Okay, so, pictures and pictures and pictures. And links. And pictures.

Me and Columbine and Debby. Columbine was one of the most different people in person from online. No, that's not entirely it, because in-person and in-e-mail are very similar. Most different from his journal award, then.

John Scalzi, on the other hand, seemed pretty much like his journal, not that I had time to discern the inner reaches of the man's psyche in two short conversations and a reading. Still. He brought taffy to his reading, which was awfully nice. (See taffy at right.)

Bear! About to do her reading. Which was not as swear-y as Scalzi's.

Stella, Jenni, Ruth, Lisa, and Mer, waiting for Bear's reading to start.

Leah, Kat, and Amanda. Same reading, more preoccupied.

Jackie and Philip and me. And, oh, a dragon. Jackie quoted Opening Ceremonies as saying, "You know you're among your own people when someone says, 'Can you help me move the dragon?' [pause] And then someone else says, 'Which dragon?'" (We had lovely Kashmiri food, but the lighting was not good enough to photograph in.)

Deanna brought her kids to WorldCon fleeing the hurricane. She was pretty tired but surprisingly upbeat for someone who had left a spousal unit behind on duty in a hurricane and had been dealing with two small children all day. They were great kids, though. Deanna and Evan are pictured here.

Stella is shown with Deanna's daughter Blaine, who is what my family calls a goin' concern. She showed us the first kata she learned and had all sorts of life wisdom for us. Five-year-olds, I'm telling you. They know where it's at and are not afraid to describe for you where, exactly, it is at. In great detail. I love how my friends' and acquaintances' kids continue to provide examples of What's Cool At That Age. Also it proved my wisdom in packing the bubble duck.

Stella with (ahem) Peg-Leg Mer. It turns out that Mer is short for Merrie and thus should not be pronounced the same way as the first syllable of mermaid. Poor Mer. I would say we tease because we love, but we tease because we're rude, rotten people, and we love kind of off to the side of that. Near it. Sort of.

Julie, Ken, and Kelly. Julie is my Internet Stalker. Ken grins a lot and has locally famous or infamous dogs. Kelly laughs even more than Ken grins. Kelly is contagious. Kelly is the best people I didn't know I liked at WorldCon. There were lots of people I kind of suspected I liked, but Kelly came out of left field.

In a good way. Really. Art show commentary notwithstanding. ("Nomadic Nipples of the Gobi Desert!" If you have the chance, do go to a convention art show with Kelly and Leah.)

Timprov with Terri, a.k.a. Terri-san. Tim and Terri and I were in beginning Japanese together. Terri came in from Salem to have lunch with us. I had other stuff scheduled for the afternoon, but Timprov got to meet her husband and son in the afternoon.

At the Malaysian place, they gave me a basket of noodles. It was purty. I was impressed. Impressed enough to take a picture, in fact.

Laura, (the other) Mark, and Reid were not actually at the con. They were just in town and saw me. Which was nice of them.

Me with (the other) Mark and Reid. Reid blew bubbles with me. Long live the bubble duck. I saw it on no WorldCon packing/advice lists, and yet it was so versatile.

Ruth, Celia, and Hannah.

Leah in her Elise necklace. I forget its name. (Leah?) It is lovely and obviously belonged with Leah the way my necklace belongs with me (I'll try to get a better picture soon) and Stella's with her (ditto).

Me and Yoon. Sad that I didn't get more Yoon time, happy that I got some Yoon time at all. That was Monday, and you can tell from my jeans and glasses that I was starting to get fatigued. People were nice to my fatigued self anyway.

People were so cool. Timprov thinks they should all move to Minneapolis, and I cannot but agree.