Wiscon rocks the most.

Friday morning, early early out of bed, take BART to SFO for the first time (not bad at all, actually, and somewhat restful), no problems w/ airport security, didn't move the whole flight, watched Mona Lisa Smile (appropriately feminist, doncha know) on the laptop (yay new laptop!), bought food on plane, doled out fruit snacks to Tim when he needed them. La.

Of course, then our plane sat on the tarmac for too long at Chicago O'Hare, forcing Tim and I to run across the airport once we finally got off the plane. As we ran from one terminal to another, I had a moment of pure joy as I managed to keep up a steady jogging pace and not get so winded I hurt or anything. We actually made it on our plane (which had already been boarding when we got off the other), with time to spare. Yay!

I'll skip the details of that flight, though, as we had the stinkiest seats I've ever had on an airplane; it was like being in the back of a Greyhound bus after hours and hours on the road, if you get what I'm saying.

Anyway, on to the fun stuff!

Let's see, Friday we got in late enough that we ended up eating dinner alone together (one of the lovely things about being a writing couple is that we never eat alone alone).

(Ok, this is where this entry became hopelessly stalled as I tried to sort things out chronologically. Forgive me, but I'm going to switch into the popular "highlights of the con" form for the rest of the entry.)

Ahem. So, yes, some high points of Wiscon this year:

Getting down on my hands and knees and doing diamond push-ups with SarahP the first night of the con & having Jenn be impressed that I could manage them.

Noticing an attractive young couple, checking out their nametags and realizing I was looking at Jason Erik Lundberg and his lovely wife Janet Chui.

Jenn and Greg telling me pretty much the whole con how good I looked. Hard not to love that :-)

Speaking of Greg: his reluctance to make a fool of himself at karaoke followed by his utter willingness to imitate any appliance Jenn, SarahP or I could throw at him. I haven't laughed that hard in years.

Karaoke! Setting up the Flytrap/ Ratbastard's party and testing out the machine with Kristin, Lena, Haddyr -- how we all sang along, almost despite ourselves. How good we all sounded together.

Karaoke! Ben Rosenbaum's complete confidence as he sang "I will survive" while doing a Mick Jaggar-esque strut, followed later on with 99 Luftballoons sung entirely in German. Very cool.

Karaoke! Singing "Love Shack" with Barzak despite several people remarking in hushed tones, "Oh, I'm surprised he's willing to sing that song again after the Love Shack incident!." I think we did a great job, personally, and it was tons of fun!

After Karaoke: dancing! Dancing dancing dancing like I haven't danced since I was in my early twenties (or at least not since Burning Man 1999) because I'm in better shape AND have been doing my squats so I could easily do the "slither down in front of your partner's body while shimmying your shoulders, then back up again" dirty-dancing move over and over again. Also, being willing for the first time to participate in Barzak's "sexy crawl" contest, even though by that point I was mostly sober.

Waking up to the zen-like chiming of my new cell phone the next morning. Listening to my voice mail message and realizing that having a cell phone means you're less likely to lose track of your friends at cons.

Going to the gym with Ben Rosenbaum and being almost convinced that rugby might be a fun sport to try sometime. Apparently, it's all about getting to hit other people! ;-D

Dinner with a bunch of cool people (pretty much the only time Tim and I ate with other people the whole con, except for a quick brekkie Monday) Saturday night. Being willing to ditch our group Sunday night when they wanted something other than the Nepalese place we had our hearts set on.

Having once again a fabulous group of people at our dessert table.

Ending up in a small-room party with very cool people and being able to have deeper conversations without the usual con interruptions.

Getting to spend time with my extended writing family. Reveling in how cool, sweet, talented, intelligent, energetic and, well, damn foxy all of them are. Getting hugs. Getting charged up to work on my novel again.

Looking forward to seeing everyone again, hopefully sooner rather than later!