Sometimes it's better when you're saying the wrong thing

[sovay]

I am home from Arisia. I'll lobby-con tomorrow if I have the energy, but I am done with my programming. All of it was fun and as far as I can tell it all went well, although I especially enjoyed the memorial for Le Guin, the Yiddish singing, and the Tolkien. I wound up reading new fiction mixed with selections from a borrowed e-book of Forget the Sleepless Shores, since I had sold all the print copies I'd brought with me. The Boston Park Plaza has its problems as a con hotel, but I must say I enjoyed being able to walk two blocks and find restaurants instead of wasteland. The hanging out with ashnistrike, choco_frosh, nineweaving, awhyzip, and some people not on Dreamwidth was very good.

Against all my expectations, my first-generation Sacagawea gold dollar coin has returned to me. It was in the outer back pocket of my computer bag where I don't keep anything. I think it must have slipped out of my coat pocket and into the computer bag. I found it when I was looking for last-ditch cough drops. There it was, brass-gold and a little tarnished, with the familiar face glancing over her shoulder, from 2000. I am keeping it now in an inside pocket of my leather jacket which snaps shut. I don't think I can count on being so lucky again.

As if it was charmed by sympathy out of the overcast, the lunar eclipse is just still visible from our front windows, an ice-white brilliant circle with a distinct dark bite. I have been asking the cats which one of them is eating the moon. spatch says it'll be the one that bleps light.

ETA: Despina Durand reviewed Dreams from the Witch House: Female Voices of Lovecraftian Horror (2016) and she says wonderful things about "All Our Salt-Bottled Hearts":

Sonya Taaffe is easily one of the best contemporary writers of Weird fiction. Her work is often heavy with history—not "heavy," as in cumbersome or excessively dense, but "heavy" in the way anything worth holding sits in the hand.

All that and a blood moon and a talisman returned. I am happy.

Comments

[asakiyume]

Enjoying watching the eclipse with spatch too, via Twitter! The healing angel keeps poking her head out, and periodically I do too. It's right out our side door (which we use as our main door).

What fabulous good luck about the gold dollar coin! I am *so happy* to hear it.

And I hear you about being able to walk to things (Arisia hotel).

[sovay]

It's right out our side door (which we use as our main door).

I love the idea of the eclipse right outside your door, as if it's trying to come in, or just hanging out. It's almost all smoky now.

What fabulous good luck about the gold dollar coin! I am *so happy* to hear it.

Thank you! I was astonished to find it. I kept checking as I went about my day, just in case it vanished again. It hasn't yet.

And I found a wonderful review of one of my stories! I added it to the post because it was like garnish on the night.

[yhlee]

Yay for your dollar coin! And I'm glad you've been having a good time at the con. :D

[sovay]

Yay for your dollar coin! And I'm glad you've been having a good time at the con.

Thank you! I was really not sure about this weekend based on how I went into it, but it's honestly been wonderful.

[gwynnega]

Yay review and talisman! I am so glad your coin returned.

[sovay]

Yay review and talisman! I am so glad your coin returned.

Thank you! I looked everywhere in the house and didn't find it, and this morning at the Arisia hotel, there it was.

[sara]

HAH, that is wonderful about your coin. Also the professional life good things and the singing and so forth too, but!

Too cloudy for the moon here but going out to check did remind me to put the wheely bin across the street so there's that.

[sovay]

HAH, that is wonderful about your coin. Also the professional life good things and the singing and so forth too, but!

Thank you! It made me so happy.

Too cloudy for the moon here but going out to check did remind me to put the wheely bin across the street so there's that.

I went out at totality and stood on the frozen slush of the sidewalk and looked up and there between the telephone wires was a copper-flooded moon. It makes me happy, too.

[ckd]

Looking in my bag earlier this weekend, I found that I had two of the 2000 mint dollars left there from a roll I bought back then. I'm glad your particular coin has returned, but will hang on to these (also fairly well-traveled having been to London, Dublin, Munich, and Helsinki just within the past four years) in case you want or need spares. (I'll be at Boskone.)

[sovay]

I'm glad your particular coin has returned, but will hang on to these (also fairly well-traveled having been to London, Dublin, Munich, and Helsinki just within the past four years) in case you want or need spares.

Thank you. That is a kind thought.

[lemon_badgeress]

i’m so glad you’re happy tonight, and those are all wonderful happy things

[sovay]

i’m so glad you’re happy tonight, and those are all wonderful happy things

Thank you.

[ethelmay]

The coin was only temporarily eclipsed!

[sovay]

The coin was only temporarily eclipsed!

It does feel like sympathetic magic.

[selidor]

Some days it really seems a sympathetic universe. I am glad for the return of the coin!

(I have a pebble from my godmother's favourite beach which makes its home in an inside jacket zip-pocket. Small reminders, but significant.)

[sovay]

Some days it really seems a sympathetic universe. I am glad for the return of the coin!

Thank you! It was truly unexpected.

(I have a pebble from my godmother's favourite beach which makes its home in an inside jacket zip-pocket. Small reminders, but significant.)

That's lovely.

[shewhomust]

I'm glad that your coin turned up - better than a cough drop (though cough drops are good, too!).

[sovay]

I'm glad that your coin turned up - better than a cough drop (though cough drops are good, too!).

Thank you! (I suppose I could have put the coin in my mouth, but I don't want to.)

[strange_complex]

my first-generation Sacagawea gold dollar coin has returned to me.

Oh, this is brilliant news! I'm so happy for you. May you never be parted again.

I'm really glad to hear you enjoyed the con, and got great feedback on your book both there and in the review you've linked.

It was all too obvious when I went to bed that no-one in my part of the UK would be seeing the lunar eclipse due to cloud cover, so I slept blissfully through it and that was fine.

[ashlyme]

I was awake till about two am, but mist cut off the sky.

[a_reasonable_man]

A lovely review! And I'm glad your Arisia went well.

I had a feeling your dollar would turn up. Blame your good fortune on that old Super Blood Wolf Moon.

[sovay]

A lovely review! And I'm glad your Arisia went well.

Thank you!

I had a feeling your dollar would turn up. Blame your good fortune on that old Super Blood Wolf Moon.

I respect your meteorological certainty.

[alatefeline]

:)

[sovay]

:)

*hugs*

[thisbluespirit]

Oh, I'm very glad to hear that the coin turned back up again! And congrats on both the con and the lovely review. <3

[sovay]

Oh, I'm very glad to hear that the coin turned back up again! And congrats on both the con and the lovely review.

Thank you! It was a great concatenation of things.

[thawrecka]

I'm glad you had a good time!

[sovay]

I'm glad you had a good time!

Thank you!

[selkie]

*yawn schmack schmack ork* Oh, what's that? You've sold all the books again? Because everyone wants a copy when they see it?

*resumes unsurprised sleep*

I am SO GLAD YOUR TALISMAN CAME BACK.

[sovay]

Oh, what's that? You've sold all the books again? Because everyone wants a copy when they see it?

Look, it still surprises me! I am working on aligning my self-image with objective reality! I have a deadline!

I am SO GLAD YOUR TALISMAN CAME BACK.

ME TOO.

*hugs*

[dhampyresa]

HURRAY

[sovay]

HURRAY

Thank you!

Arisia

[dramaticirony]

>All of it was fun and as far as I can tell it all went well

You are always a great panelist. You are able to, on the fly, spin out a well told essay examining the theme of homecoming in the Odyssey, including a neat summary of the relevant plot, then moving to examine how same theme is handled in Return of the King, and then loop back to Tolkien's biography. I'm sorry I missed your other panels. (And glad to hear coin found it's way back to you, moving through the world like a benign version of the One Ring.)

Congratulations on selling all the print copies you brought!

The Park Plaza seems awkward when it comes to panels, though I liked the way the second level tied together much of the rest of the convention into more of a community, with the art, performances, dancing, gaming room, and fan tables all gathered together, as opposed to being disparate hubs at the Westin. The gaming room certainly room certain ended up being far more active. Registration on the other hand, ugh!

Re: Arisia

[sovay]

You are always a great panelist. You are able to, on the fly, spin out a well told essay examining the theme of homecoming in the Odyssey, including a neat summary of the relevant plot, then moving to examine how same theme is handled in Return of the King, and then loop back to Tolkien's biography. I'm sorry I missed your other panels.

Thank you so much! It was an especially fun panel. I hope yours—including the one you were moderating—treated you as well!

(And glad to hear coin found it's way back to you, moving through the world like a benign version of the One Ring.)

That is a very nice way to think of it.

Congratulations on selling all the print copies you brought!

Thank you! I had somehow underestimated what saying "My books aren't in the dealer's room, but I have some with me . . ." would do to a room.

Registration on the other hand, ugh!

Registration was a zoo. There was also an entire wing of rooms whose location I never successfully memorized; I always figured out where they had to be by where they obviously weren't. But I really liked being able to come aboveground from the T and walk half a block and be at the hotel and the thing with the restaurants was in my experience of Boston-area conventions unparalleled. I actually ate meals this Arisia. That not quite jokingly almost never happens.

[umadoshi]

I'm so glad your coin reappeared! *^^*

And that review is wonderful. Hooray!

[sovay]

Hooray!

On both counts, thank you!

[lokifan]

Wow! How kind of the coin.

[sovay]

Wow! How kind of the coin.

I really was not expecting it. It improved the day at once.

[drwex]

Sorry I didn't see you; this was an exceptionally busy Con for me.

[sovay]

Sorry I didn't see you; this was an exceptionally busy Con for me.

I had a wonderful time. Thank you for your part in making it safe, fun, and even possible.

[lokifan]

Wow! How kind of the coin. And congrats on that review!!!

I so know what you mean about Arisia. I'll take Nine Worlds, in a has-its-problems hotel in a bit of west London with actual restaurants and shops, over Eastercon's use of a Heathrow hotel with nothing but its own vastly overpriced food and a McDonald's, any day.

[sovay]

And congrats on that review!!!

Thank you!

I'll take Nine Worlds, in a has-its-problems hotel in a bit of west London with actual restaurants and shops, over Eastercon's use of a Heathrow hotel with nothing but its own vastly overpriced food and a McDonald's, any day.

Oh, God, overpriced hotel food. Amen!

[rinue]

You sellout. (In the good way. Congratulations on selling out!)

[sovay]

You sellout. (In the good way. Congratulations on selling out!)

Thank you!

[alchimie]

I am delighted your coin returned to you!

[sovay]

I am delighted your coin returned to you!

Thank you!