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I'm enjoying seeing the wiscon reports at Technorati, even though it turns out a lot of people's entries aren't showing up there.

I'm especially enjoying Badgerbag (can I say her real name here? Not sure); see, for example, her post on the necessity of a Feminism for Dummies book. Though I disagree with her assessment of Robin McKinley's Guest-of-Honor speech; I thought it was the kind of speech that started out sounding a little disorganized but gradually resolved into being more or less the speech that she said it wasn't going to be; I imagine that's a known rhetorical device (somewhat similar to paralipsis).

A few other notes while I'm here:

I've been attending a lot more panels than usual this con. Saturday I went to the second half or so of "Science Fiction and the Oversimplification of Difference"; it wasn't a superbly brilliant panel that changed the way I think about life, but it was quite good, and rejuvenated my faith in WisCon panels. The discussion was articulate and nuanced; good stuff. Also, attending that let me miss the "Why Men Hate Sex" panel, which from later reports I suspect I wouldn't have enjoyed much.

Had lunch and a long and really good conversation with Karen M. Attended the Emshwiller/Link/Palwick/Rich reading; when that ended early, wandered into the end of Susan and Heather's "The Stack Heel and Modern Feminism" panel. Attended part of "Women and the Draft," but got restless. I think at some point I ended up wandering through the art show, but I could be wrong. Dinner with various folks; helped Mary Anne get party supplies; then the Tiptree auction; then another reading: Haddayr, Dora, Karen M, and Maureen McHugh. As usual, really enjoyed the readings. And as a special bonus, got to meet Maureen McHugh afterward; I've been admiring her work for years, but I don't think I had ever even seen her in person.

Sunday I had lunch with Sarah P and Haddayr and Kat, plus a couple of other people whose names I'm blanking on. Ben R joined us partway through. At 1:00, there were at least three items I really wanted to attend: the interstitiality panel Mary Anne was on; the YA reading by Jenn, Greg, Tim, and Heather; and the "WisCon, Tolerance, and Acceptance of Difference" panel, featuring Debbie N and Susan G.

After a fair bit of fretting, finally opted for the last. I think it was the right choice, but I was sad to miss the reading, especially when I later heard that it had been thoroughly excellent. (As one might expect.)

The panel was, I thought, quite good, and ably moderated by Debbie. Susan also said lots of good stuff, as did many members of the audience. I'll probably have quite a bit more to say about it eventually; I took copious notes. But no way am I awake enough to make them coherent right now.

After the panel, I sadly missed this year's Campbell Smackdown, in which the two current Campbell nominees who were at WisCon engaged in a duel featuring cream pies. Follow the link to see a photo of the result. Note that Ben (in the middle) was the referee.

After that came the SH tea party, fun as usual (though it was scheduled opposite two readings I'd have liked to have attended, not to mention two panels I was originally going to be on, but that's pretty much inevitable). Two different people showed me their underwear in the space of about five minutes, which is a bit more exciting than the tea parties usually get.

Dinner with Mary Anne; more party-supply fetching; the Dessert Salon; aforementioned Guest of Honor speeches; another reading (this one featuring Ms. Bond, Ms. Larbalestier, Ms. Wilce, and Mr. Westerfeld) rounded out the programming portion of the evening for me.

I quickly discovered that I wasn't up for the noise level and number of people at the parties. Came back to my room; a dozen friends came by and we all sat and talked for quite a while, which is why I'm still awake at nearly 4 a.m.

But not for much longer. It's definitely time for me to go to sleep.

Tomorrow: much bleary farewell-taking, no doubt, followed eventually by a long drive to Chicago.