See Mellie run. Run Mellie, run!

Saturday dawned somewhat overcast (the entire weekend would be cloudy, although the temps never reached down into the 60's as predicted, which was just fine with me). Today was going to be extremely busy for me -- at 3:00 PM I was William Sanders' designated acceptor at the Sidewise Awards for Alternate History, at 9:00 PM I had a reading, and at 10:00 PM I had "SF vs. Fantasy -- Who Has The Best Sex?" (luckily the last two were in the same room). In the middle of it all, I wanted to try and get up to the CN Tower and maybe do a little sightseeing along the way.

The sightseeing fell by the wayside when I found out that the wait to get up the Tower was two hours, so I decided to put that off until Monday and just wander around the con some more -- namely, the dealer's room. I hadn't actually been in the dealer's room apart from my stint as Esther's guard, so it was nice to browse all those wonderful things that I couldn't afford.

Well, that's not strictly true -- I could afford the LOW PORT antho from Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, mainly because I knew a third of the authors and they'd beat me with pointy things if I didn't buy it. I purchased a copy, got it signed by Lee Martindale, Lawrence Schoen and a bunch of other people, then wandered over to Nancy's Buttons to pick up Steve's requested batch for this year. I found some dillies in the political line, and rounded them out with a Trek and computer button, then picked up "Words cannot express how I feel about you -- stand by for gestures" for me. Hee.

Next stop was the Pro photography booth -- program attendees were being invited to have their pictures taken for the traveling Worldcon Pro Gallery. Just as I was filling out the paperwork and Janna Silverstein was waiting her turn, Terry Pratchett ambled by and proceeded to tell us a story from his newspaper days about a newspaper strike during which he taught a group of middle-aged female advertising clerks how to play D&D to prove that it wasn't getting their kids involved in Satanism (that being the big charge against D&D at that time). Much to his shock, these matronly ladies in sweater sets and pearls promptly turned into bloodthirsty warrior princesses, bloodied to the elbows, who slew their enemies, used prisoners to test traps at arrowpoint, and finished off the game with tons of loot. "Oh, that's all right, then," they decided at the end of it, leaving an exhausted Terry to ponder the inner Conan (since this predated Xena) of middle-aged women.

While he was telling the story, I noticed that he'd just trimmed his beard. I noticed this because he was wearing all black and has a white beard, so the trimmings stood out like monster dandruff on his shirt. Being the useful person that I am, I ordered him to hold still and dusted off his shoulders. "You're mothering me," he accused. "Yes, I am -- deal with it," I said, as I finished the job. He then offered to pull out a handkerchief so that I could spit on it and wipe off his face, but I told him I'd pass. Some people, I swear.

So I had my picture taken (one smiling, one serious, and one closeup), and signed the waiver for displaying it at Worldcons and other places. I then wandered towards the escalators and met up with Tom Powers and Dan (Cruel Yet Beautiful) Procoprio, and we hung out at the entrance to the main floor chatting and sampling Dan's wonderfully smooth 25-year-old Scotch. Terry Fong, the beleaguered but still stalwart Programming Head came up the escalator around then, and I got to tease him a bit, which is always fun. We sketched out dinner plans for 6:00 PM, and he headed off to do his duty. Remember this, by the way -- it will be an important report point later.

Since I was only mildly interested in the panels going on at that point, I headed over to the CN Tower to see if I could get up to the observation deck, and promptly found out about the horrendous wait. Thinking, "Bugger this for a lark," I decided to go back to the hotel and hang out in the lobby with my knitting. It was also a chance to people watch and generally give my feet a chance to rest, two things that strongly appealed to me at that moment.

I went up and sat in a lovely wing chair on the Mezzanine Level, overlooking the lobby and the Concierge's Desk. From my chair, I could see and hear everything going on at the desk -- as I watched, the concierge answered the phone and listened for a bit. "Yes, ma'am, it's a science fiction convention," she said, pausing again to listen. "I believe they're science fiction writers and readers." A pause. "No, ma'am, they're not leaving until Monday." Another pause. "Cancel your dinner reservations, then. Yes, ma'am, we'll do that, thank you for calling." I think we scared off another straight, hee.

After that, it was time to go upstairs and get myself dolled up for the Sidewise Awards. The Sidewise Awards, by the by, are given out for best alternate history fiction (differentiated from science fiction because they often have no spec fic elements whatsoever), and William Sanders was nominated for the short form. Since he couldn't make it to Worldcon this year, he asked me to be his designated acceptor, hence my need to be dolled up. The awards themselves were pretty low-key -- Robert Silverberg, Evelyn Leeper and another juror whose name is currently escaping my sieve-like memory were the presenters, and they got around to handing out the awards toot sweet.

Much to my delight, William won, so I accepted his plaque and burbled a few words about this really making his week. Martin J. Gidron and Harry Turtledove split the award for long form, and Laura Anne Gilman accepted the award for them. As the event broke up, a regular from William's SFF.Net newsgroup came up to me and introduced himself -- we chatted about Our Host and his presumed reaction to the award (he didn't think he had a chance in hell of getting it, and suggested I dress as a belly dancer and do a shimmy if he did win), and Ross was kind enough to take a picture of me holding the plaque. I look somewhat crazed, I think, but the outfit flatters me and the plaque is very nice, so that's all good.

I took the plaques (William also received a retroactive one for his first Sidewise Award for "The Undiscovered") back to the hotel, logged on and informed him that he'd won. Much merriment burst out on his newsgroup, and I get the impression he was more than a bit surprised at the win. He asked me to hold onto the plaques until he got back from visiting family in England, so they'll be stashed safely in my office once I get home. Stripping out of my somewhat sweaty finery, I changed back into mufti and decided to sit in the lobby and knit some more -- I've had some of the most interesting conversations with people who saw me working on a red and blue-striped sock and came up to chat.

This time, Jan Stirling stopped by to check my progress, and we sat there gabbing away about her husband misplacing his Green Card while in Toronto (he's a Canadian who's just about to be naturalized as a US citizen, so this ain't the best time to go losing his Green Card) and Lyndon's adventures with the INS. Tom Doherty from Tor paused briefly to say hello (no, he doesn't know me from Adam, but he knows Jan as Steve's wife), and we congratulated him on "his" con. Tor, Torcon -- get it? The amusing thing was that Tor actually was the con's platinum sponsor, so their name was on all the badges and promotional material. Tom joked that in the little park across from the convention center there was even a small monument with a spiked peak that looked like their colophon. You can't buy publicity like that.

Elizabeth Moon and Bill Seney came by next, and this is where I made a small faux pas. After Jan forced Bill and I to hide our heads in a tote bag in response to one of her puns, Elizabeth asked if I had any dinner plans. I said no, so we headed a couple blocks east to MarchÈ, this great restaurant that had stations with all kinds of cuisines so that you could pick and choose. I had a magnificent plate of sushi, while Bill had shrimp in pasta and Elizabeth indulged in a steak sandwich with fries.

Note that I'd said I had no dinner plans -- this is what happens when you become con-addled. Because as I commented earlier, I did have dinner plans with Terry Fong, and he called during the middle of dinner to find out where the hell I was.

Um, oops?

I apologized profusely and makde arrangements to meet for breakfast the next day - being a veteran fan, he understood, and I think Bill and Elizabeth were amused. Elizabeth then claimed that she had to get rid of her Canadian money and promptly picked up the bill. I love the captain, I truly do.

We walked back to the hotel, stopping off to admire a display of toy British and Zulu soldiers, and wound up chatting with Ginjer Buchanan and Wen Spencer, who had just won the 2003 Campbell Award. I finally excused myself so that I could go upstairs, get a drink of water and get ready for my reading. Said reading would up having a grand total of two attendees, apart from myself -- Dan (Beautiful Yet Cruel) Procoprio and Elizabeth, who'd been in the bar and dashed up as soon as she remembered it. Seeing the dearth of attendees, she offered to go back down to the bar and recruit audience members. She came back a few minutes later, looking crestfallen -- nobody wanted to abandon their booze to hear me read. Bastards.

So I read to Dan and Elizabeth -- they loved "A Rose By Any Other Name," and thought "Happily Every After" was amusing. By that point Elizabeth had to leave to make three parties she'd promised to attend, so I rounded out the evening with "Oral Therapy" for Dan and someone else who'd come in to see the upcoming panel, "Science Fiction vs. Fantasy -- Who Has the Best Sex?"

The rest of the panel members filtered in, along with more audience members. Since Cecilia Tan came in last, we made her the moderator under the Opus rules. She's good at it, anyway. We started discussing the different flavors of sex available in the two genres, touching on darker aspects of sexuality, and read a couple of samples of what we thought was outstanding work in the field. Suzy McKee Charnas was in the audience and was delighted when Aynjel read from one of her books. The rest of the audience was equally intelligent and asked some really good questions about spec fic's ability to explore the limits of what it means to be human (including aspects such as human sexuality), and the proper usage of sex in spec fic.

The panel wound up on time, and Cecilia stayed to do her reading (much better attended than mine -- oh, well, someday), and I caught up with Terry Fong on the way out. Lyndon called down to find out where I was, and joined us on a couch overlooking the lobby. There, Terry bemoaned the upcoming end of the con and the resulting paperwork he'd have to generate, and Lyndon tried to drag him off to a party to cheer him up.

"I hate parties," Terry said with a face.

"Why -- are you afraid they'll find out who you are?" Lyndon said (you have to remember that there's been a bit of grumbling about programming snafus, and Terry has been run off his feet trying to fix all of them). Terry laughed and Lyn continued, "I can see it now -- if you go to a party, you'll be found tomorrow morning, naked and bound in the little park across the street from the convention center, daily programming sheets rolled up tight and shoved into every orifice."

Terry laughed again, and agreed to come down to the bar for a drink. More rehashing of old times in Montreal ensued, until I realized that I was about to fall asleep in my daquiri and begged off roomwards. Terry headed back to the Crowne Plaza and the Cupboard Under The Stairs (aka Programming Ops), and we slogged upstairs, Lyndon to sprawl on the bed and immediately fall asleep, and me to wearily process pictures and put them up on the net.

Much as I love Worldcon, I'm almost looking forward to going home tomorrow, just for the sleep.