The first set of photos from the madness that is working tech staff at dragon*con…

As a teenager, I accidentally gained initiation into the secret society of solitary theatregoers. When, one rainy Saturday night, I could not convince anyone to join me for a screening of a movie I wanted to see, I found myself walking up to the ticket window, handing over cash, and guiltily whispering, "Just one ticket, please."

I woke up this morning with a feeling of…quiet panic. I opened my eyes when Tenzing jumped onto the bed, hinting in his oh-so-subtle way that "breakfast would be nice soon, Mom," and thought, "agh! I have to get up, get started, do…"

What?

My brain, still numbed and sluggish from sleep, ran through the possibilities that, given recent events, were likely to be true.

The phone was ringing. It wasn't.
Code work—I only have a few days before… Oh. Wait. I've already moved Quarto live. That rush is over.

It's really a pity that the entire process of feeling ill prevents you from enjoying the niceties that occasionally come from snagging the latest and nastiest bug to go around. Who in their right mind wouldn't enjoy being allowed to curl up on one's spouse and having one's hair lazily played with while watching Buffy reruns?

If I tell you that, right now, I'm sitting at Suzan's computer, nestled into a comfortably cluttered computer room in a small house outside of Atlanta, Georgia, you know where I am. If I tell you that I'm in my pajamas, with my hair disheveled and eyes still heavily shadowed with dark circles, you know how I look. If I tell you that my throat is painfully raw, and that most of my muscles are aching, you know how I feel.

"I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me."
—Harry Truman

Even at two weeks out from the actual anniversary, the headlines gathering like storm clouds on news shows and websites still make me cringe and simmer with anger. "The day that changed the world." "The Unthinkable." "Day of Terror."

On the eleventh day of September, 2001, I sat at my computer, stunned beyond measure, and wrote: