Wednesday, October 16th....

I awake early, eyes dazzled by the sun. Outside, a perfect Texas day is creeping in over the rolling green hills. We have a great view out of our window. Naturally, I turn my back on this perfect view and email my friends at home, promising to let them know all the details of the days ahead. (They never hear from me again. One takes it in stride, I later learn, but the other is convinced I have become Texas roadkill. "She does have a life, you know," my first friend tells the second. The thought proves dizzying: I had a life. If only for a long weekend.)

Carol and I hit the lobby and spot a few early arrivals for the conference: Ruth and Jon are already here, Beth and Jeff arrive soon after. Others will be here soon, we are promised. We are not the only ones who have decided to come early. Carol and I head out in the rental convertible, determined to see a little of Texas before the madness begins. We tool down to Lake Travis and locate a bar on the water, where we sit and sip margaritas. The herons here are gray. Strange. We have white ones back home. These look dirty and vaguely disreputable. Carol asks me what my new book is about and I reflect that only a true blue friend would ever ask such a question -- then actually listen to the interminable answer. We discuss the people we will soon be seeing, laying bets on who will have lost more hair, who will have gained more weight and who will have achieved both dubious goals. (We are proved right on all predictions within 48 hours, making me think that maybe, sometimes, I'm just a little too smart for my own damn good.)

After lunch, we wind our way around some back country roads, enjoying the sparkle of the lake in the sunshine, swapping stories, learning new details about each other. We also learn that pets in Texas are fearless: they sleep all day right in the middle of the road, refusing to budge, locking you in a staring contest should you attempt to intrude. It makes no difference what they are -- dog, cat, coyote, fluffy little blobs of fur, amadillos, weird slinking things I can't begin to recognize -- they all just amble confidently to their feet on the center line and give you the eye, as if daring you to hit them. "Do they teach this in obedience school down here?" I wonder as I steer around a defiant Pomeranian.

We find a nice park along the river and test my new digital camera. We hike all of thirty yards. We tell ourselves the fresh air will gird our loins for the smoke and alcohol ahead. We admit we'd kill for a cold beer. I perch on the picnic table behind Carol for a photo and unwittingly park my ass in someone's left-over lunch. At least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. A Texas gull caws hysterically in a cottonwood next to the table, as if he has really put one over on the foolish gringa.

Later, Carol and I waltz back into the lobby of the hotel and, within three minutes, five different people inform me I have a large stain on the seat of my pants. "It looks like puke," offers one women helpfully. "No, blood," another corrects her.

I crane my neck, trying to get a better look. "Should I go upstairs and put on a pair of clean pants?" I wonder out loud.

"Yes!!" three women nearby chorus. A lobby-wide vote appears unnecessary. My suave reputation is intact. Oh, well. I can have a glass of red wine while I change.

That night, the bar cranks up for real, the hum of voices rising like a tide up, up, up to our 7th floor room, beckoning us to join the mayhem with an irresistible lure. We heed the siren call of its song.

I see several familiar rec.arts.mystery (RAM) faces at the bar -- Sarah, Mark, Woodstock, Jon and Ruth -- and run into a dozen people I don't know yet, allowing me at long last to match screen names to actual faces: Judi, Sandi, Brigid, Annie, Melissa and more. Everyone seems very nice and oddly normal. There's not a sniper or stalker in the bunch. Best of all, every one of the married women has brought along a husband named "Jeff," which I find incredibly efficient and quite thoughtful of them. Later the next day, I will meet RAM's fabled Chally, who proves charming and quickly confirms a little-known theory of relativity that states that the older you are, the more likely it is that the great guy who just met has either gotten married within the past six months -- or is about to. Trust me. It's true.

Carol and I stagger up to our rooms many lost hours later, thinking a nice girl movie is in order once again. It is late. Our brains are foggy. We decide "Windtalkers" must be an interesting sort of intellectual movie that features hunky Native American men. It does, as it turns out, but you have to look quickly before their hunky severed arms go flying across the screen. It is a war movie. It is the ultimate anti-chick flick. Explosions rock our room every fifteen seconds. Nic Cage scowls in 14 different languages. Handsome men drop like bloody flies. We want more of the nice home-on-the-reservation flashbacks. Instead, we get more severed limbs.

We are very glad we did not eat ribs that night for dinner as planned.

We fall asleep to a strange jumble of sounds and images: voices shouting, faces flashing by, arms flying about, random explosions. It proves a strangely prophetic vision of what lies ahead....