Day 289: Leaving tomorrow for ICFA

Iiiiii'm saaailing awaaaay ...

... to ICFA. I was just in Orlando for my honeymoon, and now I'm turning right back around to present on a panel entitled:

The Wonder Piece in Alternate History:
Using Fantastical and Scientific Elements to Highlight the Past, Present and Future

Also on this panel are the wonderful R.M. Romero, Theodora Goss, and MW Bychowski. So yeah, I'm a little more than excited.

I am also terrified.

I'm pretty sure MW and RM are done with me. I keep messaging them with stupid questions. "What is everyone wearing there?" "Okay, but like are we talking jeans or slacks or do I really have to wear a skirt?" "Have you run into Holly Black yet?" "Okay but like the weather ... more like 78 or 79 degrees?"

And then I started asking Google stupid questions. "ICFA how to dress." And what comes up but Theodora Goss wearing a beautiful dress that looks nothing like the jeans and Darth Vader tee I just packed. Another girl blogs that she made her own damn dress for the event. I'm like ... making clothes? The hell is this?

I'm going to just pack some slacks and nice blouses. If I feel really feminine, I may just pull out the pantyhose and pencil skirt.

Which brought me to my next point of contention.

Trying on the slacks. A month ago, I lauded myself on squishing into my skinny slacks. They were really big on me back when I was a stick in college. But today? I couldn't even button the cursed things.

So if you see me at the conference, I'm the manatee in the skirt.

But please do see me at the conference. We got at 8:30 AM on Friday. It'll be a lot of fun. I promise.