Day Two in New Orleans

I would blog more about today’s events but it’s after 11pm, I’m sitting here in curlers with a glass of what I assume is sprite and Cyndi’s bouncing on her bed cataloguing all the books she got today.

We’re a little delirious.

Apparently 7am was a late start. A lot of people we talked to were up at 4 and 5, off to the gym to work out. What happened to writer’s being sedentary creatures?

I also now have more Mardi Gras beads than I know what to do with. Most of them I acquired while waiting in the registration line this morning, having grabbed a handful from the bag when it was offered to me. When in New Orleans? Is that a thing?

Today’s theme was apparently: Sex Education. It was actually very entertaining. Three of the four panels I attended were about writing sex and romance scenes which was very helpful to me. You know my fear of sex scenes so it was nice to see all these writers having open and honest conversations about the actual art of sex scenes, writing Contemporary sex with an emphasis on realism, and writing LGBTQ characters (which, honestly, was not as informative as I was expecting but still entertaining).

From what I heard, Cyndi got a little distracted by sparkly things and came back with masks and swag galore. She was a little giddy by that point. It was hilarious.

The two social events involved dressing like a pirate, scalawag, or wench, getting on a bus and driving down to Mardi Gras World. It’s this huge warehouse where they store all of the Mardi Gras floats. The tour itself was fairly brief, we got ushered through the facility quite quickly; but afterwards we headed into this separate room set up with a band, New Orleans inspired food and too many people.

Again, by now you know that I’m hopeless and awkward and desperate for love. Most of the time that comes out in spades when I’m in large crowds. I get anxious in large crowds of people and this was a lot of people so I was getting headaches and grumpy. But then they put food in my belly (red beans and rice, beignets, and bananas foster) and I got to meet two incredibly awesome women and the rest of the night was dirty jokes, giggles, and dancing.

The rest is history…well…it’s right now. Happening right now.

Oh, and Cyndi wanted me to tell you that she’s awesome and not a loser.

That’s all.