Ellen Klages was the emcee at the Tiptree Auction, and I’m afraid Jen and I sat on the front row and made a bit of a spectacle of ourselves. Ellen had lost a bet with GoH Eleanor Arnason and was dressed in a chicken suit, but Jen and I got the chicken suit when she finally took it off! Yeah! 🙂 At another point, she did some revivalist spiel over brownies that were up for auction, and I got the holy spirit because I beLIEVE in chocolate!
Ah, yes. There was also the moment when someone tripped over her microphone cord, leaving her mute, so she did kind of a Shatner running out of air thing, and we started chanting, “I do believe in fairies! I do believe in fairies!” until she pointed out, “But I’m a dyke!” We switched to “I do believe in dykes! I do believe in dykes!”
Then they auctioned off a book that had me squeeing beforehand: Alice in Jungleland by Mary Hastings Bradley. For those of you who are scratching your heads about this book, well, it has illustrations by and photos of Alice Hastings Bradley. When Alice Hastings Bradley grew up, she married a man named Huntingdon Sheldon and started publishing SF under the name James Tiptree, Jr. *squee!* I squeed at length at the auction, but it quickly became too rich for my blood. Happily, I was outbid by Freddie Baer, who rocks and who kindly let me cuddle the book for 24 hours before she took it home when she realized she’d outbid me. *cuddles book, pets book* I ♥ Freddie! I did get a withdrawn library copy of Tiptree’s Byte Beautiful, which I didn’t have, so yay.
There was also a hilarious item up for bid where three of the Campbell nominees, Tim Pratt, Jay Lake, and David Levine, auctioned off the location of their “full-contact scizzors-rock-paper match.” Until someone said “to the death,” at which point David and Tim’s SOs dragged them off. LOL!
Then we went and partied. Karaoke! Yes, I lost my karaoke cherry. The microphone sucked so no one could hear me. Feh. Jay Lake was there, and was much fun. It’s all kind of a blur because I had too much beer, but I think I’ve learned my karaoke lesson–no more Prince or Dusty Springfield–go for the shouting.
After, we retired to our room with Cynthia and Bill to torture them with bad prose. Hee!
And now, I seek lunch.
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