Leeane, from Project Runway, has an Etsy account.

FABULOUS!!!!!!

How fabulous is this tote bag?

I just bought it on Etsy. The side panels come from an Earth, Wind and Fire album. I love it!

Dragon*con Report, Part 2

First, the dark fantasy panels. Here are my impressions of selected authors who sat on one or more panels that I attended:

Laurell K. Hamilton
I don't want to offend anyone who really likes LKH, but she came off as a shrill, preening, self-aggrandizing harpy in the panel I attended. She has a huge chip on her shoulder and can't handle criticism. She seemed to really resent the readers who bought her Anita Blake books and then expressed their dissatisfaction with the later books in the series and the sex-saturated direction the series has taken. But LKH still cashed their checks, dontcha know. ;-)

Rachel Caine
RC was delightful. I saw her on at least three different panels, and she was funny and approachable and had a much better perspective on her work than LKH. She was very insightful about the genre, as a whole, and trends in bookselling. I also learned that Rachel Caine is a pen name, which I had not realized before. She recently contributed a story to an anthology called "Ripple Effect", and all the proceeds from the sale of the book go to the New Orleans public library system.

Selina Rosen
I've never read SR before, but let me tell you something. She's hilarious. Vulgar beyond my ability to share in polite society, but absolutely hilarious. She was on the same panel as LKH, and she provided comic relief and a little respite from LKH's endless polemic on people who have the temerity to read her books, but lack the judgment to adore her unconditionally.

As you can tell, I took a real dislike to LKH.

Suzy McKee Charnas
I've not read SMC before, but I have now ordered "The Vampire Tapestry", based just on hearing her speak at two of the dark fantasy panels. She's very intelligent and experienced in the genre, and it shows. "The Vampire Tapestry" has been re-issued in a new printing, and she is apparently going to write or has already written a sequel.

Elizabeth Donald
ED is a new author for me. I went to her reading, just to check her out, and I liked the excerpt that she read so much that I bought her newest book, "Abaddon" at the reading and had her autograph it. I have also ordered her two previous books, which are in a single volume called "Nocturne". She writes paranormal romance, primarily, and some horror. She also participated in the ghost fiction panel, which was very interesting.

Moving on to general sci fi...
I attended readings by Mike Resnick and Eric Flint. MR actually read three of his short stories (he gave me an autographed copy of the one called "The Boy Who Cried Dragon"). EF didn't do a reading, but he answered questions for over an hour.

MR and EF also appeared on the panel Politics in Sci Fi with the infamous John Ringo. JR is somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun, gets a hard-on at the thought of heavy armaments, and is competely incapable of either moderation or diplomacy. Fortunately, he's funny. Otherwise, he'd be completely unbearable.

JR also appeared on the panel Women at War with several women writers of sci fi. However, I knew the panel was doomed, doomed, doomed, when they chose JR to be moderator. As my friend Vickie noted, more than once, "John Ringo is a session-killer". And he did it to this one, too. Before it was over, we had left the topic of women at war far, far behind, and JR was standing up in front of the dry erase board and diagramming the tactics of the Mongol heavy cavalry, just because he thought it was cool. The two women vets sitting next to me in the audience were not amused.

That said, one of the funniest thing that happened at the con happened at this panel. JR is a marginal sexist, in the way that only those who passionately romanticize the military can be, and he said something really questionable about women soldiers. I don't remember exactly what it was, but the audience ooooh'd, and someone called out, "Is anyone wearing the shirt?" At that point, two different guys stood up, one wearing a red T-shirt, and one wearing a blue T-shirt (and a leather kilt in which he looked verra hot). Both shirts said, in white lettering, "Oh, John Ringo. No."

It was hilarious. :-D

Dragon*con Report, Part 1

I had a blast. Except for the panel with Laurell K. Hamilton. But more on that later.

Lately, I've been really pleased with my breasts. A combination of putting on a few pounds (increased breast size being the only advantage to weight gain) and buying some fabulous new bras. Well, there's nothing quite like the Cavalcade of Cleavage at Dragon*con to give someone with perfectly respectable C-cups feelings of severe boobage inadequacy. Holy moly, Batman. It was like chubby girl cleavage on steroids, everywhere you looked. And you had to look. It was expected. Hell, it was practically required. Otherwise, said chubby girls would not have worn painfully tight corsets and/or strategically placed duct tape, over which their breast flesh rose and flowed like flood waters in the Delta.

It was both horrifying and strangely fascinating.

I met one of my flist while I was at the Marriott. Somehow, she recognized me and came up to say hello, at which point I emitted the piercing Southern Woman Squeal of Recognition. People dressed as furries all over the hotel turned and yipped when they heard it. ;-) Anyway, I met her husband, and we had a nice, quick visit, before I headed off to the Dealer's Room. Or, as I prefer to call it, the Land That Traffic Flow Planning Forgot. It was bad. Really bad. But I survived. And I shopped.

One of the most fun things I attended was the Evil Genuises for a Better Tomorrow Annual Recruiting Drive and Bake Sale. There were three actual scientists who took the role of evil geniuses and who each described his plan for world domination. Then they all took questions from the aspiring evil geniuses in the audience, while their minions made ice cream with liquid nitrogen. Chocolate. It was pretty good, too.

They also gave out awards for best publication (an on-line comic), best musical act (a steampunk band), and, finally, the best application for membership in the ranks of evil geniuses everywhere. This year, Dictator Barbie was the winner. :-)

Next up, panels and the vaunting egotists who attend them.

Pooh.

"My Fair Zombie" is not going to happen this year. Two of my zombies can't get their costumes done in time, and the banner was never ordered by the person who was assigned to get it. Sigh. I am very disappointed. :-(

I'm going to try to come up with a clever headdress like I did for Dragon*con last year, but I may not have time. I ordered a solar system mobile from amazon.com, but I didn't order it until today, and so it may not arrive in time, even though I paid a ridiculous expedited shipping price. If it arrives in time, I'm going to attach it to a hat and put a little sign on Pluto that says, "Will orbit for food".

Since I have ended up with so much zombie make-up on hand, I've been rethinking my Halloween costume. I think I'll come to the office Halloween party as a Republican zombie. In fact, I might try to coop some coworkers into doing a group "Zombies for McCain" costume. I'm trying to think up with a clever campaign slogan for a sign. You know, something like "A braaaain in every pot" or "Leave no braaaains behind" or "Building a braaaain to the future".

What? Surely you had figured out that I'm a yellow dog Democrat by now? ;-)

Scotland, Part 4

On our last day on Iona, I finally found one of those "thin places" that Matthew kept talking about. I walked up to the North Beach, where the monks of St. Columba's abbey were slaughtered by Viking raiders (not an uncommon occurrence, apparently), and it was the most beautiful place you can imagine. The beach is a combination of white sand, pebbles, and huge striated mounds of granite--red, green, and blue-gray. If the boulders had had a weft, they would have looked plaid. ;-) The water in the bay is crystal clear, so the white sand bottom makes the water look aqua, dotted with dark mounds of granite. Stunning. Just stunning. There was a beautiful multi-tiered tidal pool in one of the granite mounds on the shore, and I climbed up to the top of that mound and just sat for an hour or so, looking out over the surf.

And that's when I found the thin place between the temporal and the spiritual.

I'm glad it happened before I left. I had really been struggling to find the vaunted spirituality for which Iona is famous, and I was afraid that our time on Cumbrae would be the only real spiritual highlight, but this was a good day. Not only did I find the thin place, but, despite my meltdown on the stairs, Staffa turned out to be a wonderful experience. We reaffirmed our baptismal vows on top of the island and sang songs to the rest of the boat's passengers on the way back to Iona (whether they wanted to hear us or not), including the Navy hymn, "Eternal Father Strong to Save", because it started raining, and the sea became a little rough. I thought the lyric was appropriate:

Hear us when we cry to thee
For those in peril on the sea.

I did such a good job on my packing (I brought old clothes to throw away) that I was able to pack all my new clothes (except my fleece jacket and boiled wool hat, which I was wearing) and my souvenirs in my two little round vintage American Tourister suitcases and a burlap tote bag that I picked up in Inverary. I am traveler; hear me roar! :-D Which leads me to my only nitpick about this trip...suitcases. I have a theory of traveling. If you can't handle your own suitcase--up hills, on stairs, whatever--then your suitcase is too dang big, and you need to get rid of some stuff and pack a smaller suitcase. Now, for the the elderly, of which we have a few (or Carol, who broke her foot on this trip), I make an exception, but if you're middle-aged or younger and healthy, then you should be able to carry you own suitcase and not expect the men of the group to do it for you. Yes, I'm talking about the women on the trip, who brought giant suitcases full of stuff they really didn't need and expected to have help managing their own luggage.

Other than that, it was an unequivocally marvelous experience. :-) Next year, Canterbury and walking the Pilgrim Pathway!

Because it's only fair to give Team USA equal time...

Opening ceremonies:


Closing ceremonies:


If you didn't know it was Ralph Lauren, you'd still know it was Ralph Lauren. ;-)