After some particularly poor planning left me eating a random protein bar for breakfast and about twelve almonds for lunch, I immediately, upon checking into my hotel, ranged out and lucked onto . . . I think it was Hill Country Chicken? Which is my kind of place: pump your own ketchup, Doobie Brothers on the speakers, fried chicken in a bag. After which:
Then the next morning, after breakfast with my agent BJ Robbins (cool place, great agent), after having my badge sneaked around a chain-link fence (thanks, hero-publicist Lauren Jackson), I slipped into my first The Only Good Indians signing a whole three minutes before it started:
And I met some cool people:
And started getting READ by some cool people:
Then it was this excellent panel I was lucky to be a small part of:
After which, had a Very Important Meeting which my Lyft was late to pick me up for, so I cancelled it and jumped into one of these, which I can’t not recommend enough:
Then it was a fancycool dinner (salmon) with the Saga crowd, which spit me up in Times Square, which is the only place I can reliably find in NYC, I think, kind of like it’s a neon drain I’m always tending towards:
And the next day—serious highlight coming—I ate at the Chipotle on the GROUND FLOOR of the Empire State Building (which it took me forever to find in the daytime, never mind that it’s all big &etc):
Then this amazing panel:
And dinner with a friend (took us three places to find a menu with food I could consider) (um, salmon), lot of walking around, and . . . my favorite graffiti from NYC this time:
And Saturday . . . travel-home day, and I’m here, 200 feet from my hotel, at 10:45am:
Manager wasn’t there, though, so they couldn’t open. There were many sad burrito-wanters at the door. But a few of us made the ten minute walk down to the next closest Chipotle, so the day started out right,* still caught my lift, and I’m sitting at JFK now, New York Comic Con already a great memory.
New York City, thank you for having me again, showing me a world a West Texas boy never suspected, and thank you, Saga, for sweeping me through it all. Couldn’t have been a better time. When I’m at conventions like this, I feel like I’m among my own for a few hours, don’t have to pretend to be a normal. Here’s to next year.
* also, having just earned a free burrito, I may be stopping by Chipotle on the way in from the Denver airport
* late add: also did two podcast things between and amongst all these. showing up soon, I’m sure. and that second panel was video’d, I believe
is the NYT bestselling author of 35 or so books, +350 stories, some comic books, and all this stuff here. He lives in Boulder, Colorado, and has a few broken-down old trucks, one PhD, and way too many boots. More