How I spent my weekend - year two

Suggestion number one for the Expo organizers for next year: don't schedule the Expo on the same weekend as the Halloween parties and preceding my first day back at work after an eight-week vacation.

Good gracious, I am tired.

I was recognized Saturday by a blog reader. Hi, Jane! I feel so loved.

Saturday and Sunday I went to Expo to practice my psychofance (psychofancy? psychofaniness? psychofantasia?) by spending almost all my time sitting in on Bill Martell's classes. I sold his CDs - he nearly sold out. That man is filled with wisdom, but by Sunday afternoon I kind of gleaned every ounce of it from him so I went to listen to Bill Goldman's wisdom instead for a while. His motto: "I don't know what I'm doing."

Lots of stuff was better than last year. The volunteer situation was a disaster. I feel vindicated.

I was going to take Tim Minear's class finally after missing it for two years, then he canceled. What the hell, Tim Minear?

I also tried the Open for the first time. For those unfamiliar with it, the Open is a contest where you sit in a room with a pencil and paper and eight million other writers and you have an hour and a half to come up with a scene that fits a given prompt. Unfortunately I didn't make it past round one, not because my story wasn't good, but because I ignored part of the prompt. Yep. The teacher who constantly nags kids about following directions missed out on round two because she failed to follow directions. I'm such a hypocrite.

It's a shame, too, because I honestly think I could have done an awesome job with the final prompt. Alas. No $5,000 prize for me.

I was going to post my entry, but it contains the coolest idea for a chase scene ever, so I'm going to keep it to myself and use it in my eventual Pushing Daisies spec.

Saturday night I was at the Halloween party until 4 am, of course. I'll tell that story tomorrow. It involves several Tom Cruises, Amy Winehouse and a cop.

Apparently Terry Rossio mentioned the dramatic irony debate in his interview and it got a big laugh from the crowd. I wish I'd been there.

Last night I hung out in the bar for Joel's annual post-Expo drinkathon, where I mined Bill for more advice and met some very excellent new people. I met many bloggers and when a laptop appeared we briefly considered passing around the world's fastest meme, but then opted to just drink instead. I only intended to stay an hour, but ended up being one of the last to leave because I was enjoying the company so much. I met Red Right Hand, The Rouge Wave and Shouting into the Wind among others, and it turns out those are their real names. Who'd have thought?

Red Right Hand did not realize when he met me that I would drag him all over the Expo as my partner in crime. Do not underestimate Emily's ability to persuade you to do things you didn't know you wanted to do.

So after everything I was in bed around midnight and had to be up 6 hours later. My body is not prepared for this. Trainer wants me to run today. I will not run today.

Fortunately I know my students already so they sort of shrugged off my exhaustion. I've got some very cool ideas this semester that I will share at a later date and I managed to gather just enough energy to explain them to the kids before the bell saved my poor, worn-out frame.

It's my planning period now. I think I'll go down to the car and take a nap.