Now that I have my luggage back…

NECON.

How does I even begin to talk about the blur that has been the last four or five days?

The trip started out with a hellishly early flight, and I was so bleary that I forgot my cell phone in the car at the airport. Not a biggie, but it would have been nice to have it with me just in case and it might have come in handy on the return trip, which I’ll get to eventually.

Layover in Philly, and I met up with Elizabeth Massie, Cortney Skinner and Barbara Lawson at the departure gate. Beth Massie is my own personal stalker (an inside joke, sorry) and half of the duo (along with her sister Barbara) known to NECONites as the NECON Whores. They tart themselves up for the talent show (or the roast) and sign witty parodies in beautiful harmonies. Beth has a new book coming out in a couple of months under the house name Chris Blaine, part of a ghost story series from Berkeley collectively known as the Abbadon Inn series. Cortney is an artist–he did the haunted inn’s floor plans and some other illustrations for the books’ frontpieces. The other two books that have been written in the series so far ar by Craig Shaw Gardner and Matt Costello, both NECON regulars, as is the series editor. I have a proposal in with the editor in case the series is continued.

Got to Providence mid afternoon, got the rental car and drove to Bristol and quickly met up with all manner of familiar and friendly faces. On Thursday evenings, we usually go out to dinner in town, but I ended up hanging around the campus until the 9 pm hot dog roast because groups formed that threatened to go to dinner, but then didn’t, or else I missed them when they left. My buddy Glenn Chadbourne (artist who did the CD cover art for The Road to the Dark Tower and the drawings for The Illustrated Stephen King Trivia Book had a bottle of tequila that I should have shunned, but didn’t. As a result, Friday got off to a very slow and painful start for me. It was 10 am before I could look food square in the eye.

Friday had a couple of panels and some activities. I screened Gotham Cafe in the afternoon. It was very well received. Having Peter Straub and David Morrell, not to mention many other authors who I respect, in the audience was a real trip. Peter got a kick out of the director’s name (Jack Sawyers, his real name!) and our use of “fushing feef” in the denouement. In the evening was the mass autograph session and Hawaiian t-shirt contest. I signed a bunch of books and magazines, more than ever before. Sold out all the available copies of Road, too. Closed out the evening watching a zombie movie that had sharks and naked chicks in it at the Rathskeller before returning to the quad.

More panels on Saturday, some of which were a lot of fun, as well as being informative. The softball game took place in the afternoon. Tom Monteleone’s record is unblemished — nary a win after all these years. My face, however, was blemished before the game when Kelly Laymon and I were playing catch and both simultaneously apparently forgot we were doing so and I caught the ball with my lip.

Saturday night — the famous game show and roast. Loads of fun. Hilarious as all get out. Chet Williamson’s dubious zombie country demo tape cracked me up. You had to be there — it’s impossible to explain.

My only panel session was on Sunday morning and, miracle of miracles, all the panelists showed up — on time — and we had a decent audience. Matt Schwartz moderated. We talked about collecting and reading and it seemed to go over well. I had to zoom to the airport immediately after the panel, which meant I didn’t have much time for goodbyes. Just as well — I’m not very good at them, and I’ll see everyone again for NECON XXVI!

Getting home was a little more arduous than I’d planned. It took me nearly 24 hours from the time I left Bristol to get to my house. Philly airport shut down several times during the afternoon and evening because of violent thunder storms and my flight to Houston was ultimately cancelled after being delayed about six times in half hour increments. At least three dozen flights had been canceled, so the lineup at the service counter was incredible. Only two US Air employees manned the counter (where were all the ticket agents?) so it took over an hour to get reassigned on a morning flight. Many people were surly — I was determined not to bark or complain at the poor employee like some other people did. Apparently that was a good strategy, as she comped my hotel room, dinner and breakfast, which was atypical I later discovered.

Up at 4:30 the next morning (the wake up call machine called me at 4 am — grrr) and on flights to Pittsburgh and Houston. I knew my luggage wouldn’t make it (if they didn’t have enough room for all the luggage, they had a choice between pissing off a new bunch of people or just pissing off the old batch of people a little more, so guess what happened?) and I was right. My bags finally got to Houston at 6pm last night and it took them until something like 2 am today to be delivered to the house. Who knew that they delivered things at that time of night/morning?

I could mention all manner of little NECON vignettes, amusing, funny tales that could only happen at this con, but if you’ve been to one, you know what I mean, and if you haven’t, they might seem trite. Suffice to say that I’m slowly recovering from excesses and deficits, and looking forward to the next NECON already.