Let the science begin

That was the week that was Readercon.

It was also the week I edited four months of slush for Strange Horizons in three days, but mostly, from the board's decision a week ago Friday through Saturday's nearly six-hour debrief to the concom's statement going live yesterday afternoon, it was Readercon. It was not an easy week. Nothing about the process was straightforward or without the kind of emotions that I believe are traditionally described, like tides, as running high, and rosefox and chaiya especially are heroes of the revolution for holding everyone together without silencing or skimming over any of the very real difficulties of apologizing for a profound breach of trust without either compounding the hurt or simply passing it off onto someone else. I am very pleased with the results. If you want me to do anything bureaucratic in the immediate future, I'm afraid you're going to have to wait.

I did not watch the landing of Curiosity on Mars last night because my computer's ability to livestream is not as finely tuned as NASA's ability to place a robot on another planet, but I did manage to get the flash working just in time to see a roomful of overjoyed engineers and scientists burst into applause, all cheering and hugging and saying things like "It leads to more questions. That's always the way of science, but it leads to ever more interesting questions" and "Let the science begin, right?" ("Let the science begin!") It was one of the nicest things I'd seen in weeks and that includes Emperor Norton's Stationary Marching Band at Johnny D's on Friday night. I have their newest CD and a T-shirt now; the latter shows a mass of tentacles erupting from a horn, although the logo is positioned sufficiently far down the shirt that if you tuck it in, mostly what you can see are tentacles erupting from your pants. I can live with that.

Today is my brother's birthday: I am unrelatedly shopping with derspatchel and ratatosk this afternoon and then meeting my family in the evening for dinner at Chez Henri. I believe there is also some strawberry shortcake involved in this plan. There is bright sun outside; it is neither sticky nor too soon autumn. I am all right.