So I’m at NorWesCon. I really missed this con last year.

My plan had been to pack Wednesday night so I could load the car and leave relatively early in the morning. But I was so tired when I got home from work that I had to take a nap. I slept for several hours, woke up with a nightmare (a really nasty one, too; I was frankly surprised that I hadn’t woken my husband, since it was the sort where I often start talking loudly in my sleep). So I got up and tried to write for a bit, then went back to sleep. And had another nightmare. Then woke up to hear my husband in the shower (he’s working Thursday and Friday and isn’t joining me at the con until Friday evening). I said goodbye to him as he left for work at his usual oh-god-o-clock in the morning, fell asleep, and had yet another nightmare.

All different nightmares, none of them anything to do with anything that I can think of. The important part is that while technically I was mostly asleep for a total of about 13 hours, I didn’t really feel fully rested. So I hadn’t packed and I wasn’t at my best, mentally.

Then I had a weird problem with backing trying to back up the laptop before I left. The upshot was, I didn’t leave the house to head to the convention until almost noon. Still, I got to the con hotel while there were still parking spots available. I managed to get one very close to the wing where my room turned out to be totally by luck.

I found Kehf fairly quickly, got the room keys squared away, then went to get in line to pick up my badge and only when I got up to the cashier did I learn of the new-ish (since I haven’t been here for two years) policy about bringing your signed statement with a bar code, so I had to go get in another line to get that printed out, then get back in the original line. And I wouldn’t have been grousing when I got to the second line if I hadn’t gotten to witness a con staffer essentially yelling at another attendee for the horrible sin of having not seen the email telling them to bring the signed statement.

Having been a con staff member at several different-sized conventions, who once unloaded on a particularly bothersome attendee, I know that I live in a glass house–and therefore should not hurl stones. (In my defense, that incident happened when I came down very sick at the con, and it turned out I was running around doing my programming director job while running a 104º fever, but it still means I was less than professional while being staff, so I get it.)

Anyway, Matt and Sheryl commiserated in line with me, and invited me to meet them for some lunch when I got out of line. I think my grousing was at least as much due to a less-than perfect blood sugar situation as anything.

We ate, then went off to panels. Sheryl and I had picked the same panel at 5, while Matt and I had picked the same one at 6. One was on “Any Tool Can Be a Weapon” which was a good discussion. The other was a writing panel, specifically ways to figure out your own methods to be productive. Also a good panel.

I had accidentally said yes to two different people for dinner (I thought I was agreeing to Friday night in one). I wound up hanging in the bar with Keith, Juli sans-e, and Mark. We saw Edd and waved him over, then saw Kehf and Auntie and waved them over. I also got to visit with Julie avec-e and Mike. Amy dropped over for a bit and introduced me to “Adult Wednesday Addams” and how did I not know about this before!

After we had hung out for a while, I went back to the room intending to get some writing done, but mostly wound up catching up on social media and taking care of some of the Camp NaNoWriMo prep. Speaking of which, if you have a creative project that you would like to work on in April, you should look into Camp NaNoWriMo. It’s a little bit more low key than National Novel Writing Month. Unless you want it to be a competition. In which case, we can do that, too.

Friday was mostly about running to panels, though I did wander the dealer’s den with Mark. I picked up some cool sonic screwdriver earrings and also found birthday presents for two friends. Woo!

Most of the panels I went to during the day were writing related. I still think the most interesting new thing I learned was at the weapons panel Thursday afternoon. But I got useful and intriguing stuff at all of Friday’s panels, too.

My husband took the train from Seattle after he got off work Friday, so I feel a bit less disjointed. It is weird; we’ve only spent a few minutes alone at the con, but knowing he’s here at the hotel with me makes me feel less incomplete. It is weird being one of two introverts (who are learned extroverts) in a relationship. There’s probably several blog posts in there, now that I think about it.

The upshot is, I am really glad to be back at NorWesCon after skipping a few years. And there are still two days of awesomeness to go!