This is Part III of my GRL Recap. If you missed the first two, you can catch them here: Part I: We Arrive and it was Good, and Part II: And There Were Dancers. I also have a ton of pictures I just posted on Facebook if you want to check them out. Lots more than I can upload here and they should have public access (but let me know if you have trouble seeing them). And as always, click the pics to enbiggen.

Friday

So after a wild (and late) Thursday night, I was still up bright and early on Friday. I have no idea why, but I could not sleep at all at GRL. I was so wired on adrenaline that I practically never slept or stopped talking.  So despite my plans to dash into breakfast last minute, I actually ended up out of bed early enough to go to the Burrito Breakfast that Samhain sponsored.  Despite my unsettled stomach, I was quite surprised the eggs actually helped and after that I was raring to go.

Z.A. Maxfield doing her reading

For my first session I went to an author reading.  Z.A. Maxfield read from the fabulous ePistols at Dawn.  This is one of my favorites of hers and one that I think is often overlooked, so I was very excited. And ZAM is a great public reader.  Next up was Ellis Carrington who read from Immortal Valentine, a book I also really enjoyed.  Then Val Kovalin read from her upcoming sequel to Fall Into the Sun that will be coming out in December.  And last up was Eden Winters reading from Diversion. She definitely got me intrigued with this one and I am looking forward to reading it

Heidi and Marie with Flat Copley

Next up was Coffee & Porn Bingo sponsored by Heidi Cullinan and Marie Sexton.  This place was totally packed.  I guess their site, Coffee and Porn in the Morning has lots of fans.  Sadly, no actual porn involved but we did have coffee and Bingo was lots of fun. I got to sit with the fabulous Bella Leone who kept me entertained despite the fact that I didn’t win.

Amy Lane

After Bingo I headed over to Romantic Comedy Hour with authors Ethan Day, Amy Lane, Z.A. Maxfield, and Barry Brennessel.  They each read to us from one of their books and talked and answered questions about comedic writing.  It was a great session and a lot of fun (not to mention standing room only!).

So for the afternoon, instead of formal sessions we had an outing to Old Town Albuquerque.  First buses took us all to a southwestern lunch sponsored by Torquere Press.  It was a bit of a crazy ride as our bus circled for a while before finding the place, and another bus load got dropped in the wrong place before they were rescued.  But once we were there things were lovely.  I got to sit with a great group of folks: K-Lee Klein, Sue Chicago, Piper Vaughn, Zach Sweets, Neal Franco, Kaje Harper, and Lissa Kasey.  Torquere also announced that Shawn/BA Tortuga will be stepping down as president of Torquere in order to focus on writing.  Kristi Boulware will be moving up to become the General Manager and Submissions Editor for both Torquere and their YA line Prizm.

So folks, that is the business end of today’s report. As you may have guessed from my post title, it got pretty wild from here…

Well, as I mentioned in my first post, I came to GRL knowing no one and was lucky enough to get introduced early on to some great folks.  After lunch, we were being released into Old Town for shopping and sightseeing before the MLR reception.  Since I didn’t have any plans to hang out with anyone, I asked to join in with Leigh, Gyn, and Heather who I had met at dinner on Wednesday night. Well, best decision I made all trip!  Because these three lovely ladies totally adopted me, not only for the day, but for the rest of the trip.  And if you have seen my pictures you know we were pretty much inseparable after that.  We also joined up with Alex (of the hot red space cowboy outfit from the Juke Joint last night).  So the five of us headed out to take on Old Town.

Alex, Heather, me and Gyn in front of the candy store

Leigh showing of her penis pops

Our first stop was at the candy shop.  Rumor had it there was x-rated candy, so unsurprisingly we headed right there.  They did in fact have a wide assortment of chocolate breasts, penises, and vaginas in a variety of colors.  I am a good wife and brought my husband home mini chocolate breasts!  They also had lots of other yummies there and we all grabbed some goodies.

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Old Town.  We saw some gorgeous art and architecture, as well as some scary looking dolls and skulls.  I have lots of pictures but they take so long to load here I can’t include too many.  But check out the FB album if you want to see more.  We all took pictures standing next to the life sized William Fichner cutout.  And posed in front of the kiddie cowboy cutout.  And took a million random pictures of us wandering around.  We spent the day totally cracking up at everything and it was lots of fun.

After our free afternoon we headed over the MLR Day of the Dead party.  At that point we were wiped and dying for a drink and a place to sit.  And luckily the party provided both!  It was a lovely building that looked like a house and outside in the courtyard were couches and chairs surrounding one of those mini shallow pools that look like the ones on Spartacus where everyone is always having sex or getting killed.  (I kept hoping someone would get drunk enough to land in it but no such luck.)

Heather, Gyn, me and Leigh

Me, Leigh, Alex, Heather, and Gyn

So being the greedy things we are, we grabbed a sofa and some chairs, got our sangria, and camped out for the rest of the event.  Yes, this is where things really started to go downhill.  Overtired, too much sun, and lots of sangria (except for Heather who despite having a glass in most pics wasn’t actually drinking).  So we had an amazing time laughing and being a bit wild.  This is where we realized we were talking about rimming right in front of our server. We also discussed Prince Alberts and a host of other sex-related topics.  Leigh is a major picture taker so we have a million of us in a variety of poses, but here are two of my favorites.

We are laughing in the one on the left because the couches were plastic and very deep and when Gyn sat down she went flying.  So we were all totally cracking up while Alex was trying to take the picture.  I told him wait until we are ready, but of course he was snapping away the whole time (we have a whole series 0f these) and they ended up being some of my favorite pictures.  And the one on the right is just one of my favorites of us all five together.

Me, Gyn, Alex, and Leigh with our tequila shots

After we literally closed down the MLR party we headed back to the hotel.  Now this was about the time we should have been eating dinner (like every other sane person at the conference).  But somehow it was decided we should get a drink to keep our buzz going for karaoke. Now I am a major lightweight drinker, so I was having no problem maintaining my drunkeness, but always a team player I went along.  And there I had my first ever tequila shot (yes, I am way too old for this to be my first time).  We had a great time talking and being otherwise inappropriate.  While we were there we spotted authors Jonathan Treadway and Tim McGivney who joined us.  It is at this point, during our discussion of the pros and cons of 12-inch cocks, that we got in trouble from the manager and were told to tone down our conversation. Boo! This is actually one of the few times I though the hotel staff were not totally open and accepting of all the GRL crazy.  But by then it was time to freshen up for the karaoke party so we went on our way.

Singing karaoke

I called my husband to say hello after the bar. After I told him about our day and our plans for the evening, he was like, um Jay? Gonna eat something?  Of course by then I was buzzed enough not to really care about dinner, so I crammed in a Luna bar for some sustenance and got ready for the Karaoke Party sponsored by Resplendence Publishing.  They gave out free books, which was totally awesome.  Now I am not a big singer, but as you can tell, at this point my inhibitions were pretty low and I agree to back up sing for my newly formed gang.  First up we sang We Are Young by Fun.  This was supposed to be Adele’s Rumor Has It, so I have no idea how we ended up singing this, but oh well.  Many of you have seen this picture already since the lovely Stephanie from Riptide managed to tweet it out before I even left the dance floor (and this explains why I posted her picture grinding with the half naked dancer last night!).

At some point in the evening we also performed Stand By Me, sung by Alex with back up dancing from the ladies (he was really good!).  I am pretty sure Kate McMurray was there too but I am forgetting.  And later we all sang Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive. I know there were more folks than just the five of us that time, but at that point it was all pretty much a blur so if I am forgetting you, I am sorry!  (I was introduced to the Malibu Breeze that night which didn’t help matters)

Gyn, me and Alex

Leigh and me

Here are a couple more pictures from that night. On the left are Gyn, Alex, and me. Gyn is totally rocking the purple spirit eyelashes here.  She looked awesome.  And the one on the right is me with Leigh.

So that was our wild and wonderful day.  The funniest part is that you probably all think I am this wild lush, but in real life I am so rarely like this. I don’t drink often and I never hang out with hot young dancers.  And most of the time at least I can stop talking. But that is the best part about GRL. You can totally be whomever you want and people will accept and love you anyway.  Thanks to everyone, and especially Alex, Gyn, Leigh, and Heather for a fabulous day!

Up next, Saturday.  And I can’t think of anything clever to call it yet…

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