On the road again: Arisia, day 2

The second treadmill from the end hates me. I learned this fact this morning the hard way: by trying to walk on it. No matter what I did, every minute or two it lowered the incline and slowed the pace. Then, it sucked all the power from a fully charged iPod. I gave up, moved to another treadmill, and finished the rest of my walk in peace.

An elevated, non-insulated, mostly glass-walled walkway connects the hotel and the gym, which sits atop the parking garage. It was about ten degrees outside. You do the math:

ten degrees + 1 walkway = my genitalia crawling into my body in search of warmth

Exercising here is big fun.

In other news, both our lunch and dinner servers decided we were insufficiently cool to warrant decent service, which made both meals less enjoyable than they could have been. We had lunch at Trident Booksellers & Cafe, a place we'd quite enjoyed last year. This time, our sandwiches were good, but the service, as I noted, sucked, and my potato and broccoli soup resembled nineteenth-century gruel overgrown with mold.

Dinner was at Pigalle, for which we had harbored high hopes. Instead, we ate a perfectly reasonable meal, one that less than a decade ago might have been among the best meals I'd ever tasted, but one that for its price and given the accolades its chef has received was simply adequate. The biggest sin of the meal was the complete lack of truffle in the supposedly truffled risotto. The one high point was the cannelloni stuffed with braised beef short rib confit, one of the best ways I've ever encountered to serve the rich meat of short ribs.

The con screwed me on the programming front, dropping my third panel at the last minute and so leaving me with only two. They told me not to worry about my membership, however; they'd take care of it. No such luck. I had to buy a full-price, at-the-door membership, which really sucked. So it goes.

My reading tonight initially drew three hardy fans I did not know but who had read my books. The crowd swelled considerably, however, as people arrived early to hear a porn reading. Fortunately, they stayed to listen to me, so maybe a few of them will give my books a try.

Ah, the glamorous life of the beginning SF author.

Arisia report, day 2

After not quite six hours of sleep--far less than I needed but more than I've been getting--I got up and immediately fell into work. A couple of hours later, I headed to the hotel gym for some treadmill time. It won't burn off all the calories from the great food I'm eating, but it will help.

Lunch was again at Trident, followed by very good ice cream at one of the local J.P. Licks ice cream shops. Our old friend, Marty Gear, joined us for lunch. It was great catching up with him.

After some time roaming a bit of the con, I spent most of the rest of the day working--not what I'd planned, but necessary. An hour prowling dealer's alley and a lot of time seeing the beautiful work of Angela Jones-Parker of Angelwear Creations ended when we had to rush to dinner.

A cab ride later, we arrived at No. 9 Park . As we did last night, tonight we opted for the chef's tasting menu--and every option on it. Unlike last night's meal, however, every dish in this one was spot on. Picking a single highlight is almost impossible, but I should give a special nod to their signature dish, prune-stuffed gnocchi, because the little potato pastries were perfect, better than perfect, better than I though gnocchi could be, little pillows of food love. The flourless chocolate torte that finished the meal was also amazing, moist and thick but in no way dry. I've never tasted a better flourless chocolate torte.

On the writing front, I remain frustrated with myself for not being farther along, but I keep finding problems in the Overthrowing Heaven plot I have to address. I now fear plotting will spread into February, though I very much hope not. Still, the book is benefiting from all this work, and that's what matters most.

Back to it.