The answers.

For once yesterday's survey had an objectively correct answer to one of the questions. What I will not be doing in the next fortnight: reading a biography of Marshal Mannerheim. I don't have one. If you can find one for me, more power to you, but in the meantime, no such critter is available.

Tonight will be looking at Costa Rican puppets and eating a basket made of cheese: the Science Museum is having Vault Night for its supporters, so lydy and I are going to look at masks, puppets, pottery, and textiles from Costa Rica and Mexico. Then we will go to Pazzaluna. It is just barely conceivable that I will not order the entree that comes in a basket made of cheese -- but only just barely. Basket! Of! Cheeeeese! What more incentive does one need?

Tomorrow my friend Curt is bringing his wee daughter Hannah, age 2, over for breakfast. If it is nice we will go to the park. I expect the bop to be beside herself with joy even if we don't make it to the park with Hannah: she really, really likes little monkeys.

Saturday is "Cymbeline," which I have never seen before. Sunday I am -- to the surprise of many of you, apparently -- taking Robin to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. People talk about how having kids changes your life, and apparently other people having kids changes your life, too, because the first thing I thought when I saw that preview was, "I could take Robin to that, and he would be so happy." So we're going. He will most likely explain it all to me again in the car on the way home, and while I do not anticipate having difficulty following the plot, I will be glad to hear the excited Robin explanations. Also on Sunday, I will be listening to Richard Shindell, who has a song called "Fenario," in concert. Trotskyism was just a red herring: I didn't mean skzbrust, as he will not (I hear) be coming to Minicon and I will not be going to Racine, Las Vegas, or any other location containing skzbrust in the next fortnight, to the best of my knowledge.

Wednesday is the professional sporting event, a Twins game with my parents and timprov. Dad wanted to go to one last year and never had the timing come out just right, so we were determined to make it early this year.

Thursday is Maundy Thursday services with the family, and I will also be going to Easter Sunday church with markgritter. That makes multiple Christian religious services. (Maundy Thursday is my favorite holiday of the church year.) And Friday is the beginning of Minicon, where I will be doing panels, a reading, and generally hanging doing con stuff out with some of you nice people and some other congenial folks. Yay Minicon!

While I may wish that I didn't have to sleep or worry, I'm afraid those are not particularly optional for me, especially on the scale of a fortnight. The worrying is directly tied to the reading, among other things: before a reading I always become convinced that everything is the wrong thing and no one will come and they will all stare at me blankly, and I will read the funny bits and no one will laugh. This has not yet happened, but I worry anyway. (Luckily, the funny bits are often fairly deadpan, so if nobody laughs I can pretend they weren't meant to and go on, only dying a little inside, wailie woe.)

All of you correctly guessed that I would be baking and hanging out with my grandparents, and all but one of you figured I wouldn't be able to keep myself from writing space opera for a whole fortnight. Well done.

If it looks like there are gaps in that schedule, this is an illusion: there are things that did not make it onto the quiz because I ran out of quiz options, but they're still on the schedule. Wheee.

It's a good thing the dog let me sleep last night, that's what I have to say about that.

Now: back to space opera.

Tentative Minicon Schedule

The Minicon tentative schedule is up, and here is where I appear on it (also who else is appearing on it, on the theory that picking your panel attendance by one member is silly):

Friday evening 5:30-6:30 Atrium 6, Panel: Does SF Have a Sell-By Date? With dd_b, pnh, Ethan Sommer, and Matt Strait, the latter two of whom may have ljs, but if so I don't know what they are. (Same applies later.)

Friday evening 8:30-9:00 Atrium 2, Reading. I would love to say that all the cool kids will be there, but once again several known cool kids will be somewhere else for sure: it says so on the thingy. I'm just hoping at least one or two of the cool kids will be there, and by "cool kids" what I mean is "warm bodies."

Saturday afternoon 2:30-3:30 Atrium 6, Panel: Transmythic Fantasy. With naomikritzer, Lois McMaster Bujold, and hilarymoonmurph.

Saturday evening 8:30-9:30 wherever: ?hold sleeping beautiful angelic non-screaming godchild, accept compliments on same? (The Minicon schedulers didn't write this down, but I did volunteer.)

Saturday evening 10:00-11:00 Atrium 3, Panel: “Frell, Frack, Feiwu!” A History of SF&F Swearwords. With Lyda Morehouse, Alison Sommer, Kelly Strait, and Kathy Sullivan.

Sunday afternoon 1:00-2:00 Atrium 6, Panel: Hard SF as a Moving Target. With Howard Davidson, Greg Johnson, pnh, and Kelly Strait.

I will not be wearing the hat in the icon. The name of the icon is "borrowed plumage/reflected glory." It is not my hat. Likely I will not be wearing any hat at all. Still, come on out and say hi and heckle ask interesting audience-participation questions if you'll be there.

Because "community" is not just a Star Trek swear-word.

Ninth anniversary, and the Star-Tribune remembered once again. They remember every year, in Paul Douglas's column. Every year I am touched, and in an odd way pleased.

This is my home.