Lani Diane Rich arrived Friday night and I’d love to tell you we did sophisticated, publisher author stuff, but I’d walked all over NYC all day, and she’d been doing the editor/agent thing, so we just vegged at the apartment. The highlight of the evening was when we googled for the Ugliest Dog Contest and then laughed ourselves into hysterics at the dogs, all of whom had proud loving owners so we weren’t being cruel. Sam, of course, is the ugliest dog of all time, a three-time winner of the event, and once you see him you really wonder how any other dog could have beaten him, but we did develop a special fondness for another dog, a little lady in pearls and a tiara:
I’d post Sam’s picture, but he was scary. Sweet but scary. We were devastated to learn he’d died at fourteen, which was pretty good considering the problems Sam’s DNA probably had. His obit is here including a video. Be afraid.
Then Alesia Holliday ducked out of the PASIC conference and came to spend the afternoon and evening, and we bought enough chocolate for thirty and once again let down the glamour of the published author by eating ourselves sick on candy and laughing way too loud. I’d write more about that, but I think Lani has it covered. At least there were several times tonight when she said, “That’s goin’ on the blog.” I believe she’s calling her entry, “That’s Goin’ On The Blog, Bitch,” but I’m not sure. We sort of lost our grip early on. And the real problem with that is that the stuff we found hysterical wouldn’t be if I tried to reproduce it. Giddiness so rarely translates well. Unlike Sam, who was ugly but lovable in any language.
Tomorrow I’m all alone with leftover pizza and leftover Chinese and Agnes, since I have the galleys of Agnes and the Hitman here. I’m trying to think of what I’ve accomplished this week, and it’s been pretty much consuming large amounts of food and walking a lot but not enough to counteract the large amounts of food. And laughing. The laughing is key.
But now I need to get back to work. Galleys, short stories about getting rid of bodies, papers about community, you all have done the research, now I have to write the damn things. The party’s over.
I really am sad about Sam. We will not see his like again.