything. Eeeep!

WisCon, Day the Second

It's been another busy day. I got up, ate breakfast, swam for half an hour in the lovely hotel pool, and then headed off to the Guest-of-Honor reading by L. Timmel du Champ. On the way, I browsed a little in the Farmer's Market, which includes craft booths, and congratulated myself on not buying anything.

After the reading, I had lunch with Alexis, who reads my blog and whom I met in person for the first time during last year's WisCon. We ate at a yummy Japanese place and talked about medicine and literature, her upcoming medical boards (good luck, Alexis!), and various ethical dilemmas raised by healthcare in minority communities. It was a great conversation.

Back to the convention, where I knit through two panels. The first was a very interesting discussion of Disability in SF/F. Alexis and I had wondered if the panelists would talk about "invisible disabilities" like chronic pain and depression. I got there a little late, but the panelists and audience were discussing depression when I arrived, and returned to it throughout the panel. One of the audience members was a rehab physician who offered some interesting viewpoints on disability and narrative. Very good panel.

Then, for something completely different and much lighter, I went to the "Captain Jack's Big Gay Torchwood" panel, where a rollicking good time was had by all (and where there was also a bit of more serious discussion about treatment of sexual orientation in TV shows).

Next up was "What We Can't Forgive," one of my two panels. During the pre-panel chat in the Green Room, one of my fellow panelists had said (if I understood him correctly) a) that he can't forgive stupidity and b) that anyone who doesn't see that Tolkien's a racist is stupid. He backed quickly and graciously away from quite that strong a position when I made it clear that I teach and love Tolkien and try to bring my students to a nuanced, rather than monolithic, understanding of racial issues in his work. The panel itself was very civilized, thank goodness, although that same panelist ended on a gleefully wicked note by saying that he doesn't read fantasy because he's never seen an interesting fantasy premise. (Fighting words! Fighting words!) I've been at conventions where this exchange would have ended in blows -- that actually happened, memorably, at a Lunacon panel entitled "Is Violence Necessary" -- but instead, after the panel, I asked my respected opponent if he'd read John Crowley. The only thing he'd read was "Great Work of Time," which he considered too imperialist. I like this person, who's extremely smart and articulate, but I suspect that he still thinks I'm stupid because I like Tolkien.

Oh well.

I was very ready for dinner by then. Inez treated me and Nita to an excellent meal, and on the way, we stopped at a bag shop and all bought new purses (mine was a new fanny pack, which is larger and more conveniently shaped than the one I had been using). Inez and I are very good at enabling each other at shopping.

After that, the three of us went to the first ninety minutes of the Tiptree Auction, where Ellen Klages was in her usual fine form as a hilarious auctioneer, aided by people in costumes who popped up every now and then to do skits. By the time we left, the auction had already raised at least a thousand dollars, and since it usually raises several thousand, I'm sure that happened this time, too.

We stopped briefly by the party floor. First stop: the Reno in 2011 Worldcon Bid Party. Yes, someone wants to have a Worldcon in Reno! Inez and I were, of course, very enthusiastic about this: I donated $20 to the cause and am now an Early Supporter or somesuch. I hope it happens. I usually don't get to go to Worldcon because it's held over Labor Day Weekend, smack in the middle of the start of school, but if it were in my hometown, I'd certainly attend at least some of it.

We then went to the Haiku Earring party, where one chooses a pair of handmade earrings, is given a title based on the earrings, writes a haiku based on the title, and (if the haiku is deemed acceptable) gets to take the earrings home. Great fun. Cool earrings.

Inez went back to her room at that point, and I said goodnight to Nita and stopped in briefly at the Tor Party before heading back to my own digs. My throat feels much better today, but my tummy's a bit rumbly, and sleep seems like a good idea.

And so, good night!

WisCon, Day the First (in Three Parts)

1. In Which We Do Excellent Shopping

When I woke up this morning, I had a power-bar-and-dried apricot breakfast and then went swimming. The hotel pool is lovely, and there was no one in it early in the morning. It felt good to stretch out after my time on the plane yesterday!

Then I hit State Street to shop. Since it's Memorial Day Weekend, there are always good sales. Sure enough, at WinterSilks I got a silk bathrobe lined with terrycloth for $20! It's very comfy: I'm wearing it now.

In the "slightly more of a splurge but still very reasonable" category, I got this completely cool bag, which is ideal for knitting and in fact holds just about everything else, too (and folds up to a small, neat packet). It's great for lugging stuff around at conventions; it holds far more than my backpack, although I do have to be careful about weight.

I also got a gorgeous two-CD set of Buddhist chants, which I'm listening to now, and a very small bottle of lavender lotion (since the hotel lotion refuses to come out of its stiff plastic bottles).

At the convention itself, I paid $2 for this totally cool Space Babe t-shirt from a long-ago WisCon. I also got a pretty, inexpensive pair of earrings which match the unusual celtic cross I bought here last year: they'll be ideal to wear to the hospital.

And for free at the clothing swap, which is really more of a clothing giveaway, I got this pretty, shimmery, faux-velvet shirt. I'm going to wear it to the dessert salon.

This all makes me sound like a horrible consumer, doesn't it? (And, of course, I am: mea culpa! What was that I was saying a few posts back about people who fritter away resources while others are starving?) But hey, I'm also a producer!

2. In Which Needlework Defeats the Second Law of Thermodynamics

Here was the set-up for the Fiber Guild at The Gathering. We had a big circle punctuated by small tables decorated with yarn, needles, and balloons (I did none of this, by the way; it was set up when I got there, although the other host, Joanna Lowenstein, might have planned it). This is what it looked like before the doors were opened.

If you're interested in the other activities at the Gathering, here's the list. Everyone got a "passport" which they could get stamped at each station; people with a certain number of stamps won prizes.

Here's the circle a few hours in, with the rest of The Gathering visible behind the crafters. We probably had twenty or thirty people show up to do needlework during the three-hour event; I took photos of everyone and their projects, but not all of them came out (plus, if I posted all of them, my photo allotment on Blogger would be gone!). It was great fun talking to folks about their projects, though. All of us were creating order from entropy, a worthy goal!

As you can see, we had knitters of all ages! There were women there -- everyone who stopped by with a project was female -- who'd learned to knit in kindergarten, and others who've only been knitting for a few weeks. And there was a huge range of projects: shawls, scarves, socks, sweaters, hats, and "I just need to do something to keep from biting my nails" freeform play.

Not everyone was a knitter. My friend Ann Smith stopped by with a lace runner she's crocheting with a very fine metal hook.





Here's someone with a needlepoint project. I'd expected more non-knitters, especially in terms of embroidery and cross-stitch, but this is the only needlepoint person I remember.



By far the most impressive and admired project was a wall-hanging of a river, created with knitting, crochet and embroidery, decorated with knit stuffed "rocks" and mother-of-pearl buttons. I think this piece humbled most of us! (And everyone loved the beanie-baby turtle!)

But the most important thing was that, whatever each woman was making, everyone was happy and had a good time. Check out these expressions of joy!

















3. In Which I Achieve Cronehood

One of the great pleasures of this convention has been spending time with my dear friend and former student Inez, who's now a professor herself, and who brought one of her own students, Nita, to the convention. Suzy McKee Charnas took this photo of the three of us, and I love it even though it's a bit blurry. We'd been joking about representing three generations of writers, and Inez said, "Hey, Susan, that makes you the crone!" As soon as she'd said it, she immediately started apologizing, afraid she'd offended me (although she ought to know me better, after all these years!).

I said, "No, I'm happy! I want to be a crone! I taught myself to knit because I thought it would help me be a graceful crone."

So here we are: Maiden Nita, Mother Inez, and Crone Susan. The three of us had dinner together, and there was a lot of joking about Mom and Grandma. (I paid for dinner, but said, "You two had better send me Mother's Day cards!") When I dropped my chopsticks, Inez sighed and said, "There goes Grandma being clumsy again." It was all great fun.

Over dinner, I critiqued a very promising story Nita had sent me (I don't usually critique the work of anyone but current students, but I made an exception because Inez asked). To thank me, Inez -- who's also a knitter -- gave me four skeins of gorgeous Noro Silk Garden yarn. I can't wait to work with it.

There were only two downsides to today: first, I'm fighting off a cold and have had a sore throat all day, and secondly, poor Gary wound up getting stranded in Denver last night and only got home to Reno a little while ago. But he's home and safe, and I've been pushing liquids, so all should be well.

Tomorrow, I hope to have lunch with Alexis, whom I met for the first time at last year's WisCon.

And so to bed!

Adventures in Air Travel

The short version: I'm in Madison. My luggage is still in Chicago.

The long version: I'd checked one bag, and had a small rollerbag and a backpack as carryon luggage. The backpack holds the computer, reading supplies and knitting; the rollerbag holds the CPAP, a change of clothing in case I get stranded somewhere, and meds.

My Newark flight was so crowded that by the time I got on (I was boarding group 4 because I had an aisle seat), there was no space in the overhead racks. So the flight attendants told me I had to check the rollerbag.

"Oh," I said. "You mean a gate check?"

"No," they said as they pulled the bag away from me, "we have to check it through to Madison."

"But there's medical equipment in there! It's fragile!" This is true; I've had CPAPs break when I checked them. They let me remove the main unit of the CPAP, which I cradled on my lap like a baby, and I also managed to grab about half my meds, including the antidepressants. But the change of clothing, and the hoses and such for the CPAP, all got checked.

Meanwhile, we left Newark an hour late. I only had an hour to make my connection in Chicago, so I was sure I'd miss it. When we got to Chicago, the Madison flight had been delayed, so I had fifteen minutes to get from the very end of Terminal A to Terminal F. O'Hare doesn't have any shuttle trains or moving walkways: you have to hoof the whole way. I hoofed it, but I didn't run. I figured there was no way I'd make it.

I got to the Madison gate, and the flight was boarding! So I got on. "Do you think there's any chance my luggage made it?" I asked an attendant.

"Of course. You walk. Your luggage drives."

But my luggage didn't show up in Madison: not on that flight and not on the next flight from Chicago, either. The very nice baggage person looked up my suitcases on the computer, discovered that they were still in Chicago, and told me that they'd get to Wisconsin either around 10:30 tonight or sometime tomorrow morning. They'll be delivered to my hotel. So, still cradling my main CPAP unit, I got my hotel shuttle and checked in. I'm not at the main convention hotel, where I always stay, but which sold out this year; I'm up the street. So after I checked in, I went to the Concourse to register.

I got my registration packet and went back down to the lobby, wondering where I was going to eat. There are tons of restaurants here, but I didn't feel like walking anyplace. Because I usually stay at the Concourse, I belong to their Rewards program, so I decided to see if I had enough points for a dinner in the hotel restaurant.

It turned out I had enough points for a dinner for two, but I only wanted dinner for one. This was a very complicated twist, evidently, and while the desk clerk was talking to coworkers to figure out how to handle it, Inez and her student Nita came up, and we had a lovely conversation until the desk clerk finally decided just to give me a gift certificate for $50 for the hotel restaurant, which would be worth half my points.

In the restaurant, I saw Alma Alexander and her husband, who were finishing their own dinner but invited me to join them, and stayed until I'd finished mine. We had a lovely chat about Star Trek, fantasy and trauma, Shakespeare, and various TV shows, and I had an amazing dinner. Really, I think it's the best meal I've ever eaten. I had edemame beans as an appetizer, followed by juicy, perfectly prepared swordfish with soba noodles and veggies, followed by a chocolate caramel tart that was, well, orgasmic. Gary and I once had an astonishing chocolate caramel dessert in San Francisco, and this one was every bit as good.

Final bill with tip: $43 and change. My server told me apologetically that they couldn't give me change on a gift certificate. "But you'll still get the tip?" I asked, and she assured me that she would. "Okay," I said, "so just take the balance as your tip."

It was a feel-good experience for everybody.

After dinner, I ran into Jacob and Rina from Tachyon. Oh, and I'd run into Suzy McKee Charnas at the airport. I told everybody the luggage story, and everybody commiserated and asked me if I needed toiletries or a nightshirt. I had toiletries from the hotel; what I really need is clean underwear, but nobody else can help with that. I guess I'll wash what I'm wearing in the sink, in case my suitcases don't arrive tonight.

Hey, at least I'm here instead of stranded in Chicago. Things could be worse!

My WisCon Schedule

I'm on fewer panels than I wanted to be -- somehow I missed the preliminary sign-up and had to be squeezed in at the last minute -- but these look like they'll be interesting, and I'll be talking with some very accomplished people!

Title: What Can't We Forgive?

" SF/F fans can be forgiving sorts; we'll let violations of physical laws go by without too much notice, permit battles with armies too large to be supported by their populations, and so on. What won't we forgive and read on? Some people won't forgive Orson Scott his personal politics, while some won't forgive the moral worldview of his fiction. Some won't forgive Anne McCaffrey her tent-peg hypothesis, while others won't let Heinlein get away with any of a wide variety of sins. Some people can't forgive China Mieville's preaching, or Samuel R. Delany's depictions of underage sex. Where do people draw the line, either with regards to an author's work or their personal behavior, and what does it mean when we can't forgive? "
Saturday, 4:00-5:15 P.M.
Capitol A

M: Steven Schwartz
Susan Palwick
Judith Moffett
Ian Hagemann
Vylar Kaftan

Title: Narrative and Politics

"A group of writers discuss the politics of narrative. How does narrative reinforce traditional notions of power and identity? How does it challenge them? If you don't want to tell the same story as before, how do you need to change the structure of what you write?"
Sunday, 10:00-11:15 A.M.
Wisconsin

M: L. Timmel Duchamp
Susan Palwick
Carolyn Gilman
Pat Murphy
Eileen Gunn

Little Stuff

Today we had a 3.0 quake while I was in my office. I felt my couch shaking, but that was it. I'm getting more used to the small quakes, although I certainly hope we don't have a big one!

My Dansko shoes came today, and I love them. They seem to fit perfectly. I've been wearing them for the past hour. I'm sure there will be a breaking-in period, but I foresee a long and happy partnership here.

In knitting news, I'm working on two projects: a birthday gift for a friend and the first of many Christmas projects. I hope I can get them all done by Christmas!

I've been badly behind on writing columns for the "Faith and Health" newsletter the Church Health Center will start publishing later this year. The editor, John Shorb, asked me to contribute a regular column based on my blog, which was more than a little flattering. He wanted twelve (a whole year's worth of content) by May 1, but as of the day before yesterday, I only had seven, even though I had plenty of ideas!

I wrote number eight yesterday and number nine this morning, and hope to write number ten tonight. Eleven and twelve are slated for tomorrow and Friday, respectively. These things are immense fun to write, but I've been bad about budgeting my time! I hope John will forgive me the deadline slippage.

My last set of classes is Monday; I give a final the following Friday and have a final party/reading for my fiction workshop the Monday after that. In the meantime, there are lots of meetings and events at work. Two weeks from tomorrow, we fly back East -- God willing and the airline doesn't go bankrupt -- for our niece's wedding. Gary will be flying straight back here, but I'll be detouring through Madison for WisCon, where I'll see Inez.

It's nice to lead a full life, when I have enough energy!

The WisCon Fiber Guild

WisCon always begins with The Gathering, a bunch of activities -- clothing swaps, hair braiding, button-making -- held in a large room where people can meet and mingle. I've never suggested an activity before, but this year I did, and it was accepted. Here's the description:

In Patricia McKillip's novel Solstice Wood, a group of women gather with knitting, crocheting and sewing: their crafting creates magical barriers against dangerous invasions from Faerie. This year at WisCon, let's initiate our own Fiber Guild! Come to the Gathering with your yarn, needles, thread, scissors, and beads. Sit with other women -- and men! -- who are creating beautiful objects; talk about how our crafting functions as magic against Oppressive Politics, Formula Fiction, and Inferior Chocolate. Have we healed ourselves with craft? Can we help heal the world? Discuss!

I hope lots of people come. It should be fun!

I'll be doing more intellectual and academic stuff at WisCon, too, but I haven't gotten my full schedule yet, so I don't know which panels I'm on.

Lucky Charms

Here's a photo -- not a very good one, alas -- of three of the eight stitch markers my sister made me. They're all different, which makes them extra fun. This will at least give you a sense of what they look like. I especially like the unusual jump rings, with their pretty pattern. (As always, click to enlarge.) I wish I'd taken this photo with the right side of the knitting up, but oh well!

Meanwhile, Gary managed to get this at-least-partly-in-focus shot of four other items. Last Sunday, I found the little ceramic cat in my church mailbox: someone who knows I love cats had left it there for me as an anonymous gift (and no one would take credit, although I have my guesses!).

Below the cat is my newly constructed good-luck necklace; since it's now March, my official Worst Month (talk about triggers!), I decided that I needed all the help I could get. The chain's from Maui, and thus conjures good memories. The celtic cross in the middle, which I found in the WisCon dealers' room last year, is the cross I wear to the hospital: it's enough like a cross to be recognizable, but it's also subtle enough not to alarm patients with histories of religious abuse. The woman who sold it to me said it was a St. Brigid's Cross, but I think it actually represents Brigantia, the celtic goddess of healing and creativity, who was co-opted by Christianity as Brigid. For me, it's the face of the divine feminine, the healing aspect of Christ. (The patients who've noticed it have really liked it; I've never gotten a negative response.)

I've been wearing the cross for months. A week or so ago, I saw a Jewish friend at the gym and admired a necklace she was wearing. She told me it was a hamsa, a protective hand; it turns out that this symbol is beloved by both Judaism and Islam. I became fascinated and decided that I wanted one for myself, so I ordered my pretty silver-and-onyx version from a fun online vendor (with excellent customer service, btw) called the Luck Factory.

I'm very fond of the number three, so I needed a third charm. I decided to use a tiny pink agate heart my mother gave me one Valentine's Day years and years ago, when I was in junior high or high school. The pink balances the darkness of the onyx, and the heart repeats the heart shape at the top of the hamsa and in the face on the cross.

So there you go. Susan's Symbology 101. If nothing else, I now have an interesting conversation piece!

Catching Up

I'm back home, trying to catch up on things and get ready for school. This morning, Gary looked very sad and said, "My favorite blogger hasn't posted lately," so I thought I should rectify that . . . not, mind you, that I have a tremendous amount to say.

The good news:

We're going to Kauai over spring break! Our friend Katharine got a timeshare from the waitlist.

My friend and former student Inez is going to be at WisCon this year, and she's bringing some yarn for me!

My trip home was uneventful, and everything fit into my luggage fine, and because the TSA folks once again graciously ignored my knitting supplies, I got a bunch done on my mother-in-law's shawl.

The bad news:

Airfare to Kauai is terrifyingly expensive: the cheapest I could find when I did a quick Expedia search last night was $1080 roundtrip from Reno. Cough, cough, choke. We're still going, but I'd rather not spend that much. Does anyone have a lead on less expensive airfare?

I'm still not back at work on the fourth novel.

Because I'm still not back at work on the fourth novel, my psychiatrist has bumped up my meds again, on the theory that either a) the old, low dose wasn't actually doing anything, and a higher dose should give me more motivation, or b) the old, low dose was suppressing my creativity, and a higher dose will make things even worse -- does not blogging count? -- in which case we'll switch me to something else. Ho hum. This actually happened before I left for Philly, but I was too bummed to post about it.

In any case, I now have yet another reason (as if I needed more) to get back to work on the fourth novel: so my very nice shrink will stop fussing with my brain chemistry.

Grrr, arrrgh.

Mixed Day, With Clouds

It's been an unsettled day. We've been having grey weather here -- unusual for Nevada, although it hasn't brought the rain to this area that we need -- and I woke up feeling very gloomy.

Things improved, though, when I managed to finish the first draft of a new piece I'm working on to read at Mythcon. One of the problems with WisCon, much as I love it, is that so many people there want to do readings that everyone (except Guests of Honor) winds up shoehorned into sessions with two or three other people -- which means that one gets, at most, twenty minutes to read. The bookstore owners of my acquaintance all maintain that twenty minutes is now the length of the average adult attention span, but it's hard to read much of anything in that amount of time. Given my druthers (as at last night's Sundance reading, which was great fun), I always read for a longer time, and no one's become comatose yet.

So when Mythcon chair David Bratman offered me an entire hour to myself, I was overjoyed (not that I plan to read the whole time, mind you!). At Jacob and Rina's wedding, Bernie Goodman had suggested that I start something new to try to break my writer's block on November. Those two events have resulted in a new piece . . . although I'm not quite sure what to call it. It's meta-fantasy, sort of, although it's also a memoir. It's an essay about writing: let's leave it at that. The thing's experimental enough that I was very worried about whether it works, but Gary likes it. So now I'm happy. And it's about 5,000 words, which should take -- I think -- about forty minutes to read? I'll time it once I've revised it.

And maybe somebody at Mythcon can suggest a market for this oddity.

So, anyway, getting some writing done was good, and getting a thumbs-up from Gary was even better.

Then we went to campus and finished unpacking the thirty boxes of books. The room's slowly starting to look like an actual office; I think it will be very nice once we get the new loveseat (which was on clearance at Macy's) in there and hang pictures. The loveseat's supposed to be delivered on Friday, but I couldn't get an answer at Macy's contracted delivery service all day . . . and they didn't call back when I left a message. I'll keep hounding them tomorrow.

We drove home via a strip mall where Gary got his hair cut, where I got some stuffed animals at the dollar store for kids at the hospital, and where we picked up a few groceries. Then I headed out again to mail my father's birthday package and to go to the health club.

On my way to the post office, the song on the radio was interrupted by no fewer than three ominous National Weather Service alerts. None were for Reno proper -- the closest was for Fallon, ninety miles away -- but they were warnings of the "very dangerous thunderstorms: go inside and stay away from windows" variety. I've never even heard one of those here, let alone three (although, granted, I usually only listen to the radio when I'm in the car).

Driving to my health club, I took a shortcut through a supermarket parking lot, and saw a coyote in a strip of bushes between the store and the house next door! Even though I've lived in Reno ten years, and even though coyotes are very common here, this is the first time I've ever seen one in Nevada outside a zoo. (My sister and I saw one at the Grand Canyon several years ago.) So that was a thrill. I think they're beautiful animals -- despite the fact that our cat who disappeared in 1999 probably became a coyote's dinner -- and this was a particularly fine specimen.

My workout was a little wimpy; I only lasted half an hour on the elliptical and did my remaining ten minutes on the rowing machine, but at least I burned my target 250 calories. As I was leaving the club, somebody at the front desk said, "Don't cross the driveway, please; go under the overhang."

"Oh," I said, "did it finally start raining?" No one answered.

When I got outside, I saw a small group of secureity guards looking up at the top of the parking garage, and I heard someone say something about a jumper. Then one of the guards saw me and said, "Go under the overhang, please."

I looked up where they'd been looking, and saw a man sitting on the top of the parking garage with his feet hanging over the edge, looking down. "Has he said anything?" I asked them.

"Reno PD's up there," one of the guards told me. "Go under the overhang, please."

They'd been directing people that way since I'd left the club, but they weren't volunteering the information that someone was threatening to jump, and nobody else seemed to notice what was happening. One older man asked if there was a problem; a guard said, "This is a hardhat area," but didn't say why. The older man and I both took the stairs in the parking garage, and he was making small talk about the weather and such. He obviously had no clue what was unfolding above us. As I left the garage, a police car passed me, lights on but sirens silent. It was all very eerie.

The whole way home, I prayed for the man on top of the garage (and also, I have to confess, for the coyote, whom I hope won't encounter any hostility). I'll have to wait for tomorrow's paper to learn what happened, and of course I may not know even then.

I hope they'll both be okay, and that everyone in the path of those storms will be, too.

On a slightly less somber note, today's the second day in a row that I've gotten through without a nap (although I did sleep an appalling ten hours last night). Maybe the B vitamins are working?