Hi! No, I didn’t abandon my blog again. I’ve been away, in Portland, Oregon, which is a fabulous city I want to spend more time in.

I went because my dear friend, TOC-mate, favorite beta reader, and Inkpunks co-blogger Wendy N. Wagner got married! At a magical cottage in a park. That was the impetus for the packing up the whole family and heading up there, but we managed to fit in a LOT of activity in a very short weekend jaunt.

Thursday we arrived in Portland, and just took it easy with my aunt, uncle, and cousins, who graciously let us stay with them. This was John’s first time meeting this branch of the future in-laws, and naturally they all liked each other and it went beautifully.

On Friday we took my youngest daughter with us to go meet up with some old friends of mine, Tim and Sara. I’ve known Tim since 1995–we met through fandom, naturally, specifically Star Wars fandom, and he’s been madly in love and living with Sara for several years now. I knew he had planned on asking her to marry him a while ago, and then life happened and wedding plans had to be postponed–so I was thrilled when he announced that they had been stealth-married on April 11! Huge congratulations to a perfect couple.

Next was dinner, with Tim, Sara, Andrew Fuller, and Wendy. That was technically my first time meeting Wendy, a fact which I have forgotten periodically over the past two years. We email each other nearly daily, and have served as each other’s crisis hotlines for the past year–she is such a sweet and genuine person, and it was great to be able to spend time face to face for once. Andrew, too, is open and charming, and I was very glad to get the chance to meet him. There seemed to be a Bald Editor thing happening at one end of the table (Andrew, in addition to being a writer, is the editor of the Three-Lobed Burning Eye zine, now in its tenth year.)

After dinner (most of which I didn’t eat because I was too busy chatting) we headed over to the Cedar Hills Powell’s for a reading. John introduced himself and his books, and then Wendy and I both read part of our Way of the Wizard stories. Wendy is a delightfully theatrical reader, and her story went over very well. My reading went MUCH better than the one at AggieCon (it did help that there were nearly 40 people this time, instead of six!) I got to meet several more Twitter friends and some of Wendy’s family, and generally had a great time. We ended the evening by heading over to Wendy’s wedding venue and helping out a little with the setup. She is so DIY-crafty and her ideas were so cute! My eight-year-old and Wendy’s daughter hit it off at dinner and by the end of the night were absolute BFFs. Similarly, my oldest wanted to take Wendy herself home with us. (Me too!)

Saturday morning John and I went down to Powell’s Prime before the wedding (my aunt graciously brought the kids to us there after they went to the Saturday Market) where John signed stock…and the famous Gold Room Post! His name now dwells with those of legends.

And then…wedding time! I’ll let this speak for itself.

Saturday night we went walking around Portland with my family and revisited Powell’s with a little more leisure time. I indulged my recent obsession with Mt. Everest by buying a copy of Into Thin Air to read on the plane. I got to catch up a little bit with my aunt and extract her official endorsement of my upcoming marriage. (Always a relief.)

Sunday was a travel day, and the day of the Big Announcement that we’d been sitting on for the past two weeks. We were standing in LAX when the Hugo ballot was announced: John is up for Best Editor, Short Form; Lightspeed is up for Best Semiprozine; and Carrie Vaughn’s “Amaryllis,” which appeared in Lightspeed’s very first issue, is up for Best Short Story. The only disappointment I have about the final ballot is that Adam-Troy Castro’s “Arvies” didn’t make it, which I consider a travesty, especially given that the category only has four stories in it this year. (It did make the Nebula ballot, though, so I guess I shouldn’t be too sad. It just seems more Hugo-aligned, to me.)

Very happy for John and everyone at Lightspeed. And man, so many other great nominees in every category. If you haven’t seen the ballot yet, take a look.

So all in all, it was a very busy and happy weekend. But now it’s Monday, and time to get back to the reality of the day job, terrible dogs, and an unfinished novel. Hope you had a great weekend too!

---