My first con! Or never eat a banana while wearing Spanx.

This weekend I attended my first science convention -- or con, as the cool kids say -- in Santa Clara. It was an excellent first experience. I learned a lot about the dyanmics of how a con works, I met some nice people, I saw some great costumes. I made one gsstronomic error which plagued me for the rest of the weekend, but it was a lesson learned.

I spoke on a panel about workshops (very meta, if you ask me) with Tony Todaro, Margaret McGaffey Fisk and Aaron Mason. Kyle Aisteach was our moderator. (Aaron escaped before the photo.) We didn't all agree about everything, but it was interesting and we got a lot of excellent questions from the crowd.



I also moderated a panel on whether agents and editors were endangered species with e-publishing becoming more and more popular. Here I am with my panel: Dario Ciriello, Norman Sperling, Tony Todaro and Bobbie DuFaultt.



There was a robot wandering around the lobby. I am very sad that I didn't get a video of the moment that it sort of accidentally smacked a kid in the face.



There were tons of people in costume:



And the bartender at the Klingon Slave Auction told me he was ridged for my pleasure which made me giggle nearly uncontrollably. He's the one on the left.



The only problem? After the panels were over on Friday, but before the cocktail party for the guests and speakers, I got hungry. I bought a banana from the snack bar and maybe ate it a little faster than I should have. I was wearing a pair of high-waisted Spanx. You know, just to keep things from jiggling more than they should. Anyway, it was like the Spanx stopped the banana from actually traveling down into my digestive track. It felt like it was stuck at about solar plexus level.

Despite efforts to wash it down with white wine and force it down with a giant lemon bar, it stayed. By the time I got home and could take off my Spanx, it had turned into what felt like banana-crete and stayed there for the rest of the weekend. It might still be there, to be honest.

All in all, I thought it was a fantastic first experience. I'd do it again in a heartbeat!