It’s been a week and a day since Dickie, Daley and I made our way across the border to the land of all that was to be Anthocon. Having the three of us in the car at the same time was an unnerving experience once we got to the border, but luckily we made it across with no cavity searches. I’m sure someone in the car was upset about the lack of invasiveness at the border, but I’m not naming names. We continued our way through tiny little states, crossing through more snow than we have in Canada. Leave it to us to find snow 6 hours south of Ontario.

Daley made me excessively happy by bringing his Darth Vader GPS with him. Hearing Darth say “roundabout”—or anything else for that matter—lead the three of us into incessant fits of laughter.

We stopped along the way to pick up Michele and then made our way to the Holiday Inn in Portsmouth, NH.

SO EXCITED, when we noticed there was a giant booze store across from the hotel. We checked in, dumped our bags and the four of us made our way across the street to alcohol heaven.

SO SAD, as we walked through the giant liquor store and realized booze and beer weren’t sold in the same places in NH. Back across the street, empty handed and to the car, as Dickie, Daley and DeGeit decided there must be beer.

SO ELATED, as we stepped into the grocery store, also known as beer heaven to us Canadians. The prices of beer here in NH are enough to send my liver into an ecstatic seizure. Thirty beer for 14$? Yup, I think I’m moving here…

We loaded up a cart—like really loaded up a cart—I think between the four of us we clocked in at 96 cans of beer. (Cause that’s how Canadians roll) and made our way back to the hotel.

Thursday night, Danny gathered the forces and took us to this fantastic little pub called The Coat Of Arms. They had deals on pints, great food and gave us free beer/shwag. You can’t go wrong with free beer/shwag.

Back at the hotel, there was more beer, hanging with the early peeps and there were also worms.

Friday morning rolls around and I already have a beer in my hand. (Big surprise.) I figured it was a good time to ingest some of this crazy cheap beer, and ingest I did.

By Friday night, the vodka soaked gummy worms were out to play.

“…and she carried with her a bucket of liquid diabetes and liver disease.”

We were all in the bar/lounge and I was passing those worms out quicker than a whore passes out STDs. From table to table, I made everyone ingest all that was bad in my bucket.

There was a moment when I thought I might lose the worms. The older lady from the bar came up to me to inquire if there was booze in my bucket. I replied with a shit-eating grin on my face, “No booze. Phsst, just worms floating in water.” I must have a trustworthy face, because she bought it.

Now something to understand about the worms, I’ve been making these for a long, long time. The rule is, the drunkest person in the room gets the worm shmoo, cause they are most likely the ones to drink the grossly gelatinous, sugar saturated, liquor leftover from the bucket.

One guess on who drank the shmoo? 😀
Yup. Me.

Fast-forward through clamslaps, neener neeners and me just being my hilariously drunk self and I finally made it to bed, unsure of the time.

I was smart and set four alarms, as I was to be on the Pitfalls of New Authors panel in the morning.

I was dumb and turned them all off, only to wake up five minutes before my panel. I was a hurting unit as I ran into the room where they were all waiting for me. But at least I made it.

“Mandy, what’s one piece of advice you want to tell new authors?”

“NEVER. EVER. Drink the worm shmoo.”

It was a great panel, as I pushed away the constant pounding in my head and nursed the beer I grabbed as I was getting ready.
(What the hell is wrong with me? Oh I’m Canadian.)

The rest of Saturday was a blur for two reasons, one I was hungover from the previous night, two, because I kept drinking.

Come on liver, deliver.

Sunday morning, I was a little more “right of mind” and took the opportunity to head to a few panels. I was audience to the Art in Fiction panel and the Publishing panel which were both followed by more drinking.

Sadly, Sunday also meant people had to leave. There were a lot of hugs and goodbyes and plans were made for the Dead Dog party, which I was definitely hanging around for.

Thirteen of the stragglers (diehard drinkers) made their way to the Portsmouth Brewery for dinner. We took over a giant table, fed our faces and drank some expensive beer before heading back to the hotel to put a hurt on the rest of the leftover booze.

The final party was the most epic, but that could be because it’s one of the only ones where I remember pretty much all of it.

However, there were parts I would love to have brain bleach for…

There was a singing dinosaur, a lot of laughs, and the poop song. (The song stemmed from a conversation between Dickie, Daley and I on the way down. I won’t go into details, but yeah… There was a poop song.)

We drew things on wood, took terrible pictures and drank as much as we possibly could, before retiring one by one, or some by some to our rooms.

Monday, I left. It made me sad, but I knew that I would return next year.

Next time I bring a video camera.

MDG