My home away from home: Cosine dealers room
Cosine has turned out to be a nice little convention: Attendance of 160, not bad for a first convention (bigger than Amigocon I, and larger than a typical first SCA event, said one dealer to me). Not too large to overwhelm the select coterie of authors who attended, some of whom had been away from the con circuit for a while. Programming aside, John Stith and Sasha Miller accumulated a circle of chatters at one point in the large foyer outside the dealers room and meeting room for a lengthy informal conversation; just the use to which you hope fans will put those wide open hotel spaces. I lured a co-worker into not only attending but taking over the gaming at the last minute. Dealers begrudgingly admit they might make back their costs (I, of course, will make enough to survive until my next paycheck).On a happy personal note, I went digging through the boxes in the back bedroom and found my two boxes' worth of missing books. I was so certain that my McCaffrey and Zelazny books must be in the boxes I had been looking through that I had a distinct memory of not only seeing them when I sorted and boxed my books at home, but of unboxing them at the convention. When I didn't see them on my table it was driving me nuts. The mind plays strange tricks.
Meanwhile, life goes on in the wide world outside fandom. I was chatting with a Dutch friend who had three hours' sleep in the last two days, as she was watching speed skating from Japan. A Dutch man and woman won the world championships, leading, I suppose, to much rioting in the canals. She told me it was the first time a Dutch woman had won the championship, and only the second time for a Dutch man.
"Typical," I said. "The man finished twice before the woman even finished once."
