Monday morning after a con is a surreal experience. You drift through empty halls and past quiet coffee kiosks, where just the day before were thronged crowds in colorful costumes and lines of tired people bedecked with ribboned badges stretching around corners and into said hall. The memory of a hundred voices amplifies the silence, and the walls retreat, revealing expanses of never-before-seen carpet revealed by the removal of fan tables and infodesks.
Today it is the Monday after Norwescon, and I am lingering over a last breakfast in the room at the Doubtletree SeaTac hotel which I have lived out of for the last week. I just saw WoMo off on the hotel shuttle, but as I am driving back to Bend my schedule is flexible. I will go, and soon (everything is packed) but in this quiet darkness I want to take a moment and commit to words the memories of what happened here, when when the halls were bright and noisy and more often than not pierced by running children.
This is the forty-second Norwescon ever held, but the first one which I attended. I was pleased to find it just as well run in person as the email correspondences I had with various staff in the previous six months suggested it to be (you can never tell with cons). The venue was marvelous: a low, multi-winged affair where the buildings were cut with flowering rhododendron and evergreens, and in one place by a swimming pool (with hot tub!) There was a sign on the pool deck warning visitors that there was no lifeguard on duty, which I had to refer to as a reminder for myself several times.
(Aside: at the Mermaid panel, children running on the pool deck, I automatically barked “Walk, please!” and from behind me another practiced voice, “Yes, walking feet!” We turned to each other, embarrassed but amused. “I haven’t been certified in years,” my support said. “It never goes away.”)
For being in SeaTac’s shadow, the Seattle Airport Doubletree is surprisingly quiet, and there was one good Thai restaurant across the busy arterial street, which provided a welcome relief from the confines of the hotel. (That is Mango Thai, for those planning next year.) Other than that, we mostly stayed on site, though we did venture up into Seattle proper to attend a kettlebells class at FUELhouse gym. WoMo has been taking kettlebell classes for over a year, and teaching me bits and pieces to practice at home (with the increasing number of kettlebells she keeps giving me) along the way, but this was her first time with a different instructor, and my first time with any certified instructor at all. I don’t know how many of my readers are interested in kettlebells or practice themselves but I highly recommend them. Once you get over the trepidation of swinging heavy weights around (sometimes over your head!) they are great fun. Especially the over-the-head part. If you’re in the Seattle area, FUELhouse would be a good place to start.
(Small aside: after our session at FUELhouse, WoMo and I went and got lunch at Hurry Curry Seattle, where I got to meet Yoshi Yoshitani’s brother and pointed out her art on the wall to WoMo. Later on, in the dealer’s room at Norwescon, I found a copy of New Suns for which she did the cover art. I think this would amuse her.)
At the con I was most visible through my panel in the Art Show, which was one of the best run I have ever had the pleasure to participate in. They used a bar code + scanning system that made checking in and out much better, and all the staff were well-trained and helpful. It was a pleasant change, once my art was hung, to be free to wander the convention as a regular attendee, going to panels or loitering in the common areas as I pleased.
Highlights from the latter: GoH Tran Nguyen‘s presentation and her interview (conducted by the irreplicatable Lee Moyer). Tran is an awesome artist and utterly charming and I suggest anyone in need of a pick-me-up invest a couple hours looking through her Instagram. I also had a lot of fun in the Life Drawing workshop (including living models!) though I kept getting cold. I could only weep (internally, my tear ducts were frozen) for the nearly-nude models). But I got some cool sketches out of it, and gave the best of them to the models as a thank you, so there’s that at least.
Norwescon had several military themed panels and workshops, and even though I had to duck out of the long-term first aid workshop early, I liked what I did see. The military tactics workshop was understandably chaotic, so I sat in the back as an observer and worked on a personal project in my sketchbook. It reminded me of a very large lifeguard training session but less wet. I enjoyed it very much. I also enjoyed the fanfiction panel I got to attend, and Jessica Blair’s presentation on licensing (TL;DR: GET A LAWYER).
Mostly, though, I enjoyed the quiet spaces between events: getting to draw in friends’ programs and a very magnificent sketchbook. Also hot tubbing after dinner was a real treat. It was wonderful to reconnect with old friends without being stuck behind a dealer’s table, and to have some precious time each morning to work on edits with WoMo. We are a little closer to publishing Lucena now, and that is good.
It is getting light outside. From my room’s balcony I can see across to where Registration was set up for the better part of the weekend. Today it is clean and quiet, full of empty space. It is time to go home.
Once I get there I need to start prepping for BLFC next month, where I will be back behind my table (which I’ll be sharing with Mary Capaldi), for which I will need to order more prints and books and probably other things I am forgetting at the moment. Lots to do and a long way to drive.
It’s the Monday after Norwescon. Let’s go.
