So WorldCon happened four weeks ago in San Antonio, and I’m just now blogging about it. (Life with a baby makes for good excuses.) It had its frustrating moments, but overall it was still fantastic. I didn’t have a novel ready to talk about so I knew I was going simply to catch up with old friends and meet some new ones. Strangely, that helped decrease the pressure when meeting anyone.

So I left for San Antonio Thursday morning after teaching a couple of private Pilates lessons, and I’ve got to say, Roslin was a total champ. I fed her right before we got on the road, and she slept for all 3 hours of driving time, only waking up just before we got to the hotel. We arrived a little after 2PM, which gave me time to check into the hotel and pick up my WorldCon badge before picking up my aunt from the airport. (My aunt had graciously offered to come watch Roslin for the weekend so I could attend more of WorldCon. She didn’t have to come spend her weekend in a hotel with my daughter at all, and I’m thankful she came.)

In line at WorldCon Registration.

So we entered the convention center briefly, where Roz was quite sweet towards the registration volunteers. (By the way, the volunteers were very kind and helpful, and I give all of them major props for helping out!) Then we ran back to the car and went to pick up my aunt from the airport. Her flight was delayed by almost an hour but she showed up eventually, and we picked up fresh fruits and vegetables for her to eat over the weekend from HEB.

By the time all that was done, it was time for dinner. It took a bit to arrange, but me, Roz, my aunt, and my friends Megan and Gama went to one of the Mexican restaurants down on the Riverwalk. It was pretty tasty – I do love shrimp fajitas.

My aunt and Roz went back to the hotel room, and I met up with some friends from the Writers of the Future forum, and we had dessert at Denny’s. It was great talking to everyone in person! I’d met half of the group in person at conventions last year, and it was great to meet even more of my online friends in the flesh.

After much conversation, a few of us visited the room parties on the party floor – I think they were all bid parties. Most of them had died down by the time we arrived, but we still had a good time chatting.

As you can see, Helsinki would have been an awesome host for WorldCon 2015.

When we made our way down to the bar, we met up with other friends. Lou Anders stopped by and we had a good chat about his upcoming children’s series, as well as some of the books that Pyr has or will be publishing.

And then it was time to crash.

Friday morning was the Codex breakfast, and I got to meet even more online friends in person. Roz wasn’t feeling super awesome – she was running a slight fever, among other things, and so she wasn’t her usual sunny self. Over the wailing, though, I managed to have a few conversations, and no one seemed terribly annoyed.

I managed to attend the Creating Anthologies panel, Wesley Chu’s reading, and the Writers of the Future panel. Megan and I were determined to go enjoy the Brazilian steakhouse, Fogo de Chao, and I’d like to think we succeeded. We ate the heck out of that place. (But what Brazilian steakhouse doesn’t serve glazed pineapple? This one, apparently.)

A large portion of Friday night’s party time was spent at the Writers of the Future party, which I helped host, and it was a blast.

I also got some time in at the Tor party, and finished up chatting at the bar.

Let me just emphasize how many sodas and waters I had this weekend. I don’t drink, and it is definitely cheaper that way. Apparently it’s just not worth it to bartenders to charge for a Sprite. Can someone explain that to me? I’d get my wallet out to pay, and they’d tell me to not worry about it. Not at the hotel bar, of course, but at Ernie’s Bar.

On Saturday I attempted to sit in on the Wiring the Brain presentation, but a few minutes in Roz decided that now would be a good time to create a ruckus, and continued doing so until I gave up trying to sneak back into the room and just grabbed all our stuff and sat outside. She recovered by Dave Farland/Wolverton’s reading, and along with several other friends we had lunch with Dave, which was really fun. I’ve been waiting for years to have a chance to chat with him. We booked it back to make it to our Kaffeeklatsch with Patrick and Teresa Nielson Hayden, and then it was time for breakfast/dinner at Denny’s  and more parties!

Say hello to my steampunk baby.

While chatting at the Baen party, Bud Sparhawk sparked a new short story idea for me and I need to make sure I finish it in the next couple of weeks so he doesn’t write it instead. 🙂

Sunday I made it to the Literary Beer with Ellen Datlow, and that was all. Sunday was a hard day, especially since I got some kind of food poisoning during dinner, which began to take effect around 10 or 11 PM (though up until then chatting at the bar with writers like Myke Cole, Carrie Vaughn, Brian McClellan, Kevin Hearne, Gail Carriger was really, really fun), I struggled to enjoy the night since this was the last chance to chat with so many great authors (and the occasional editor/agent/assistant/fan/etc), but I gave up completely at 12:30. It just wasn’t happening.

I did, however, manage to steal some cuddle time with Ken Liu’s Hugo.

My second cousin once removed, who happens to live in San Antonio, offered to give my aunt a ride to the airport Monday morning, which gave me plenty of time to miserably lie in bed. I eventually checked out of the hotel and made it to Jo Walton’s reading, which was as lovely as her reading at ConDFW. Her upcoming novel (with Tor) sounds fantastic, and I can’t wait to read it when it comes out.

Meeting up with Jo again, one of the loveliest people in the world

On my way out of the convention center I met up with Jeremiah, Tina, Marina, Andrea, Martin, and Austin one last time and we snapped a quick Writers of the Future forum picture:

Tina, Marina, me, Roz, Andrea, Austin, and Martin

And then I drove home, still feeling crummy, with this sweet scene in the backseat:

Cooing and reading herself to sleep.

So there’s my very long update. (I didn’t even begin to name all the amazing people at the convention but this post is far too long as it is.) I’m glad we went, but I’m not entirely sad that I’m not going to London next year. For how difficult it was balancing time with a 3 month old, I’m not sure that running around with a louder, larger, more mobile 15 month old would be any easier. We’ll save our terrorizing for local cons, and hopefully be ready for Spokane in 2015.