So… very briefly, as I’m currently waiting at my gate for my flight to board. I had an awesome time: in the main, because I got to see people I hadn’t talked to (in the sense of “face-to-face”) for years; got to meet people I’d only ever exchanged messages with, and generally hung out with scarily talented writers and artists (among which, a particular shoutout to Chris & Fernanda Kastensmidt, and J.Kathleen & Matthew Cheney, whom I hadn’t seen in too long a while).
DC is a really lovely city; I only wish I’d been able to stay longer, but the tour of the Air & Space Museum was great (all those space artifacts, plus the Wright Brothers’ flyer, plus the Spirit of Saint Louis. Wow. Just wow). I have the obligatory White House picture, and a bunch of pics of the Smithsonian Castle, which is just too weird not to be photographed.
The con suite was also great, with some really good food–and an amazing selection of teas and a kettle, which is really all I’m asking for. I’m grateful to the people who put this all together, as this was a really great weekend altogether.

I didn’t win a Nebula, but honestly? It is an honour to be nominated; it was a really strong slate, and I’m awesomely happy for Eric James Stone, who’s having a very strong year; and for Rachel Swirsky, whose novella was one of the absolute three best things I read last year. I also have two shiny things to stare at: the Nebula Nominee pin, and a nifty sketch Barry Deutsch made of me while I was on a panel, and which he very kindly donated to me).
Plus, as Paolo Bacigalupi said, I get to bask in the glow of being a Hugo nominee for three extra months, and that’s got to count for something 🙂

And now, for Imaginales…

It’s 6am in DC, and obviously I’ve been up for 30 minutes…

So… 2 days until I leave for Washington, where I shall be sharing a room with fellow nominee Amal El-Mothar (and, briefly, with Alethea Kontis). Trying not to freak out. It’s been a long, long time since I last was in the States (couldn’t believe it, but the last time I travelled over was for WOTF in 2007. I still have the slipcard from LAX in my passport to prove it). I’m really looking forward to meeting people I haven’t seen in ages, but the whole “fly over the Pond” is making me nervous in an odd way. Probably because my last US trip was such a nightmare (delayed plane, hellish changeover at Heathrow, but 2-3 hours stuck in the passport queue at LAX). Ah well. I’m sure I’ll do fine.

Not sure of how much blogging will take place while I’m there. Probably not much. In the meantime, however, you can join the Locus Short Story club: Karen Burnham is spearheading a discussion on multiply-nominated short fiction. It’s, er, a very, very short list, and not only does include “The Jaguar House, in Shadow”, the discussion also starts with the story. *speechless* So, if you feel like discussing my Mexica future, hop on over to Locus on Sunday. Other stories under discussion include fellow Codexian Eric James Stones’ “That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made”.

Other places you can find me on the Internet: the awesome Alethea Kontis interviewed me for her Genre Chick feature (I swear that this has nothing to do with the room-sharing. I absolutely totally did NOT bribe her to get good interview questions *g*). While you’re at it, you can check out the rest of the lineup, which includes Leah Cypess, Rick Novy, Lon Prater, David B. Coe…

I’ll now go back to watching my phở broth happily boil…

Via qian: rivkat reviews a Social Science Research Council report about Media Piracy in Emerging Economies:

The authors conclude that piracy is largely a problem of a globalized Euro-American entertainment/industrial complex that has successfully generated demand for its products but unsuccessfully served that demand at prices people in other countries can pay, largely from refusal to price copies so they’d take roughly the same amount of purchasing power in poor nations. One example: converting prices as a percentage of per capita income, a Dark Knight DVD sold in India would cost $663 in the US; A Beautiful Mind would cost $421.

Lots of neat little details by country (I love the fact that Microsoft had to issue a blanket free license to Russians, because the Russian government was using software piracy as an excuse to arrest political opponents). The full report is here, and costs 8$ to access if you’re a member of an affluent country (it’s free otherwise). Definitely sounds like interesting reading: as Qian says, it’s interesting (though not surprising as far as I’m concerned), and I also found myself wishing we’d had this to link to at the time of the ebook piracy debate.

So, I made tea eggs, a classical Chinese snack, mainly ‘cos I had two eggs, and a lot of time on my hands:

(Wikipedia picture, because my egg shells went into the trash, and the H just threw the trash out, before I thought of taking any pictures for posterity)

Basically, hard-boil eggs, crack them, and then steep them in a simmering mixture of soy sauce, spices, and tea leaves. The mixture seeps through the cracks, and into the eggs, giving them this marbled appearance. I used the fast version; normally you’re supposed to crack the shells, let the eggs simmer over low heat for a bit, and then let them brine in the sauce for a couple of days. The H came home as I was cracking the shells, revealing the beautiful network of tea marbling on the surface of the eggs. His first reaction was “what the heck is that?”

I am now trying to convince him to eat the other egg 🙂

(the sekrit baking project went fine–the criteria being that my husband, after tasting a bit, looked at the plate full of pastry, and said, “Surely you’re not bringing all of those to work?” If he wants leftovers to eat himself, we can take it the thing doesn’t taste horrendous…)

So, I was reminded by the inestimable j_cheney that the Nebula Awards Weekend was fast approaching…

I’ll be there from sometime Thursday in the afternoon (though heavily jet-lagged) to Sunday afternoon. Mostly hanging out in the bar/lobby/etc., except for a few events. Obviously, the Nebula Awards Banquets, and also a signing and a panel.

The signing will be from 5:30 to 7:00pm on Friday, May 20, at the Washington Hilton (1919 Connecticut Ave., NW). Other authors participating include: John Joseph Adams, Christopher Barzak, J. Kathleen Cheney, Tom Doyle, Scott Edelman, Timons Esaias, Cynthia Felice, Andrew Fox, Kerry Frey, Laura Anne Gilman, Anne Groell, Joe Haldeman, Peter Heck, Vylar Kaftan, John Kessel, Alethea Kontis, Mary Robinette Kowal, Geoffrey A.Landis, Allen Lewis, Tom Lewis, Lee Martindale, James Morrow, Catherine Petrini, Stanley Schmidt, Lawrence Schoen, Lansing Sexton, Eric James Stone, Bud Sparhawk, Allen Steele, Michael Sullivan, Robin Sullivan, Michael Swanwick, Brandie Tarvin, Mary Turzillo, Michael Whelan, Alexander Whitaker, and Connie Willis.

The panel will be on Saturday, May 21, 2011 at 1:30 p.m., with M.K. Hobson , J. Kathleen Cheney, Eric James Stone, and Rachel Swirsky.

So, if you want to come and wave/get books signed/have drinks… 🙂

So… in the wake of this weekend’s party and the hummus-without-tahini-paste, I’m left with a humongous pot of peanut butter. I’m not a big fan of it as a spread, but there must be other ways to reuse it.

Therefore, I turn to the f-list: anyone have any good recipes involving peanut butter that they’d like to share? Thanks in advance!

If you fancy neat wallpapers, my French publisher has put up the one for the French edition of Servant of the Underworld:

Available in 1024 x 768, 1280 x 768 and 1920 x 1200 here (scroll down, it’s under “Fantasy”, at the very bottom of the category)

And you can check out the wallpapers for their other neat covers, too!

(yes, yes, I will stop displaying the awesome cover at some point… Trust me. If only because my publisher is going to run out of ideas on how to display it in new forms…)

So, I’d say very quiet weekend, except that we had a big birthday bash at home (it was the H’s birthday celebration). In which we established, not for the first time, that I dearly love making dipping sauces: respectively roquefort cream, tzadziki, and hummus with peanut butter (don’t laugh. Our badly-supplied store didn’t have tahini paste, and this was the only acceptable substitute). Also, that I don’t like cutting veggies (I cut my finger after the 4th cucumber and the 10th carrot), and that the H remains the king of breads (not entirely sure of my madz translation skills here. I think that’s the closest term for a loaf-shaped delicacy that involves flour, milk and cheese. He made two, a turkey-dried tomato one, and a salmon-rocket one).

The party went well, though the last guests left after 4:30am (and a good game of Arkham Horror). Went to have lunch with my grandmother in a Chinese restaurant. I had my English translation of Dream of Red Mansions handy, and was pleasantly surprised when the waiter chatted with me about the book, what it was called in French (I strongly suspect he didn’t read the English title, but instead the Chinese characters that are in the upper left-hand corner of the book), and about whether the translation was any good (to which I had to admit I had no idea….).

And here we are on Monday. Still reading Dream of Red Mansions, and have started dipping into The Key to Chinese Cooking, which has a very interesting dissection of the various cooking methods and the reasoning behind them. It’s a pity this kind of book with detailed instructions (the kind that tell you what to do and why you’re doing it, thus laying the groundwork for experimentation of your own later on even though they can be a bit over-didactic) has fallen out of fashion in France, and has been replaced with books which only contain recipes.

Oh, and the link of the day? The newest xkcd on women and science is made of awesome. Meanwhile, I’m off to plot a novella.

Oh, and I forgot to post because I was in the internet black hole, but you can find my write-up about “Exodus Tides” over at the IGMS blog, Sideshow Freaks.

“Exodus Tides” grew out of several conversations at last year’s Eastercon about immigration: both about society’s acceptance of massive influx of migrants, and of how migrants themselves dealt with leaving the homeland behind, and starting a new life in a foreign country.